1. Atomistic concept of matter construction - historical outline 2. The Schrodinger equation for atoms and molecules 3. Separation of the motion of nuclei and electrons in molecules 4. The Schroedinger equation with the electron Hamiltonian for atomic and molecular systems 5. Methods of approximate solution of the Schroedinger equation: variational method and perturbation expansion 6. Independent-electron approximation - construction of a many-electron wave function in the form of a Slater determinant - application of the variation method in the independent-electron model - Hartree-Fock equation 7. Effects of electron correlation - going beyond the Hartree-Fock approximation - formalism of the second quantization, many-body and diagrammatic techniques - many-body perturbation theory (Moller-Plesset perturbation theory) - configuration interaction method - coupled-cluster method - advantages and disadvantages of different approximate methods for electron correlation description (variationality and size extensivity) 8. Nondynamic electronon correlation - introduction to approximate multi-reference methods of solving the Schroedinger equation for atomic and molecular systems