Third Finnish-Russian Conference on Elite Studies focuses on State elites that occupy positions in the central administration or act as its representatives on the local level, organise and uphold state-level economic structures, and contribute to the formation and maintenance of state-related ideologies and cultural institutions.

Our starting point is the Russian concept государственность (gosurdarstvennost, derived from the word state, or государство) – translated alternately as statehood, governance, organisation/theory of the state, sovereignty within the state, government, state system, or governmental organisation.

The many aspects of this concept provide both firm framework and broad scope for historical analysis of elite functions. It covers the role of diverse elites within the maintenance of an established central government and the assertion of state control on the local level – but also the important role of oppositional elites challenging the status quo or even overthrowing an existing state system, as well as the role of elite cadres in re-inventing state structures and reorganising governmental institutions, post-crisis.