The article considers the basic concepts of political freedom fundamental for Russia’s political thought in the 2nd half of the 18th century. The Petrine concept regarded freedom as a characteristic of maturity, granting conditional release from permanent coercion from the side of the state to certain social groups, while the Catherinean concept meant complete freedom for the citizens of the Empire, and was founded on the concept of the Fundamental Laws. However, both concepts equally supported absolutist political power, regardless of the extensive use the vocabulary of legitimacy.