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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2012
Researchers of the history of late imperial Russia quite often base their studies on the texts of laws as recorded in the official edition: the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe Sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii). The laws were published there in chronological order for purposes of conducting inquiries; it was specifically the Complete Collection in which the original text of a decree approved by the emperor could generally be found.
1. Uchrezhdenie Pravitel'stvuiuschego Senata [Statute of the Governing Senate]. Art. 66, Suppl. 7, in Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (hereafter SZ) Vol. 2. (St. Petersburg, 1906).
2. Benton, Lauren, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2010)Google Scholar.
3. Remarkable examples of such a research remain very few. See, for example, Burbank, Jane, Russian Peasants Go to Court. Legal Culture in the Countryside, 1905–1917. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Popkins, Gareth, “Code versus Custom? Norms and Tactics in Peasant Volost Court Appeals, 1889–1917,” Russian Review 59 (2000), 408–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4. Anan'ich, Boris, Ganelin, Rafail, Paneiakh, Viktor, eds. Vlast' i reformy. Ot samoderzhavnoi k sovetskoi Rossii The Power and Reforms. From the Autocratic to the Soviet Russia (St. Petersburg: “Dmitrii Bulanin” 1996)Google Scholar; and Yaney, George L., The Systematization of Russian Government: Social Evolution in the Domestic Administration of the Imperial Russia, 1711–1905 (Urbana, Chicago, London: The University of Illinois Press, 1973)Google Scholar.
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6. Uortman, Richard (Wortman), Vlastiteli i sudii: razvitie pravovogo soznaniia v imperatorskoi Rossii (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004), 24Google Scholar.
7. Burbank, Jane and von Hagen, Mark, “Coming into the Territory: Uncertainty and Empire,” in Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, ed. Burbank, Jane, von Hagen, Mark, and Remnev, Anatolyi (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 4Google Scholar.
8. See relatively recent examples: Ruzhitskaia, Irina, Zakonodatel'naia deiatel'nost' v tsarstvovanii imperatora Nikolaia I [Lawmaking in the Reign of Emperor Nicholas I] (Moscow: IRI RAN, 2005)Google Scholar; and Whisenhunt, William B., In Search of Legality: Mikhail M. Speranskii and the Codification of Russian Law (New York: East European Monographs, 2001)Google Scholar.
9. Medushevskii, Andrei, Utverzhdenie absoliutizma v Rossii [Affirmation of Absolutism in Russia] (Moscow: Tekst 1994), 87–96Google Scholar.
10. Birtsch, Gunter, “Reform, Absolutism and the Codification of Law: The Genesis and Nature of the Prussian General Code,” in Rethinking Leviathan: The Eighteenth-Century State in Britain and Germany, ed. Brewer, John and Hellmuth, Eckhart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 349Google Scholar.
11. Anan'ich et al. Vlast' i reformy, 146; and Raeff, Marc, “Peter's Domestic Legacy: Transformation or Revolution?” in Peter the Great Transforms Russia, ed. Cracraft, James (Toronto/Lexington, MA, 1991)Google Scholar.
12. On the history of codification of Russian law, see: Pakhman, Semion, Istoriia kodifikatsii grazhdanskogo prava [History of Codification of Civil law] (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Vtorogo otdeleniia sobstvennoi ego imperatorskogo velichestva kantseliarii, 1876), 1:203–472Google Scholar; Omel'chenko, Oleg, Kodifikatsiia prava v Rossii v period absoliutnoi monarkhii (Vtoraia polovina XVIII v.) [Codification of law in Russia in the period of absolutist monarchy (second half of the 18th century] (Moscow: Vsesoiuznyi iuridicheskii zaochnyi institute, 1989)Google Scholar.
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14. Trudy komissii sostavleniia zakonov [Works of the Commission for the Compilation of Laws] (St. Petersburg: Senatskaia tipografiia, 1822),1:141Google Scholar.
15. Speranskii, Mikhail, “Kratkoe istoricheskoe obozrenie komissii sostavleniia zakonov,” [“Brief Historical Overview of Commission for the Compilation of Laws”] Russkaia starina [Russian Antiquities] 15 (1876): 583Google Scholar.
16. Quoted in: Maikov, Piotr, Vtoroe otdelenie Sobstvennoi Ego imperatorskogo velichestva kantseliarii 1826–1882 [Second Department of His Majesty's Own Chancellery] (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia I.N. Skorokhodova, 1906), 191Google Scholar.
17. See more in Borisova, Tatiana, “Russian National Legal Tradition: Svod versus Ulozhenie in Nineteenth-century Russia,” Review of Central and East European Law 3 (2008): 295–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18. Uortman (Wortman), Vlastiteli I sudii, 71–87.
19. See more in EvdokiiaKosachevskaia, , M. A. Balugianskii i Peterburgskii universitet v pervoi chetverti XIX v [Mikhail Balugianskii and St. Petersburg University in the First Quarter of the 19th Century] (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo leningradskogo universiteta, 1971)Google Scholar.
20. Quoted in: Razvitie russkogo prava v pervoi polovine XIX v.[Development of Russian Law in the First Half of the 19 thCentury]/Ed. Evgenii Skripilev (Moscow: Nauka 1994), 53.
21. Alekseev, Segei, Uroki. Tiazhkii put' Rossii k pravu (Moscow: Institut chastnogo prava, 1997), 29Google Scholar.
22. See more in Raeff, Marc, Mikhael Speransky Statesmen of Imperial Russia. 1772–1839 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Whisenhunt, In Search of Legality.
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24. Some regions of the Russian empire, for example, Siberia, Finland, and Poland, had their own compendiums of codified legislation.
25. On the history of the Digest, see Raeff, Marc, Mikhael Speransky Statesman of Imperial Russia. 1772–1839 (The Hague: 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whisenhunt, In Search of Legality; and Irina Ruzhitskaia, Kodifikatsionnye proekty imperatora Nikolaia I [Codification projects of Nicholas I] Rossiiskaia istoriia [Russian History] 1 (2010): 29–44.
26. Korevo, Nikolai, Ob izdaniiiakh zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, 1830–1899 (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaia tipografiia, 1900)Google Scholar.
27. Polnoe Sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (hereafter PSZ) (1834) no. 7654.
28. Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii. Uchrezhdenie Pravitel'stvuiuschego Senata [Statute of the Governing Senate] (St. Petersburg, 1892)Google Scholar; Uchrezhdenie Pravitel'stvuiuschego Senata, izdaniia 1915 goda, i ego izmenenie zakonom 16 dekabria 1916 [Statute of the Governing Senate 1915 edition changed 16 thDecember 1916] Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazsenii pravitel'stva [Collection of Legislation and Regulations of the Government] (1917), no.11, art. 68.
29. PSZ (1834) no. 7654.
30. The Digest of the Laws of the Russian Empire, published in 1833, contained 36,000 articles; with appendices this rose to 42,198. See: Speranskii, Mikhail, “Obozrenie istoricheskikh svedenii o Svode zakonov. Ob'iasnitel'naia zapiska soderzhania i raspolozhenia Svoda zakonov grazhdanskikh,” [Overview of Historical Sources on the Digest of Laws] in Speranskii, Rukovodstvo k poznaniu zakonov (Manual to Legal Studies) (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2002), 155Google Scholar.
31. Maikov, Vtoroe otdelenie, 138. On Nicholas I's close involvement in the preparation of the Digest, see: Telberg, Georgii, “Uchastie imperatora Nikolaia I v kodifikatsionnoi rabote ego tsarstvovania (po povodu 80-letia deistvia SZRI)”, [“Participarion of the Emperor Nicholas I in the Codification of Laws in His Reign (on 80 Years Anniversary of the Digest of laws”] Zhurnal Ministerstva iustitsii [Journal of Ministry of Justice] 1 (1916): 233–44Google Scholar, and Irina Ruzhitskaia, Kodifikatsionnye proekty imperatora Nikolaia I [Codification projects of Nicholas I] Rossiiskaia istoriia [Russian history] 1 (2010): 29–44.
32. PSZ (1882) no. 621.
33. PSZ (1893) no. 10212.
34. Speranskii, Obozrenie, 145–46.
35. Malyshev, Kronid, Kurs obschego grazhdanskogo prava Rossii [Lectures on Russian General Civil Law] vol.1. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Stasiulevicha, 1878), 188–90Google Scholar.
36. Uchrezhdenie Ministerstv [Statute of Ministries] Article 166, PSZ (1811) no. 24686.
37. On the dependence of ministers from the monarch's personal will see the published diaries of ministers: Dnevnik P. A. Valueva, ministra vnutrennikh del., [Diary of P.A. Valuev, Minister of Interior] 2 vols., ed. Zaionchkovskii, Piotr, (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR 1961), 420, 586Google Scholar; and Dnevnik D. A. Miliutina, 4 vols. ed. Piotr, . Zaionchkovskii, , (Moscow: Gosudarstvennaia biblioteka SSSR 1950), 253, 290, 323Google Scholar, and discussion on relationships of tsar with his ministries: Anatolii Remnev, Komitet ministrov v sisteme vysshego upravleniia Rossiiskoi imperii (vtoraia polovina XIX– nachalo XX veka). (Moscow: Rossiiskaia politicheskaia entsiklopediia, 2010).
38. Until 1885, the instruction on codification procedure was for inside use of the Second Department. The “Highly approved Statement of the Department of Laws of the State Council on the procedure of the Digest's reissue” appeared on November 5, 1885, PSZ (1885) no. 3261. Speranskii's instructions for compilation of the Digest are provided in Blosfel'dt, Gugo, “Zakonnaia” sila Svoda zakonov v svete arkhivnykh dannykh (Petrograd: Senatskaia tipografiia 1917), 10–15Google Scholar.
39. Lazarevskii, Nikolai, Lektsii po russkomu gosudarstvennomu pravu. [Lectures on Russian Public Law] Vol.1. Konstitutsionnoe pravo [Constitutional Law] (St. Petersburg: Pravo, 1908)Google Scholar; Lozina-Lozinskii, Mikhail, “Kodifikatsia zakonov po russkomu gosudarstvennomu pravu,” [“Codification of Legislation under Russian Public Law”] Zhurnal ministerstva iustitsii [Journal of Ministry of Justice] 4–5 (1897); 142–86Google Scholar, Pobedina, E. M., “K voprosu o iuridicheskoi sile Svoda,” [“To the question of legal power of the Digest”] Zhurnal ministerstva iustitsii [Journal of Ministry of Justice] 4 (1909): 138–50Google Scholar.
40. This observation, pointed out by Wortman, Richard in his The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has been further elaborated by other scholars. See the survey by Wortman, in his “Russian Monarchy and the Rule of Law: New Considerations on the Court Reform of 1864,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6 (2005):150–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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42. Ibid,
43. Walter M. Pinter has fairly pointed out that even transparency of lawmaking process was considered a threat to the autocracy. Pinter, W., “Reformability in the Age of Reform and Countereform, 1855–1894,” in Reform in Russia and the USSR: Past and Prospects, ed. Crumney, Robert O. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1989), 90Google Scholar.
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45. Fateev, Arkadii, “K istorii yuridicheskoi obrazovannosti v Rossii,” [“On the History of Legal Education in Russia”] Uchenye zapiski, osnovannye russkoi uchebnoi kollegiei v Prage [Academic Memoirs of the Russian College in Prague] 1 (1924):170Google Scholar.
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