by James Millar
PRINCIPALITIES AND MUSCOVY
As in Western Europe, the early history of Russian law is marked by an initial reliance on oral customary legal norms giving way in time to written law codes and judicial institutions heavily influenced by religious sources. The oldest documentary records of Russian customary law are several treaties concluded by Kievan Rus in the tenth century with Byzantium. These treaties included Russian principles of criminal law that, like their counterparts in Western Europe, were heavily reliant on a system of vengeance and monetary compensation for harm committed against another. One interesting feature of Russian customary law was that women enjoyed a higher, more independent status under Russian law than under contemporary Byzantine law.
The introduction of Christianity to Kievan Rus exposed the Russians both to the notion of written law as well as canon law principles imported from Byzantium. In the eleventh century, Russian customary law was set down in writing comprehensively for the first time in the Russkaya Pravda, which focused on criminal law and procedure and incorporated principles of blood feud and monetary compensation for damages. Later versions of the Russkaya Pravda included elements of civil and commercial law, which were heavily drawn from German and Byzantine sources. Courts under the Russkaya Pravda consisted of tribunals of the elder members of the local community, rather than genuine state-sponsored courts. While some scholars maintain that the Russkaya Pravda was in force over all of ancient Russia, others argue that its effect was much more limited to only a few principalities. Where it was enforced, the Russkaia Pravda remained in effect until the seventeenth century.
During the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, Russian law was modified to support the emerging Muscovite autocracy. In particular, the legal status of the peasants was reduced to serfdom. During this same period, several important written collections of law were adopted dealing with criminal, civil, administrative, and commercial law and procedure. Under the Sudebnik of 1497, torture was institutionalized as a normal tool of criminal investigations. The Ulozhenie of 1649, which remained the principal basis for much of Russian law for two centuries, consisted of 967 articles covering most areas of the law. The criminal law sections of the Ulozhenie were noted for introducing more severe punishments into Russian law (burying alive, burning, mutilation). These documents were not well-organized, systematized codes of law, but were merely collections of existing laws, decrees, and administrative regulations.
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Beginning with Peter the Great, several tsars attempted to rationalize the Russian legal system by introducing Western innovations and bolstering their autocratic rule by improving the efficiency with which Russian courts went about their business. Toward this end, Peter established the Senate to supervise the courts and punish corrupt or incompetent judges as well as the office of the procurator-general, which was established in 1722 to oversee the Senate and to supervise the enforcement of laws and decrees. The office of the Russian procurator-general continues to this day.
One of the most intractable problems facing Russian legal reformers was the morass of unorganized and undifferentiated laws and decrees in effect. The Russian legal system sat on a foundation of out-of-date or half-forgotten laws, decrees, and procedures, and judges and government officials were hard-pressed to know which laws were in effect at any given moment. In the nineteenth cenLEGAL SYSTEMS
A guard stands by the defendant in a 1992 murder trial in St. Petersburg. The accused is kept in a cage inside the courtroom. © STEVE RAYMER/CORBIS tury, Russian specialists under the direction of M. M. Speransky attempted to rationalize this material by collecting and distilling it into a fifteen-volume digest, the Svod zakonov rossiiskoi imperii, published in 1832.
The most significant tsarist-era legal reforms were adopted in 1864, when a modern, Western-style judicial system was introduced in the aftermath of the emancipation of the serfs. The new judicial system introduced professional judges and lawyers, trial by jury, modern evidentiary rules, justices of the peace, and modern criminal investigation procedures drawn from Continental models. Reaction to these liberal judicial reforms set in during the reign of Alexander II after the acquittal of several famous dissidents, including the assassin Vera Zasulich, and the independence of the courts in political cases was significantly eroded after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. Despite this reaction, the institutions established by the Judicial Reforms of 1864 remained in effect until 1917.
SOVIET REGIME
A decree adopted in late 1917, On the Court, abolished the tsarist judicial institutions, including the courts, examining magistrates, and bar association. However, during the first years following the Bolshevik Revolution, legal nihilists such as E. Pashukanis, who advocated the rapid withering away of the courts and other state institutions, contended with more pragmatic leaders who envisioned the legal system as an important asset in asserting and defending Soviet state power. The latter group prevailed. Vladimir Lenin, during the New Economic Policy, sought to re-establish laws, courts, legal profession, and a new concept of socialist legality to provide more stability in society and central authority for the Party hierarchy. The debate between the legal nihilists and their opponents was definitively resolved by Josef Stalin in the early 1930s. As Stalin asserted control over the Party and initiated industrialization and collectivization, he also asserted the importance of stabilizing the legal system. This process culminated in the 1936 constitution, which strengthened law
841
LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION OF 1767-1768
and legal institutions, especially administrative law, civil, family, and criminal law.
The broad outlines of the legal system established by Stalin in the 1930s remained in effect until the late 1980s. Reforms introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, however, made significant changes in the Soviet judicial system. Gorbachev sponsored a lengthy public discussion of how to introduce pravovoe gosudarstvo (law-based state) in the USSR and introduced legislation to improve the independence and authority of judges and to establish the Committee for Constitutional Supervision, a constitutional court.
POST-SOVIET REFORMS
In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has adopted a wide array of legislation remaking many aspects of its judicial system, drawing heavily on foreign models. Most of the legislation that has been adopted was foreshadowed in the 1993 constitution and includes new laws and procedure codes for the ordinary courts and the ar-bitrazh courts, which are courts devoted to matters arising from business and commerce, new civil and criminal codes, and a new land code, finally adopted in 2001. See also: COOPERATIVES, LAW ON; FAMILY LAW OF 1936; FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF 1906; GOVERNING SENATE; PROCURACY; RUSSIAN JUSTICE; STATE ENTERPRISE, LAW OF THE; SUCCESSION, LAW ON; SUDEBNIK OF 1497
MICHAEL NEWCITY
44; industrialists, 7; chancery clerks, 19; tribesmen, 54. Deputies brought instructions, or nakazy, from the bodies that selected them. Catherine’s Nakaz (Great Instruction) was read at the opening sessions and provided a basis for some of the discussion that followed. The commission met in 203 sessions and discussed existing laws on the nobility, on the Baltic nobility, on the merchant estate, and on justice and judicial procedure. No decisions were made by the commission on these matters, and no code of laws was produced. The Legislative Commission was nevertheless significant: It gave Catherine an important source of information and insight into concerns and attitudes of different social groups, through both the nakazy and the discussions which took place, including a discussion on serfdom; it provided an opportunity for the discussion and dissemination of the ideas in Catherine’s Nakaz; it led to the establishment of several subcommittees, which continued to meet after the prorogation of the commission, and which produced draft laws that Catherine utilized for subsequent legislation. See also: CATHERINE II; INSTRUCTION TO THE LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION OF CATHERINE II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dukes, Paul. (1967.) Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobi
lity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Madariaga, Isabel de. (1981). Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
JANET HARTLEY
LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION OF 1767-1768
In December 1766, Catherine II called upon the free “estates” (nobles, townspeople, state peasants, Cossacks) and central government offices to select deputies to attend a commission to participate in the preparation of a new code of laws. The purpose of the commission was therefore consultative; it was not intended to be a parliament in the modern sense. The Legislative Commission opened in Moscow in July 1767, then moved to St. Petersburg in February 1768. Following the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War in January 1769, it was prorogued and never recalled. The selection of deputies was a haphazard affair. The social composition of the assembly was: nobles, 205; merchants, 167; odnod-vortsy (descendants of petty servicemen on the southern frontiers), 42; state peasants, 29; Cossacks,
LEICHOUDES, IOANNIKIOS AND SOPHRONIOS
Greek hieromonks, Ioannikios (secular name: Ioannes, 1633-1717) and Sophronios (secular name: Spyridon, 1652-1730).
The two brothers Leichoudes were born on the Greek island of Kephallenia. They studied philosophy and theology in Greek-run schools in Venice. Sophronios received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua in 1670. Between 1670 and 1683, they worked as preachers and teachers in Kephallenia and in Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire. In 1683 they reached Constantinople, where they preached in the Patriarchal court. Following a Russian request for teachers, they arLEIPZIG, BATTLE OF rived in Moscow in 1685. There they established the first formal educational institution in Russian history, the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, and participated in a heated debate known as the Eucharist conflict, principally against Sylvester Medvedev. They taught in the Academy until 1694, when they were removed for attempted flight after a scandal involving one of their relatives. After a brief stint as translators in the Muscovite Printing Office and as tutors of Italian, they were accused of heresy by one of their former students. Between 1698 and 1706, they were transferred to various monasteries, both in Moscow and in other towns, where they continued their authorial activities. In 1706 they were sent to Novgorod and established a school under the supervision of Metropolitan Iov. In 1707 Sophronios was recalled to Moscow to work in a Greek school there. Ioannikios taught in Novgorod until 1716, when he joined his brother in Moscow. After his brother’s death, Sophronios continued his teaching activities until 1723, when he became archimandrite of the Solotsinsky monastery in Ryazan until his death. The two brothers authored or coauthored many polemical (anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant), philosophical, and theological works, sermons, panegyrics, orations, and, most important, textbooks for their students. A large part of these textbooks were adaptations of those used in Jesuit colleges. Through their educational activities, the Leichoudes, though Orthodox, imparted to their students the Jesuit interpretation of Aristotelian philosophy, and the Baroque culture of contemporary Europe. As such, they contributed to the Russian elite’s westernization and its preparedness to accept Peter the Great’s own westernizing reforms. See also: ORTHODOXY; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH; SLAVO-GRECO-LATIN ACADEMY; WESTERNIZERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chrissidis, Nikolaos A. (2000). “Creating the New Educated Elite: Learning and Faith in Moscow’s Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, 1685-1694.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
NIKOLAOS A. CHRISSIDIS
against Napoleon’s army from October 16 to 19, 1813.
Napoleon’s army (approximately 200,000 troops, 747 field guns), concentrated near Leipzig, faced four allied armies, totaling 305,000 troops- 125,000 of them Russian, 90,000 Austrian, 72,000 Prussians, 18,000 Swedes-and 1,385 field guns. The battle took place on a plain near Leipzig on October 16, mainly on the grounds of the Bohemian army (133,000 men, commanded by the Austrian field marshal Karl Schwarzenberg), which approached the city from the south. Napoleon tried to defeat the coalition armies one by one. He concentrated 122,000 men against the Bohemian army, and 50,000 under the command of marshal Michel Ney against the Silesian army (60,000 men, commanded by the Prussian general Gebhardt Bl?cher), attacking from the north.
The opposing sides’ positions did not suffer much change by the end of the day. Casualties turned out to be relatively even (30,000 each), but the allies’ casualties were compensated with the arrival of the North army (58,000 men, commanded by Karl-Juhan Bernadotte) and the Polish army (54,000 men, commanded by Russian general Leonty Bennigsen) on October 17. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s army received a mere 25,000 men as a reinforcement.
On the morning of October 18, the allies attacked Napoleon’s positions. As a result of a fierce battle, they gained no significant territorial advantage. The allies, however, sent only 200,000 men to battle, while 100,000 more were kept in reserve. The French, meanwhile, had nearly exhausted their ammunition. On the night of October 18, Napoleon’s armies were drawn back to Leipzig, and began their retreat in the morning. In the middle of the day on October 19, the allies entered Leipzig.
Napoleon’s losses at Leipzig amounted to 100,000 men killed, wounded, and taken captive, and 325 field guns. The allies lost approximately 80,000 men, of them 38,000 Russians. The allied victory at Leipzig led to the cleansing of the territories of Germany and Holland of Napoleon’s forces. See also: NAPOLEON I
LEIPZIG, BATTLE OF
The “Battle of Nations” near Leipzig between allied Russian, Prussian, Austrian, and Swedish armies
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nafziger, George F. (1996). Napoleon at Leipzig: the Battle of Nations, 1813. Chicago, IL: Emperor’s Press.
LENA GOLDFIELDS MASSACRE
Smith, Digby George. (2001). 1813, Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations. London: Greenhill Books; Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.
OLEG BUDNITSKII
LENA GOLDFIELDS MASSACRE
The Lena Goldfields Massacre of April 4, 1912, shook Russian society and rekindled the revolutionary and workers’ movements after the post-1905 repression. The shooting occurred during a strike at the gold fields on the upper branches of the Lena River to the northeast of Lake Baikal. The Lena Goldfields Company, owned by prominent Russian and British investors, had recently established a monopoly of the region’s mines, which produced most of Russia’s gold. Individuals of the highest government rank held managerial positions in the company. The fact that Russia’s currency was on the gold standard further enhanced the company’s significance. Especially after the joint shocks of the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905, the ruble’s health in association with renewed economic expansion vitally concerned the imperial government. When the strike broke out during late February 1912 in protest of generally poor conditions, the government and company officials in St. Petersburg naturally wished to limit the strike. These hopes were frustrated by a group of employees and workers, political exiles with past socialist and strike experience, who provided careful advice to the strikers. Consequently, the workers avoided overstepping the boundaries of legal strike activity. Company officials refused to meet the main strike demands, including a shorter workday and higher pay. Workers, whose patience had been tried by repeated company violations of the work contract and existing labor laws, as confirmed by the chief mining inspector and the governor of Irkutsk province, refused to end the strike without real concessions.
Working closely with company officials, the government sent a company of soldiers to join the small contingent already on duty near the mines and finally, after all negotiations failed, decided to break the five-week impasse by arresting the strike leaders. This ill-advised action carried out on April 3 only strengthened the workers’ resolve. On April 4, a large crowd of unarmed miners headed for the administration building to petition for the release of the leaders. Alarmed by the sudden appearance of four thousand workers, police and army officers ordered the soldiers to open fire. Roughly five hundred workers were shot, about half mor
tally. Subsequently, the official government investigative commission under Senator Sergei Manukhin blamed the company and high government officials both for the conditions that underlay the strike and for the shooting.
The shooting unleashed a firestorm of protest against the government and the company, including in the press and in the State Duma. Especially damaging were accusations of collusion between state and company officials aimed at using force to end the peaceful strike. Even groups normally supportive of the government levied a barrage of criticism. On a scale not seen since 1905, strikes broke out all over Russia and did not cease until the outbreak of World War I. The revolutionary parties also swung into action with leaflets and demonstrations. The oppositionist movement found its cause inadvertently aided when Minister of the Interior Nikolai Makarov asserted to the State Duma about the shooting: “Thus it has always been and thus it will always be.” This phrase, which caused an additional firestorm of protest, seemed to symbolize the government’s stance toward laboring Russia. Spurred by the shooting and the government’s attitude, revolutionary activities again plagued the tsarist regime, now permanently stamped as perpetrator of the Lena Goldfields Massacre. See also: OCTOBER REVOLUTION; REVOLUTION OF 1905; WORKERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Melancon, Michael. (1993). “The Ninth Circle: The Lena Goldfield Workers and the Massacre of 4 April 1912.” Slavic Review 53(3):766-795. Melancon, Michael. (2002). “Unexpected Consensus: Russian Society and the Lena Massacre, April 1912.” Revolutionary Russia 15(2):1-52.
MICHAEL MELANCON
LEND LEASE
Lend-lease was a system of U.S. assistance to the Allies in World War II. It was based on a bill of March, 11, 1941, that gave the president of the United States the right to sell, transfer into property, lease, and rent various kinds of weapons or