Abstract
The article explores the concept of legal pluralism. According to this concept law is regarded as a complex and multifaceted system of social regulation. It is confirmed that legal pluralism in general is opposed to a monistic understanding of the world. It is proved that the concept of "legal pluralism" was formed in the framework of such areas of legal thought as the sociology of law (G. D. Gurvich, E. Ehrlich, L. I. Petrazhitsky, P. A. Sorokin, N. S. Timashev, etc.), legal ethnology and legal anthropology (B. Malinovsky, A. R. RadcliffeBrown, etc.). The author affirms that at present the principle of legal pluralism is moving from the field of scientific discussions toward legal life. It was stated that legal pluralism rejects definitions of law exclusively as a result of state activity, and presupposes the existence of an unofficial law as a fact of legal reality. State law in this perspective is considered in one phenomenological series with canonical law, law of corporations, international law, norms of other social institutions. Summarizing, the author supports the point of view that the legal reality is more diverse than standardized and unified state rules of conduct. It can be argued that legal pluralism, denying the definition of law exclusively as a result of state activity, implies the existence of an informal law as a legal reality. This follows from the fact of social relations that are legal by their very nature. In other words, the pluralist approach refutes the one-line evolution of law, confirms the plurality of its forms and allows us to prove the existence of unofficial law in the legal life.
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