Abstract: The article analyses the process of forming a civil society in Russia and its particularities. The author ties the particularities of forming a civil society in Russia with the trailing nature of its modernisation. Russia later than other countries joined the modernisation process. Another particularity of the modernisation process in Russia is its instability in historical terms, as during different periods of history various aspects of modernising changes were realised with differing intensities. The author draws a parallel between today's modernisation process and the one initiated by Alexander II during the 1860s–1870s. The author further examines the different sides of this process: the democratisation of social relations, the creation of self-governing institutions, and the evolution of the social conscience. The author analyses the historical facts that characterise the modernisation process both during the 19th century and at the turn of the 21st century. This research is based on archival documents, periodical press, and memoirs. The author comes to the conclusion that the process of forming a civil society in Russia has a number of unique features: the government’s greater role, the unevenness of this processes territorially and institutionally, the slow and mosaic transformation of the social conscience. This defines the incompleteness of the forming process of a civil society and the irregular development of its institution.