STATE APPARATUS AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT ON UKRAINIAN LANDS AS A PART OF THE RUSSIAN AND AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE: HISTORIOGRAPHIC-PRESENT

Abstract

Introduction. The article is devoted to the problem of historiography of historical and legal research in independent Ukraine. This aspect of the history of law and the state in Ukraine has been in the process of formation these days. Historical and legal studies of the state apparatus and local self-government bodies of the Russian and Austrian Empires (since 1867 - the Austro-Hungarian empires) have been selected by subject area. Legal and historiographic analysis of the achievements of Ukrainian science on this issue has been carried out for the first time. Summary of the main research results. This period was one of the most difficult in the history of our country. In both cases, the imperial authorities sought to assimilate Ukrainian people, deprive them of their identity and cultural identity, as well as legal traditions. Ukrainian national statehood was abolished by the cultural-national and political-legal offensive of the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century. On the one hand, in these extremely difficult conditions of oppression and violent acculturation pressure, the task of preserving cultural and legal identity was fulfilled, on the other hand, after the Great reforms of the 1860s-1870s, a more effective state apparatus was formed than before, which relatively successfully performed its tasks in the new historical conditions of the Ukrainian national revolution of 1917-1921. Based on the above, historical and legal studies of these periods and problems have significant scientific relevance. Ukrainian science of the history of the state and law after the collapse of the USSR and the restoration of independent Ukrainian statehood, faced the task of moving away from ideological and class stereotypes, the transition to methodological pluralism. In general, leading Ukrainian scientists have successfully coped with this task. Conclusions. Along with the deideologized and modernized historical-materialist (Marxist) method in accordance with modern conditions, culturological and civilizational method, genetically close to it, began to be increasingly used. The application of the functional theory of the origin and development of state authorities was particularly successful, which led to a stronger analysis of law enforcement activities. This was a factor in the spread of sociological and legal understanding of law in domestic historical and legal research, analysis of social causes of law-making and social consequences of the application of law, i.e. historical and legal study of the social depth of legal and state institutions.