Legal state and «state of the truth» in the works of M.V. Shakhmatov

Abstract

In the early 1920s, the Eurasian movement emerged in the Russian emigration. Its representatives tried to explain the causes of the Russian revolution, re-evaluating the historical path of the country and its cultural characteristics development. In the first half of the 1920s, the movement loudly declared itself and quickly gained popularity among the Russian intelligentsia. Its leaders began to attract new authors for publication in Eurasian publications, including Mstislav Vyacheslavovich Shakhmatov, a graduate of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. He published only two articles in Eurasian publications. However, its role and importance in the Eurasian movement in modern historiography is estimated differently: from being ranked among the founders of Eurasianism to denying any significant role in its history. M.V. Shakhmatov considered the features of the ideal state doctrine of the old Russian principalities and the Moscow Kingdom based on Chronicles and other works of ancient Russian script in his works published in the Eurasian Periodicals. M.V. Shakhmatov thought that the right to the content was super-conscious and followed from religious premises, from the truth of God. Ancient people spread these ideals to the area of state-legal phenomena. In his opinion, the state set three main tasks: the protection of Orthodoxy, the establishment of the truth on earth and protection of the physical existence of the people. The idea of podvigopolozhnichestvo of the Supreme power of the early history of Christianity came from Byzantium. M.V. Shakhmatov noted that the political reality of the life of the old Russian principalities and council cities was very different from the ideals laid down in the chronicles and other works of ancient Russian script. However, the ideal of the state of the truth is remained in the works of Slavophiles, F.M. Dostoevsky, P.I. Novgorodtsev, and individual manifestations in the practice of the Russian Empire.