Criticism of Texts of Legislative Acts of the Russian Empire in the Political and Legal Work of N. M. Yadrintsev

Abstract

The publication concerns the problem of analysis of some legislative acts of imperial Russia in the political and legal ideology of the regionalists. An attempt has been made to show the diversity of references in the language of the regional doctrine to legislation and legal terms. It is shown that representatives of the Siberian regionalism movement were very selective in their analysis of the texts of legal acts of the Russian Empire, which was due to their interests for specific problems.
 The authors found that while theoretically analyzing various government decrees on the proportionality of punishment and reduction of exile, such as Decrees of 1811 and 1821, as well as the Charter of 1822 on exiles, the Siberian thinker assessed the system of punishments as unsatisfactory. The attitude to this type of criminal punishment among legal scholars of the second half of the XIX century was ambiguous.
 It is emphasized that the application of progressive views of legal scholars is very often observed in the political and legal ideology of regionalism. For example, N. M. Yadrintsev referred to the provisions of the International Prison Congress of Stockholm.
 The authors comes to the conclusion that the textual analysis of the legislation by the regionalists in regard to the penitentiary policy of the state, including the problem of exile and maintenance of convicts, together with references to the doctrine of law, made it possible to comprehensively approach the solution of certain political and legal problems.