The article deals with the sociological heritage of Maxim Kovalevsky, a scientist of encyclopedic knowledge, public person and sociologist. In 2016, there is a 165th anniversary of his birth and a 100th anniversary of his death. It defines main aspects of his sociological thinking and reveals theoretical and methodological principles of study: objectivity, historism, anthropologism, institutionalism and combination of theory and empirics. It concludes that Maxim Kovalevsky with his colleagues and students created Russian sociological school, which defined a place of domestic sociology in the system of world sociology. The article shows Maxim Kovalevsky's activities aimed at institutionalizing Russian sociology. It stresses the significance of his manifold activities in training sociologists and creating a "teacher-student" dichotomy and draws special attention to his students' activities in developing Maxim Kovalevsky Russian sociological school. This school is quite significant for modern Russian sociology, which is seeking for its identity.