Within the framework of the presented article, the authors reviewed the prerequisites for the formation of national entrepreneurship during the reign of Peter I and Catherine II on the basis of a review of a wide range of Russian and foreign historical sources. The data obtained during the research made it possible to define the form of the national economy structure in the periods under review, as well as to structure the main negative (from the financial, economic and institutional point of view) moments of the results of the reign of two significant Russian reformers. On the basis of historical parallels, the authors convincingly substantiate that the management mistakes made in the economic and financial transformations initiated during the reign of Peter I and Catherine II tend to repeat, which greatly restricts the entrepreneurial initiative and economic activity in modern Russian society. Copyright © 2017 by Academic Publishing House Researcher s.r.o. Copyright © 2017 by Sochi State University.