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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
For long years Russia’s legal history has intrigued the scholars of Eastern Europe, and some in the West, but little attention has been devoted in English to the most ancient sources, those to be found in the chronicles and the Russkaia Pravda. Although Russian legal history offers little of the continuity of institutions to be found in Anglo-Saxon law, its earliest documents are matters of concern even to Soviet legal historians in an effort to understand a heritage that has left its impact upon contemporary developments. In order to sketch a part of that heritage conveniently for English-language readers, this brief article has been prepared.
1. They are called “republics” not because the two principalities had a political structure different from other principalities but because of the predominant power of the veche.
2. Sergeevich, V. I., Lektsii i izsledovaniia po drevnei istorii russkago prava (St. Petersburg, 1910), p. 5.Google Scholar
3. Wormser, René A., The Law (New York, 1949), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
4. For example, no one was obliged to use the bani for bathing.
5. Sergeevich and Vladimirsky-Budanov are the foremost historians of Russian law for the tsarist period. They diverge in their opinions on almost all important questions.
6. Vladimirsky-Budanov, M. F., Obzor istorii russkago prava (St. Petersburg and Kiev, 1905), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar
7. Sherman, I. L., Russkie istoricheskie istochniki (Kharkov, 1959), pp. 12 ff.Google Scholar
8. His best-known work is Razyskaniia o drevneishikh russkikh letopisnykh svodakh (St. Petersburg, 1908; reprint, The Hague, 1967).
9. The Lavrentievskii svod, the oldest collection known, was composed by the monk Lavrentii for the Suzdal Prince Dmitrii Konstantinovich in 1377. The major part of the collection is written in poluustav letters and the rest is in ustav handwriting. See Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (Leningrad, 1926), 1: 1 ff.
10. Nestor's authorship is contested; but it is not possible to have a full discussion of the question in this article. The Povest' has been translated into English by Cross, Samuel H. and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, O. P., The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (Cambridge, Mass., 1953)Google Scholar. As in the case of other texts in this article, the translations are by the present author.
11. Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, 1: 1.
12. See Pushkin’s Pesn’ o veshchem Olege. A trizna also takes place in memory of the deceased one year after his death.
13. Harkavy, A. E. [Garkavi, A. la.], Skazaniia musul'manskikh pisatelei o slavianakh i russkikh (St. Petersburg, 1879; reprint, The Hague and Paris, 1969), p. 129.Google Scholar
14. Ibid., p. 265.
15. Kvas, an acid beverage, is no longer used for bathing, but as a beverage and soft drink it is no less popular with the Russian people than vodka is as a liquor.
16. He certainly must have only been seeking a pretext to reject Vladimir’s bid.
17. For a wife to take off her husband’s footwear is a symbol of her submission to him. Vladimir’s mother was a slave (this is an interesting example of the social prejudice of the time). Iaropolk was an older brother of Vladimir’s, and his bitter foe.
18. Snokhachestvo is sexual relations between the father of the groom and the daughter-in-law (snokha).
19. Kovalevsky, M. M., Pervobytnoe pravo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1886), 2: 58.Google Scholar
20. Kovalevsky, Maxime, Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia (London, 1891), pp. 37–38 Google Scholar. Russians just persisted in concluding marriages unofficially, as they did at the time of the Povest'.
21. Ibid., p. 38.
22. See Sergeevich, Lektsii, p. 22.
23. The chronicles do not differentiate between written law (zakon) and unwritten law or custom (obychai). Both customs and customary laws are designated by the following words: pravda, norov, obychai, predanie, poshlina, starina, pokon, and zakon.
24. Latkin, V. N., Lektsii po istorii russkago prava (St. Petersburg, 1912), p. 6.Google Scholar
25. Sergeevich, Lektsii, p. 23.
26. Chislov, P. I., Kurs istorii russkago prava (Moscow, 1914), p. 21 Google Scholar.
27. The word pravda is used in old Russian documents and chronicles in various senses—“law,” “custom,” “ordeal,” “oath,” “trial,” and “law code” according to which the trial took place. It seems to the present writer that, taking into account its content and application, the most appropriate translation for Russkaia Pravda is “Russian Law Statute,” although Filippov thinks that the Pravda cannot be called a code or statute, because it was not an official collection of laws. But Filippov himself cites the Novgorod and Pskov Chronicles, which name the Pravda “ustav” (statute) and “ustav and sudebnik” (code) respectively, and his opinion of the unofficial character of the Pravda is not shared by many authorities, as we shall see later. Furthermore, this author’s translation is confirmed by the fact that the Expanded Version of the Pravda is entitled “Ustav of the Grand Prince Iaroslav on Courts,” and another part of it is called “Ustav of Vladimir Vsevolodovich.” In Vernadsky’s translation of the Russkaia Pravda into English the statute is called “Russian Law,” although in his introduction he writes, “In the reign of Iaroslav the Wise (1015-1054), the first Russian code [italics added] of laws was compiled, known as Pravda Russkaia.” See Vernadsky, George, Medieval Russian Laws (New York, 1947; reprint, New York, 1965), p. 4.Google Scholar
28. Pravda Russkaia dannaia v odinnadtsatom veke ot velikikh kniazei Iaroslava Vladimirovicha i ego syna Iziaslava Iaroslavovicha (St. Petersburg, 1767).
29. Evers, I., Drevneishaia Russkaia Pravda v istoricheskom ee razvitii, trans, from Platonov, German by I. (St. Petersburg, 1835).Google Scholar Tobien, E. S., Sammlung kritisch-bearbeiteten Quellen der Geschichte des russischen Rechtes (Dorpat, 1844).Google Scholar Kalachov, N. V., Predvaritel'nyia iuridicheskiia svedeniia dlia polnago ob "iasneniia Russkoi Pravdy, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1880)Google Scholar. V. I. Sergeevich’s article in Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnago prosveshcheniia, January 1899. Goetz, L. K., Das russische Recht (Russkaia Pravda), 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1910-13)Google Scholar. Maksimeiko, N. A., Opyt kriticheskago izsledovaniia Russkoi Pravdy (Kharkov, 1914)Google Scholar. Karamzin, N. M., Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago (St. Petersburg, 1892;Google Scholar reprint, The Hague and Paris, 1969). Kliuchevsky, V. O., Sochineniia, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1956-59).Google Scholar
30. Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut istorii, Pravda Russkaia, 3 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1940-63), 1: 31.Google Scholar
31. Tikhomirov, M. N., Issledovanie o Russkoi Pravde (Moscow, 1941).Google Scholar
32. Iushkov, S. V., Russkaia Pravda: Proiskhozhdenie, istochniki, ee znachenie (Moscow, 1950), p. 351.Google Scholar
33. Ibid., p. 16. For the detailed classification of all copies and versions that have been discovered to date see pp. 18-24. All the known copies of the Pravda are listed in the Academy edition (1: 55 ff.).
34. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago, 2: 30 (the italics are Karamzin's). A regrettable misprint occurs in Iushkov's Russkaia Pravda, in which a quotation from Karamzin is reproduced: “Already at the time of Oleg, Russians had ‘no’ laws” (p. 226, n. 65).
35. Filippov, A., Uchebnik istorii russkago prava (Iuriev, 1914), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar
36. Sergeevich, Lektsii, p. 96. See his examples of subtitles in the Pravda that do not correspond to the content (pp. 67 ff.).
37. Latkin, Lektsii, pp. 16-17.
38. Vladimirsky-Budanov, Obsor, p. 95.
39. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia, 1: 212.
40. A personal combat to determine the result of a trial or suit.
41. Kliuchevsky, Sochineniia, 1: 212 (the italics are Kliuchevsky’s).
42. See Vladimirsky-Budanov, Obzor, p. 645. Pole replaced ordeal in the eighteenth century.
43. Karamzin Copy, art. 17, 1. 100.
44. Tikhomirov, Issledovanie o Russkoi Pravde, pp. 23, 24.
45. Iushkov, Russkaia Pravda, p. 351.
46. Chislov, Kurs, p. 47.
47. Tikhomirov, Issledovanie o Russkoi Pravde, pp. 6 and 55.
48. Iushkov, S. V., Istoriia gosudarstva i prava SSSR, vol. 1, 4th ed. (Moscow, 1961), p. 94.Google Scholar
49. Iushkov, Russkaia Pravda, pp. 290-91
50. A. A. Zimin, writing in 196S, is of the opinion that the basis of Iaroslav’s Pravda originated in the eighth or ninth century. See his “Feodal'naia gosudarstvennost' i Russkaia Pravda,” Istoricheskie zapiski, 76 (1965): 231.
51. Goetz, Das russische Recht (Russkaia Pravda), 1: 183, 207.
52. See Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, 1: 126-27.
53. The word kazn' is used in the Chronicle in two senses, “execution” and “punishment in general.” Cross, in his translation, used “punishment” in this passage (Cross, Russian Primary Chronicle, p. 122). It seems to the present writer that “execution” fits better with the meaning of the sentence, on grounds that will be discussed later. In I. I. Sreznevsky's opinion this passage provides an example of an instance in which kazniti means “to execute.” Materialy dlia slovaria drevne-russkago iazyka, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1893-1912; Moscow, 1957), 1: 1178.
54. Goetz, Das russische Rccht (Russkaia Pravda), 1: 195.
55. Ibid., p. 206 and n. 1. This seems improbable, because if bloody vengeance was not restored by Vladimir, it could not have been discarded by Iaroslav's sons in their Pravda.
56. Ibid., p. 2.
57. According to Goetz it originated even before the treaties with the Greeks, in which the mention of “Russian Law” may be a reference to the Pravda (ibid., p. 173).
58. Ibid., p. 159.
59. Vladimirsky-Budanov, M. F., Das russische Recht (Russkaia Pravda) (Kiev 1911).Google Scholar
60. Lange, Kedrov, Presniakov, Rozhkov, and Vladimirsky-Budanov are of another opinion, which is acknowledged by Goetz himself (1: 55).
61. M. A. D'iakonov, review of L. K. Goetz, Das russische Recht, vol. 1, Die älteste Redaction des russischen Rechtes (Stuttgart, 1910), in Izvestiia Otdeleniia russkago iazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 16, no. 1 (1911).
62. The judicial activity of the early Russian prince is described by Dasta (writing in the 930s) in the following way: “If one of them [the Russians] has a claim against another person, he calls him to court before the tsar, in whose presence they argue: when the tsar pronounces a sentence, what he orders is executed” (Harkavy, Skazaniia musul'manskikh pisatelei, p. 269).
63. A. Presniakov, review of Goetz, L. K., Das russische Recht (Russkaia Pravda), in Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnago prosveshcheniia, 41 (1912): 158.Google Scholar
64. Filippov, A, “Russkaia Pravda,” luridicheskii vestnik, 6 (1914): 170-71.Google Scholar
65. In the framework of this article it is impossible to give the details of the individual assertions and the arguments pro and con presented by a number of Russian and foreign authors. What follows is a brief summary of the debated questions.
66. Karamzin, Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskago, 2: 38, n. 9.
67. Solov'ev, S. M., Istoriia Rossii s drevncishikh vremen (Moscow, 1962), vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 273.Google Scholar
68. Evers, I., Predvaritel'nyia izsledovaniia dlia russkoi istorii, trans. from German, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1825), pp. 92 ff.Google Scholar
69. Filippov, “Russkaia Pravda,” pp. 171-73.
70. Vladimirsky-Budanov, Obzor, p. 98.
71. Latkin, Lektsii, p. 15.
72. Sergeevich, Lektsii, p. 94. He cites ten articles from the Expanded Pravda.
73. Tikhomirov, Issledovanie o Russkoi Pravde, p. 58 (a Byzantine Code of Constantine reworked in Bulgarian).
74. lushkov, Russkaia Pravda, p. 368. lushkov reached his conclusion slowly. His various conclusions, as set forth in his several editions, have been reviewed in Hazard, J. N., “Law and Tradition in the New Russia,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, 4 (1953): 132-34.Google Scholar
75. Chernousov, K., “K voprosu o vliianii Vizantiiskago prava na drevneishee russkoe pravo,” Visantiiskoe obozrenie, 1, no. 2 (1916): 321.Google Scholar
76 Golenishchev-Kutuzov, D., Russkaia Pravda i Visantiia (Irkutsk, 1913)Google Scholar. The booklet was not available to the present writer. The quotation is taken from a review by N. Nikulin in Zhurnal Ministerstva iustitsii, February 1914, p. 346.
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