BOOK REVIEW: Dmitry POLDNIKOV on Die Rechtsnachfolge in Personengesellschaften im Deutschland und im Russland des 19. Jahrhunderts, by Maria Malt, Münster (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 339-343)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Comparative research in legal history today holds the promise of novelty despite numerous ‘non-comparative’ studies in legal history. Yet it presents a daunting challenge for a scholar, requiring them to enhance our understanding of the past by bridging the distance between domestic present and past law, as well as between domestic and foreign law(s). Maria Malt accepted this challenge in her book Die Rechtsnachfolge in Personengesellschaften im Deutschland und im Russland des 19. Jahrhunderts (Legal Succession in Partnerships in 19th-century Germany and Russia), based on her recently defended PhD thesis at Augsburg University under the supervision of Christoph Becker, who sponsored its publication as the 41st volume in the Augsburg series of studies on legal history. This review aims to present the design of the book and its major claims, followed by its evaluation from the point of view of a Russian legal historian.

The title of the book suggests revisiting the (allegedly) well-researched topic of the dissolution or continuation of a partnership under German law and Russian law in the nineteenth century. The author justifies the relevance of such a study with two major arguments: first, the impossibility of resolving the intricacies in contemporary corporate law without researching its medieval customs or even ancient Roman law; second, the ongoing doctrinal debates and litigation regarding legal consequences of such circumstances under succession and corporate law. The latter is substantiated by a wide array of textbooks, monographs, commentaries on the legislation, academic articles and dictionaries in the German and Russian languages.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580110

ARTICLE: Eric LOEFFLAD, "Blood of Nations, Blood of Empire: Pan-Slavism as a Critique of International Law in Late Imperial Russia and Beyond" (German Yearbook of International Law LXVI (2023), nr. 1, 37-60)

 

(image source: Duncker & Humblot)

Abstract:

While international lawyers analysing Vladimir Putin’s ongoing actions and justifications through the broad arc of Russian history have no shortage of materials to draw upon, one comparatively under-explored discourse is the Russian tradition of Pan-Slavism. In this piece I argue that while Russian Pan-Slavism – and its invocation of a common Slavic destiny – provides an important resource, uncovering its origins and content requires a new approach to international legal history better attuned to the overlap between nationalism and imperialism. Towards this end I focus on how interactions within and between various empires, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, gave rise to a distinctly Pan-Slavic consciousness that Russia ultimately championed through a distinctly paternalist anti-imperial imperialism. This contextual account culminates in a reading of Nikolai Danilevskii’s 1869 text Russia and Europe, the most iconic manifesto of Russian Pan-Slavism, as a critique of the international legal positivism that consolidated in the late-nineteenth century. Through this account, I seek to provide new insights into ongoing political contestations as well as international law’s variable functions as an active shaper of collective political identities.

On the author:

Eric Loefflad, University of Kent Canterbury, UK 

Read the article here (DOI 10.3790/gyil.2024.370076). 

BOOK: F.F. MARTENS, Contemporary International Law of Civilized Peoples, General Part (transl. and ed. William E. BUTLER) (Clark (New Jersey): Talbot Publishing, 2021), LXII + 355 p. ISBN 9781616196608

 

(image source: Lawbook Exchange)

Book description:

 First published in Russian in 1882-1883, Contemporary International Law of Civilized Peoples ranks among the greatest treatises on international law and relations written during the nineteenth century. In this work Martens develops his concept of the international community and the respective roles of "civilized" and "uncivilized" peoples, and promotes several concepts that would become important in the twentieth century, such as the importance of "international administrative law" and the central role of human rights. The work has two complementary parts: the General Part, which addresses the conceptual and historical foundations of international law, the status of the international community, states, and individuals and territory and law of treaties, and the Special Part, which addresses Martens's concept of international administration, diplomatic and consular law, human rights, private international law, international criminal law and the laws of war and neutrality. Enriched by an extensive biographical introduction, Butler's is the first English translation of this important work and the only version in any language to address changes made by the author between editions, including sections omitted in later versions. At long last, the English reader has access to the leading Russian thinker and diplomatist of the Imperial Russian period, one who continues to influence the development of international law. Fedor Fedorovich Martens [1845-1909], the pre-eminent Russian international lawyer of the pre-1917 era, was Professor of International Law at St. Petersburg University, repeated candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, senior legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Emperor of the Russian Empire, member of the Hague Permanent Court of International Arbitration, a principal architect of the 1899 and 1907 Hague peace conferences, an important historian of diplomacy, author of major treatises on international law and the leading Russian textbook on that subject. A recipient of honorary doctorates at Continental and American law schools and a me.

(source: The Lawbook Exchange)

BOOK: Valerie A. KIVELSON and Christine D. WOROBEC, Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000-1900 : A Sourcebook (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020). ISBN 978-1-5017-5067-0, 113.95 EUR

(Source: Cornell University Press)

Cornell University Press is publishing a sourcebook on witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This sourcebook provides the first systematic overview of witchcraft laws and trials in Russia and Ukraine from medieval times to the late nineteenth century. Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine weaves scholarly commentary with never before published primary source materials translated from Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. These sources include the earliest references to witchcraft and sorcery, secular and religious laws regarding witchcraft and possession, full trial transcripts, and a wealth of magical spells. The documents present a rich panorama of daily life and reveal the extraordinary power of magical words.

Editors Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec present new analyses of the workings and evolution of legal systems, the interplay and tensions between church and state, and the prosaic concerns of the women and men involved in witchcraft proceedings. The extended documentary commentaries also explore the shifting boundaries and fraught political relations between Russia and Ukraine.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Valeria A. Kivelson is Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor of History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Cartographies of Tsardom, Desperate Magic, and Autocracy in the Provinces.

Christine D. Worobec is Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Northern Illinois University. She is the author of Possessed and Peasant Russia.

More info here

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Postdoctoral Fellowships (Center for Historical Research, the National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia) (DEADLINE: 15 May 2020)

(Source: HSozkult)

Via HSozkult, we learned of a call for applicants for the projects “Post-imperial diversities: Majority-minority relations in the transition from empires to nation-states” and “Transformation of Regimes of Governing Diversity: Subjecthood Discourses and Practices in the Russian Empire.” (only candidates with Russian citizenship are eligible).

More info on HSozkult.  

BOOK: Stefan B. KIRMSE, The Lawful Empire Legal Change and Cultural Diversity in Late Tsarist Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781108499439, £ 75.00

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on legal practice in late Tsarist Russia.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Russian Empire and its legal institutions have often been associated with arbitrariness, corruption, and the lack of a 'rule of law'. Stefan B. Kirmse challenges these assumptions in this important new study of empire-building, minority rights, and legal practice in late Tsarist Russia, revealing how legal reform transformed ordinary people's interaction with state institutions from the 1860s to the 1890s. By focusing on two regions that stood out for their ethnic and religious diversity, the book follows the spread of the new legal institutions into the open steppe of Southern Russia, especially Crimea, and into the fields and forests of the Middle Volga region around the ancient Tatar capital of Kazan. It explores the degree to which the courts served as instruments of integration: the integration of former borderlands with the imperial centre and the integration of the empire's internal 'others' with the rest of society.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefan B. Kirmse, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin

Stefan B. Kirmse is a Senior Research Fellow and Research Coordinator at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin and a Senior Lecturer at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is the author of Youth and Globalization in Central Asia (2013), and the editor of Youth in the Former Soviet South (2011) and One Law for All? (2012).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Minority rights and legal integration in the Russian empire

2. Borderlands no more: Crimea and Kazan in the mid-nineteenth century

3. Implementing legal change: new courts for Crimea and Kazan

4. Images and practices in the new courts: the enactment of monarchy, modesty, and cultural diversity

5. Seeking justice: Muslim Tatars go to court

6. Confronting the state: peasant resistance over land and faith

7. Dealing with unrest: crime and punishment in the 'crisis years' 1878–79

Conclusion.

More information here

BOOK: Alla POZDNAKOVA, ed., Russian Revolutions of 1917: Scandinavian Perspectives (London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill Publishing, 2019). ISBN 9780854902750, €65.40

(Source: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill Publishing)

Wildy, Simmonds and Hill Publishing has published an edited collection on Scandinavian perspectives to the Russian revolution of 1917.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ten legal scholars explore facets of the 1917 Russian revolutions from the standpoint of Russian law (transition to a market economy), Comparative law (the impact of the 1917 Revolutions on the Soviet and post-Soviet legal experience; the development of comparative legal studies in Russia, and similarities and differences between Soviet and German Nazi law), and public international law (Russian fishing activities off Finnmark; Norwegian recognition policies vis-a-vis Russia; and the enduring importance of the Martens Clause in international humanitarian law). 

The volume is complemented by a substantial selection of documents on Scandinavian-Russian legal relations between 1917 and 1928. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alla Pozdnakova is Professor of Law at the University of Oslo in Norway 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction (Alla Pozdnakova)
History of the 1917 Russian Revolution(s): An Overview (Asmund Egge)

RUSSIAN LAW
Ten Years that Shook the World: How Russia Became a Market Economy - Or Did It? (Kaj Hober)
Real Property Privatization in Pre- and Post-Soviet Russia: Different or the Same? (Tina Soliman Hunter)

COMPARATIVE LAW
The Impact of the Russian Revolution: A Century of Revolutionary Law (William E. Butler)
Russian Comparative Law Before and After the 1917 Revolutions(Irina Fodchenko)
Law and the Russian Revolution: A Comparison with the Nazi Approach to Law (Hans Petter Graver)

INTERNATIONAL LAW
Russian Fishing Activities Off the Coast of Finnmark: A Legal History (Kirsti Strom Bull)
Revolution, Requisition, and Recognition: Norwegian-Soviet Relations, 1917-1925 (Ola Mestad)
Importance of the Martens Clause for the Development of International Humanitarian Law (Gentian Zyberi)

DOCUMENTS ON SCANDINAVIAN/RUSSIAN RELATIONS
Scandinavian Treaties with the RSFSR and the USSR; 1918-1928 (William E. Butler)
- Denmark
- Finland
- Iceland
- Norway
- Sweden

INDEX OF NAMES

More information here

BOOK: David M. CROWE, Ed., Stalin’s Soviet Justice: ‘Show’ Trials, War Crimes Trials, and Nuremberg (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). ISBN 9781350083363, £73.44

(Source: Bloomsbury)

 Bloomsbury has published a new edited collection on law and the justice system under Joseph Stalin.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the 'show' trials of the 1920s and 1930s to the London Conference, this book examines the Soviet role in the Nuremberg IMT trial through the prism of the ideas and practices of earlier Soviet legal history, detailing the evolution of Stalin's ideas about the trail of Nazi war criminals.

Stalin believed that an international trial for Nazi war criminals was the best way to show the world the sacrifices his country had made to defeat Hitler, and he, together with his legal mouthpiece Andrei Vyshinsky, maintained tight control over Soviet representatives during talks leading up to the creation of the Nuremberg IMT trial in 1945, and the trial itself. But Soviet prosecutors at Nuremberg were unable to deal comfortably with the complexities of an open, western-style legal proceeding, which undercut their effectiveness throughout the trial. However, they were able to present a significant body of evidence that underscored the brutal nature of Hitler's racial war in Russia from 1941-45, a theme which became central to Stalin's efforts to redefine international criminal law after the war.

Stalin's Soviet Justice provides a nuanced analysis of the Soviet justice system at a crucial turning point in European history and it will be vital reading for scholars and advanced students of the legal history of the Soviet Union, the history of war crimes and the aftermath of the Second World War.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

David M. Crowe is Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, USA and Professor Emeritus of History & Law at Elon University, USA. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute and a Fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies' 2010 Richard Stites Senior Scholar Award for Contributions to the Field of Slavic Studies. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction, David M. Crowe (Elon University, USA)
1. Late Imperial and Soviet 'Show' Trials, 1878-1938, David M. Crowe (Elon University, USA) 
2. Traitors or War Criminals: Collaboration on Trial in Soviet Courts in the 1940s, Alexander V. Prusin (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, USA)
3. 'Nikto ne zabyt': The Politicization of Soviet War Dead, Thomas Earl Porter (North Carolina A&T State University, USA)
4. The Human Face of Soviet Justice: Aron Trainin and the Origins of the Soviet Doctrine of International Criminal Law, Valentyna Polunina (Heidelberg University, Germany)
5. 'May Justice be Done!': The Soviet Union and the London Conference (1945), Irina Schulmeister-André (Independent Scholar, Germany)
6. The Soviet Union at the Palace of Justice: Law, Intrigue, and International Rivalry in the Nuremberg Trials, Francine Hirsch (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
7. Soviet Journalists at Nuremberg: Establishing the Soviet War Narrative, Jeremy Hicks (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
8. From Geneva to Nuremberg to New York: Andrei Vyshinsky, Raphaël Lemkin, and the Struggle to Outlaw Revolutionary Violence, State Terror, and Genocide, Douglas Irvin-Erickson (George Mason University, USA)
Select Bibliography
Index

More information here

SEMINAR: Vasili TOKAREV (Samara), La critique marxiste du droit en Russie (Nancy: Université de Lorraine, 30 APR 2019)

(image source: Nomôdos)

Abstract:

Notre objectif est d’analyser les racines historiques et les caractéristiques de la critique marxiste du droit en Russie, compte tenu des contextes politiques et historiques spécifiques. De façon générale, il s’agit de mettre en lumière la naissance et l’évolution de la pensée juridique marxiste et le rôle des responsables de l’application du droit qui utilisaient le « sens de la justice révolutionnaire » comme source juridique formelle dans la consolidation de la « démocratie populaire » et dans la construction d’un État de type socialiste qui se distingue par son originalité qualitative. Il faut comprendre pourquoi le marxisme qui est une orientation fort critique de la pensée politique, s’est facilement enraciné dans une Russie. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les conceptions du droit de Plekhanov, de Lénine, de Boukharine, de Pasukanis, etc. et son influence sur le droit public et le droit privé russe (1917-1991).

Programme:

 14h00 : Intervention de Vassili Tokarev, Professeur invité, Chef de la chaire d'histoire du droit, Directeur de laboratoire de recherche en sciences juridiques et historiques de la Faculté de Droit de l'Académie d'Etat de la région de Samara (Nayanova - Russie)

More information on Nomôdos.

BOOK: Natalia KROLIKOWSKA-JEDLINSKA, Law and Division of Power in the Crimean Khanate (1532-1774) (Leiden-New York: Brill, 2019). ISBN 978-90-04-38432-3, €102.00

(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a book on law in the Crimean Khanate.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Crimean Khanate was often treated as a semi-nomadic, watered-down version of the Golden Horde, or yet another vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. This book revises these views by exploring the Khanate’s political and legal systems, which combined well organized and well developed institutions, which were rooted in different traditions (Golden Horde, Islamic and Ottoman). Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the Crimean court registers from the reign of Murad Giray (1678-1683), the book examines the role of the khan, members of his council and other officials in the Crimean political and judicial systems as well as the practice of the Crimean sharia court during the reign of Murad Giray.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalia Królikowska-Jedlińska, Ph.D. (2010), University of Warsaw, is Assistant Professor at that university. She has published articles on the Crimean Khanate and the Northern Caucasus in the Early Modern Period.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

 The Chronological Scope of the Research

 Outline of the Book

Acknowledgments

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Note on Place Names, Proper Names, and Transliteration

Concordance of Frequently Mentioned Place Names

Glossary

Introduction

 Historiography of the Crimean Khanate

 Sources

1 Murad Giray and His Times

 1 The Context of the Crimean Khanate Ruled by Murad Giray

 2 Murad Giray as Viewed by Crimean Chroniclers

2 The Household, Deputies, and the Council of the Khan

 1 The Khan’s Household

 2 The Kalga

 3 The Nuraddin and His Officials

 4 The Khan’s Council

3 The Khan and the Nobles

 1 The Crimean Nobles to 1532

 2 The Crimean Nobles in the Years from 1532 to 1774

4 Provincial Kadıs and Their Courts

 1 The Kadı and Court Personnel

 2 The Limitations of the Judicial Power of the Kadı and His Subordinates

5 Law and Its Practice in the Khanate’s Sharia Courts

 1 The Law Applied in the Crimean Courts

 2 Litigants of the Sharia Courts: A Basic Statistical Analysis

Conclusion: A Fragile Balance

Appendices

Appendix I: Transliteration, Translation, and Facsimile of the Order Issued by Khan Canibeg Giray

Appendix II: Transliteration, Translation, and Facsimile of a Case Brought to the Council of Murad Giray

Appendix III: Summaries of the Cases Judged at the Khan’s Council (1678–82)

Appendix IV: List of the Officials Recorded in the Crimean Sicils during the Reign of Murad Giray

Selected Bibliography

Index

More information here

BOOK: William POMERANZ, Law and the Russian State: Russia’s Legal Evolution from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). ISBN 9781474224222, £76.50

(Source: Bloomsbury)

At the end of December, Bloomsbury is publishing a new book on Russian legal history from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Russia is often portrayed as a regressive, even lawless country, and yet the Russian state has played a major role in shaping and experimenting with law as an instrument of power. In Law and the Russian State, William E. Pomeranz examines Russia's legal evolution from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, addressing the continuities and disruptions of Russian law during the imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods along the way. The book covers key themes, including:

* Law and empire

* Law and modernization

* The politicization of law

* The role of intellectuals and dissidents in mobilizing the law

* The evolution of Russian legal institutions

* The struggle for human rights

* The rule-of-law

* The quest to establish the law-based state

It also analyzes legal culture and how Russians understand and use the law. Including a useful glossary and a detailed bibliography, this is an important text for anyone seeking a sophisticated understanding of how Russian society and the Russian state have developed in the last 350 years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Pomeranz is the Deputy Director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., USA. In addition, Dr Pomeranz teaches Russian law at the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies, Georgetown University, USA. He has written numerous journal articles on post-Soviet legal developments, including Russian foreign investment laws, judicial review, federalism, and corruption. He is also a frequent commentator on developments in Russia, with appearances on C-Span, Sky News, CNN, NPR, VOA, Bloomberg, and several other media networks. His editorials have appeared with Reuters, the National Interest, and CNN International.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Law and Empire under Peter the Great

2. The Expansion of Russian Legality

3. The Judicial Reforms of 1864 and the Modernization of Russian Law

4. Law, Politics, and Revolution

5. Filling in the Blanks: The Creation of Socialist Law

6. Socialist Legality and Illegality

7. Russia's Long Constitutional Crisis: 1985-1993

8. The 1993 Constitution and Russia's Liberal Experiment

9. Vladimir Putin and the Restoration of State and Law

Conclusion

Bibliography

More information here

BOOK: Will SMILEY, From Slaves to Prisoners of War - The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law [The History and Theory of International Law] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780198785415, £65.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a book on the concept of prisoners of war in the context of the 18^th century Ottoman-Russian wars.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Ottoman-Russian wars of the eighteenth century reshaped the map of Eurasia and the Middle East, but they also birthed a novel concept - the prisoner of war. For centuries, hundreds of thousands of captives, civilians and soldiers alike, crossed the legal and social boundaries of these empires, destined for either ransom or enslavement. But in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state and its Russian rival, through conflict and diplomacy, worked out a new system of regional international law. Ransom was abolished; soldiers became prisoners of war; and some slaves gained new paths to release, while others were left entirely unprotected. These rules delineated sovereignty, redefined individuals' relationships to states, and prioritized political identity over economic value. In the process, the Ottomans marked out a parallel, non-Western path toward elements of modern international law. Yet this was not a story of European imposition or imitation-the Ottomans acted for their own reasons, maintaining their commitment to Islamic law. For a time even European empires played by these rules, until they were subsumed into the codified global law of war in the late nineteenth century. This story offers new perspectives on the histories of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, of slavery, and of international law.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Smiley, Assistant Professor of History & Humanities, Reed College

Will Smiley is a historian of the Middle East and of international and Islamic law, with a particular interest in the Ottoman Empire. He is Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and his JD from Yale Law School, and previously held fellowships in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and in Legal History at New York University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1: Into Captivity

2: Slavery and Ransom

3: From the Law of Ransom to the Law of Release

4: Defining the Law of Release

5: Prisoners of War

6: Negotiating the Prisoner-of-War System

7: The Rules Expand

8: Those Left Out

9: Reform and Reciprocity

10: Humanitarianism and Legal Codification

Conclusion

More information with the publisher