The article is devoted to the problem of combination in the Russian political culture of the eighteenth century the aspirations of the ruling elite to the ideal of governs by laws and “lawless” Palace coups on the materials of the legitimation of Elizaveta Petrovna's accession to the throne in 1741. Some historians believe that Elizabeth built the legitimacy of his accession on the fact of blood relationship with Peter the Great. As the article shows, first of all Elizaveta Petrovna used the legal arguments, not to the fact that her father was Peter I. Thus, her legitimacy was built on the basis of the new secular legal culture. At the same time, the fact that she was able to portray the coup as a triumph of law, was possible due to insufficient development and weak stability of the elements of the secular legal culture in Russia.

The article deals with the solution of the problem of integration of educational institutions in a estate society of Russian empire, proposed in the projects of I.I.Shuvalov and M.V.Lomonosov at the turn of 50−60-ies of XVIII c. Shuvalov and Lomonosov in 1760−1761 were in a situation of confrontation. For Lomonosov educational institutions should strive to teach gifted children, regardless of their social status. According to Shuvalov, the planned system of schools and gymnasiums was intended only for the children of the nobility, because they were supposed to govern due to their noble birth.