The article devoted to the theoretical justification of the relevance of the so-called “eastern question” for modern Russian statehood. The author’s methodological orientation is to revise the content of such fundamental concepts used by modern political science as “statehood”, “ideology”, “sovereignty”. Statehood is likened to a mathematical function — the dependence of the institutional and ideological spheres. Ideology is interpreted broadly as a way of coexistence of ideas in different historical eras. Sovereignty is assigned with a temporal value; it is not about the goal of the movement, but about the process itself — about sovereignization and desovereignization. The work is based on the author’s concept of “supranational sovereignization”, which serves as an interpretation of the wave-like advance of his torical Russia in the southern direction. It is concluded that in the 21st century the Russian state remains an active player in the geopolitical (supranational) space with the background of rather vague ideological justifications of this policy.