Contrarily to traditional analysis of the politics main components (property interests, lawful, institutional and social principles of power) the publication turns towards a new political history in studying mechanism or everyday life of power (methods, efficiency of function, image). Personality, subjectivity are the most characteristic features of revolution. How one comes to revolutionary? Is it possible to speak about number of persons, little active in ordinal but essentially important in critical moment? Or there are some circumstances able to provoke crucial deviation in one’s mind and action? Quantity of unpublished documents from archives helps us to understand the whole chain of problems: cultural origins of the revolution; making up a «new human being»; law and violence in revolutionary administration; discourse of the revolution.

The political culture of the French revolution appropriated the ideas of Enlightenment. Owing to the evolution of natural and exact sciences the enforced confidence in an infinite capacity of human reason (rationalism) made possible not only activity in acquaintance and direction for social life but even the creation of an ideal state («kingdom of Reason»). The moral order replaced the religion as a main element of spiritual unity in a new society. The “virtue” represented in this way the principal category of social and political life; it was adopted by revolutionaries for their theory and practice.

As a hostage of his own selfishness the individual is not acceptable in the ideal state. His only possibility is a self-regeneration in refusing his personal interests and liberty in favor of common wealth. As a representative of pure Virtue he is owned by Revolution. Out of private emotions, evaluations and profit he escapes vengeance and gets an omnipotence in defiance for somebody else’s ends. During the revolution hero’s archetype (as an originator of a new life, a victor of enemies and obstacles) creates in political culture a kind of «civil religion» abounding in «cathedrals» (Panthéon), iconography and cults (public holidays and ceremony).

The French revolution represented for enlighteners the most propitious occasion for the making a «kingdom of Reason» a reality. The evolution from fiction to reality, from subjective mood to indicative mood was imagined in most peaceful manner, without destructive rebels and indignation. During the first revolutionary period the legislation was directed to the creation of an ideal state and a citizen (new world and new man). However the permanent danger to social order brought the government to pass the extraordinary law against malevolents in contravention of the Constitution. The violent realization of an earthly paradise derived its strength from the revolutionary psychology but also from the ancient conceptions (the idea of social compact and the practice of “roi de guerre”).

The Terror is one of the most mysterious and debatable subjects in the history of the French Revolution. For a long time it represented the main research focus for historians whose interpretations, however, were strongly influenced by contemporary ideological battles and political prejudice. The historiography of XIX and XX centuries traditionally offered two opposite hypothesis. On the one hand, the Jacobin dictatorship resulted probably from a whole complex of economic, social, and military difficulties in the country (“theory of circumstances”). On the other hand, the state violence perhaps put a logical end to philosophy of Enlightenment (conception of “historical fatalism”). The black-and-white picture was brightly coloured under a jubilee celebration (1989) by numerous alternative propositions.

The language, according to Jacobin leaders, was a political instrument, speaking and moving the revolution. The controversy normative language / jargon was represented as controversy of moral and spiritual values: patriots / emigrants, progress / darkness. The French language personified Republic, Enlightenment, Liberty, patriotism, positive knowledge, providing with gentle and harmonious sounding, lucidity and methodicalness, reason. On the contrary, the dialects were perceived as a symbol of feudalism, barbarity, slavery, superstition and fanaticism, translating harsh and indecent idioms, jargon and vulgarity, sensibility.

There are many testimonies that allow us to speak of emotional and deep perception of the French revolution events by several generations of Russian people. Values, system of images and symbols begot by the French revolution served as a «guide» of a kind to the future that dazzled and at the same time scared. Having put a clear-cut line between conservatives and radicals discussions on the optimal way of the West European norms adoption brought about formation of the «Russian idea» and contention that Russia needed a peculiar civilization. One line expressed itself in the Orthodox and monarchic ideal where the Enlightenment principles were connected with motives of national identity (formula «Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood» was replaced with triad «Orthodoxy, Autocracy, national authenticity»). The other line was an alloy of the European Socialism and ideals of communality that were focused on the ancient communal way of life. The intelligentsia associated the way to the bright future with results of its own activity. The Russian people just had to accept the results of choice made by the intelligentsia.

In 1793 a great uprising in the West of France threatened the very life of Revolution. Country people in adjacent sections of Poitou, Anjou, and Brittany joined to attach the forces of the Republic. These events, known as a War of the Vendée or the Vendee counterrevolution, never stopped inspiring histories in great volume and variety. Many terms engendered by French Revolution are omnipresent today in any European language. Nevertheless theirs specific contents were shifted creating more wide signification. Thus, «the Right» and «the Left» are synonymous to Conservative and Democrat; the Thermidor represents the «end of the Revolution» etc. The Civil War in the Vendee (1793–1796) and its aftermath (up to 1832) were the origin of the fundamental division in subsequent French politics, the division between the «Patriot» East and the «Counterrevolutionary» West, strongly perceived up to the late XX-th century. As a result «the Vendee» played exclusively a symbolic role, allegorizing a Counterrevolution in general, devoid of real historical substance. The tradition of imaginary instead of reality created the most favourable conditions for successful international adoption of a new term. Thus, the widespread perception in Russia was that the Revolution of 1789 was an uncompleted October 1917. As it was no place to peasant counterrevolution in Leninist doctrine the «Russian Vendee» (as well as a French prototype) were lacking in historians interest