Fate of a scholar in the fate of a country (about the book “N. S. Nizhnik, S. Y. Dergileva State and Law in Theoretical-Legal Views of A. I. Elistratov: monography. – M.; Yurlitinform, 2017. – 376 p.” as about an invitation to ponder)

Abstract

This article discusses a monographic study dedicated to the prominent Russian legal scholar A. I. Elistratov (1822-1955), whose life and works fell on the different historical periods, including a tragic crisis time. The authors of the monograph N. S. Nizhnik, S. Y. Dergileva characterize the intellectual biography of the scholar and his sociopolitical activity in the context of establishment of the police-legal theory within the European and national educational scientific tradition. Subsequent changes in the attitude towards legal scholar and his scientific writings that were popular in Russia prior to the October Revolution are demonstrated through the prism of transformation of state-legal, political-ideological, socioeconomic, educational-scientific customs of the national culture. An effective reconstruction of the scientific biography of A. I. Elistratov became possible due to careful attention to the heritage of national police science and Soviet science of administrative law as a whole, as well as anthropocentric scenario of the conducted research. From the standpoint of historicism and anthropological approach, the peer reviews turns attention to functionality in the culture of complex mechanisms that ensure succession of the traditions. The new monographs demonstrates the importance and research prospects of the separate storylines related to the formation of scholar’s personality and his realization of scientific-pedagogical and sociopolitical activity, for example on the foreign business trips and participation in seminars on law, work of law communities in pre-October Russia, dynamism of educational and scientific activity of the first Soviet decades.