Given paper provides an introduction to one of the most spectacular discussions in the political philosophy of the 20 century that involved Leo Strauss, Eric Voeglin and Alexandre Kojève. As long as Kojève’s works and Kojève himself are relatively well known to Russian readers, we center our attention on the personality and ideas of Eric Voegelin, as well as on some central points of the discussion that took place after book «On tyranny» was published by Leo Strauss. Voegelin points out the problems, brought up by depicting ancient tyranny and one created in Modern age; he proposes new terms, not those used by Strauss. Finally, the author specially points out that Voegelin was one of the first who paid attention to the notion of «esoterically writing» in political philosophy of Leo Strauss.