Intellectual history of a textbook: Radomir Lukić's introduction to law between Marx and Kelsen

Abstract

Radomir Lukic’s Introduction to Law was a model textbook in Communist Yugoslavia for nearly fifty years. Still in use as a learning source in present-day Serbia, it combines Marxist theory of law with Kelsen’s normativism in order to explain the legal rule as a social fact without denying its normative dimension. In order to discern the reasons for and patterns of this synthesis, the paper compares the first five consecutive editions of Lukic’s textbook, as milestones of the author’s intellectual evolution. The initial hypothesis is that Lukic’s teaching was no more than a reinterpretation of his Parisian doctoral thesis from the late 1930s. Inspired by French theory of social law and despite being Marxist, his teaching was not of Marxist origin. As such, it facilitates understanding of the Communist theory of law, especially Marxist perception and reception of Kelsenian normativism.