The review of A.V. Slyunchenko's Master's Thesis  "Problems of development of the Russian state system in M.N. Katkov's journalism"  Anastasia Vitalievna Slyunchenko's Master's Thesis is devoted to an important and topical subject: the views of Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov on the main problems of development of Russian state system. Despite the fact that this issue repeatedly addressed in historiography, its complexity and ambiguity will not leave without work many generations of researchers of the history of Russian social thought. The main dispute whether Katkov had his own ideology or, as many of his contemporaries believed, Mikhail Nikiforovich remained a lifelong opportunist changing his views depending on the political situation, probably, is not finished.  To resolve this issue A.V. Slyunchenko conscientiously studied the complete collection of the "Moscow News" editorials, published by S.P. Katkova, a number of "The Russian Manager" articles, as well as the current six-volume collected works of Mikhail Nikiforovich and his published letters. The main monuments of historiography: pre-revolutionary works of N.A. Lyubimov, S. Nevedenskiy (Shcheglovitov), R.I. Sementkovskiy; the study of the classics of Soviet historical science – V.A. Kitaeva, V.A. Tvardovskiy and V.G. Chernuha; finally, contemporary works of S.M. Sankova, A.V .Repnikova and others did not remain unknown to the researcher.  The thesis consists of three chapters. The first is dedicated to the personality and worldview of the "Moscow thunderer", the second - to his concept of the development of domestic state institutions, and the third – to the Katkov's main issue - national issue. Describing the early Katkov as a non-party moderate liberal researcher rightly attributes his turn "right" not to the Polish uprising, but to a later period. Reasonable noting that "the idea of service to the benefit of the state permeates  every publication controlled by Katkov", A.V. Slyunchenko, however, refuses to consider "Moscow News", "the mouthpiece of the conservative camp," and points out that "in the 1860s "Moscow News" pages were full of articles that promote the desirability and necessity of reforms continuing» (c. 37-38). And only the first effects of reforms that emerged in the second half of the 1870s  caused "protective reflex, revealing notes of conservative in publicist's outlook" (p. 41).  A separate section of the third chapter researcher devotes to the Polish question, reasonable noting that for Katkov it was partly a matter of the estates and the main enemy he considered not the Polish people, but the Polish nobility. Sufficient attention is paid to Katkov's views on Russification of western borders of the Russian state and its relation to Catholicism. There is an interesting note that publicist presented the railways as an important tool of russification, along with the spread of Russian landowning (p. 53). The last section contains other "marginal" issues - Ukrainian, Caucasian and Finnish. In our view, each one of them deserves a separate study, but this would increase the scope of the thesis too much.  Of course, reviewing work has some drawbacks - primarily of source and historiographical type. For example, Katkov's articles from "Complete Collection of “Moscow News” editorials", reprinted from there by all modern publishers should certainly be checked out with the original publications in the newspaper itself - because later version of these texts often suffered quite curious  metamorphosis. It would be desirable to use unpublished sources - including such important as the unpublished diary of the E.M. Feoktistov, "Chronicles of the collapse" by Y.S. Kartsov, diaries  of A.A. Kireyev and L.A. Tikhomirov for the respective periods. Significant gaps in the bibliography are monographs not used by the author: M.D. Dolbilov's work ( "Russian territory, an alien faith") and A.I .Miller's ( "Ukrainian issue in the policy of the authorities and the Russian public opinion").  However, these shortcomings are not significant and can be easily corrected if the author wants to further develop this theme. This is certainly independent work, author of which has demonstrated integrity, work skills with available sources and the ability to analyze the last. The reviewing work meets all the requirements for a Master's Thesis, and undoubtedly deserves high mark.  Kotov A.E., Candidate of Historical Sciences Associate Professor at the Department of Russian History, Political Science and Sociology Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping