Law in the East Slavic legal-cultural space

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine the main features, institutions and patterns of the development of law in the era of pre-state formations on the example of East Slavic state formations, as well as those state formations and states (the Grand Duchyof Lithuania, Ulus of Jochi, the Kingdoms of Poland and Hungary, Wallachian, and Slavic-Wallachian principalities, etc.), under the influence or power of which the aforementioned Eastern Slavic state formations fell in the studied period of the 9th–15th centuries. The term East Slavic legal-cultural space is used to denote this territorial and political massif. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of historiography, the main theoretical approaches to the characterization of law at the pre-state and early state stages of the political development of society are determined. The main attention in the work is paid to the characteristics of specifically historical features of law and state power in the East Slavic legal-cultural space of the 9th–15th centuries. It is concluded that the law of Ancient Rus’ state formations is clearly distinguished from both the law of modern states and the traditional/primitive/archaic law, which arose and was formed in a naturally historical way. At the same time, this law is fundamentally different from the law of constituent states, which does not allow it to be classified as corporate law. At this stage, it seems logical to use one of the definitions of the Anglo-American Concepts of early law for this stage of the development of law:primitive or ancient law. Key words: Legal history, East Slavic, Kyivan Rus, Old Rus, state formations, Barbarian state, Medieval Law, Ancient Rus’ Law, Source of Law, oral law, written law, Legal Treaty.