The article discusses the methodological aspects of the application of the history of concepts to Russian history of the late Middle Ages and the early New Time. Historical concepts are simultaneously a product of social reality, its comprehension/interpretation (reflected in discussive practice) and a factor that forms this reality. It is in this versatility of historical concepts that the heuristic capabilities of this technique lie. Russia developed its historical concepts, but their semantics are decoded with difficulty. There are often no European analogues. Attempts to derive the origins of Russian political concepts from the heritage of Byzantium are mainly a hypothetical character. The Russian medieval culture was of an inconsistent, “silent” character. Many plots were understood intuitively, did not need written verbose explanations. The next methodological problem is presentism. The categorical-factory apparatus of the prePetrine era in most cases needs to be translated into modern scientific language. The historical concepts of Moscow Rus’ must be withdrawn from itself, and their reflection in modern times is the history of differences, but not a continuity. A discussion problem is a chronological line. R. Kozellek for Europe denotes this line as 1750–1850, but for Russia this line is undoubtedly the era of Peter I (1682–1725). There is an obvious tectonic shift between the Russians in the 16th–17th and in the 18th–19th centuries, the notorious “temporary gap”. At the same time, the history of Russian key concepts is European history, and it begins with the 18th century, with the Petrine cultural westernization, the formation of a new intellectual and social elite, which assimilated Western European culture and more and more thinking in its categories.