Russian Legal Mentality: Experience of Reconstruction and Representation of the Phenomenon of "Snitch" meaning "Abuse of Procedural Rights" (Based on the Materials of Russian Legislation of the 17th-19th Centuries)

Abstract

Historical science shows a growing interest in the study of images of the past, images of historical reality; the reconstruction of mentalities is becoming a priority in the field of historical knowledge. The paper aims at finding (developing) methodological tools for a retrospective study of the legal mentality, as well as its subsequent representation.Historians and legal theorists are paying more and more attention to the process of forming concepts and relevant terminology. At the same time, the "supraconceptual field", namely the field of images, contains a significant potential for both reconstruction and representation of mentalities and historical phenomena (events). The concept itself is only one of the triggers forming images associated with it and partly generated by it. Legal concepts are the object of linguoculturology of law as one of its branches. At the same time, the author believes that the historical legal science should more actively use the appropriate scientific tools on an interdisciplinary basis. In terms of the reconstruction of legal phenomena, their image will help to study the phenomena that are immersed in the mentality of the corresponding era in a more systematic and comprehensive manner. In terms of the representation of legal phenomena, a well-chosen image recognizable by the recipient of the results of legal historical research can serve as a relay of "contextually packed" information (with elements of both rational and evaluative or emotional information) about a legal historical phenomenon.The paper attempts to reconstruct and represent the phenomenon of a "snitch" in the sense of "abuse of procedural rights" by means of a chronotropic, figurative model. The reconstructive and representational model is based on the image symbol of the trial as "roads-paths-tracksways" and snitches are considered as a "path".