[en] One of the fundamental problems in subatomic physics is the determination of properties of matter at extreme temperatures, densities and electromagnetic fields. The modern ultrarelativistic heavy-ion experiments are able to study such states (the quark-gluon plasma) and indicate that the physics at extreme conditions differs drastically from what is known from the conventional observations. Also the theoretical methods developed mostly within the perturbative framework face various conceptual problems and need to be replaced by a nonperturbative approach. In this thesis we study the physics of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma in external magnetic fields as well as general electromagnetic and topological properties of the QCD and QCD-like systems. We develop and apply various nonperturbative techniques, based on e.g. gauge-gravity correspondence, lattice QCD simulations, relativistic hydrodynamics and condensed-matter-inspired models.