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Legal Studies
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Provincial Legal Culture of the Northern Peasantry in the Context of the Implementation of Bourgeois Reforms of the Second Half of the XIX Century in Russia

Sosnina Mariya Aleksandrovna

Senior lecturer, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Northern (Arctic) Federal University

58 Lomonosov Ave., office 106, Arkhangelsk region, 163002, Russia

SosninaAGTU@yandex.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.25136/2409-7136.2023.5.38844

EDN:

PTDFJS

Received:

27-09-2022


Published:

01-06-2023


Abstract: The subject of the study is the legal culture of the northern peasantry of post-reform Russia in the period from 1861 to 1917. The implementation of the bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century was due to the absence of private feudal dependence of the majority of the northern peasantry and bright regional aspects of the peasant community. Under the influence of the history of settlement, occupation, climatic and socio-economic conditions of existence, as well as state regulation of the peasant community in the European North, the provincial legal culture of the northern peasantry was formed. Through the prism of bourgeois reforms carried out in the second half of the XIX century, the article analyzes its qualitative state and external manifestation. The study uses a formal legal method, as well as a multidimensional statistical analysis by identifying, interpreting the content and interrelationships of semantic units of protocols of parish courts, regulatory legal acts, norms of customary law. Based on the understanding of archival material and information from pre-revolutionary periodicals introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, conclusions are substantiated about a sufficiently high level of legal culture of the peasantry and the readiness of the population to be included in the legal culture of Russian society common to all estates. The study of the main results of peasant, judicial and zemstvo reforms in the northern provinces leads to the conclusion about the inconsistency and inefficiency of the policy of the government of the Russian Empire in the field of the peasant question, the unresolved nature of which led to problems not only economic, but also political. The contradictory nature of the reforms and their uneven implementation have slowed down democratic processes and violated the principle of equality of all before the law.


Keywords:

northern peasantry, legal culture, European North, peasant reform, judicial reform, zemstvo reform, volost court, legal custom, law, peasant community

This article is automatically translated.

Despite the rather extensive historiography devoted to the legal culture of peasants who emerged from serfdom in 1861, the problem of historical and legal research of the level of legal culture of state peasants is a gap in the historiography of bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century. The relevance of the study is justified by the fact that the state (state-owned) village occupied a special place in the socio-economic structure of the Russian Empire.

Discussions on the level of legal culture began in the historiography of the pre-revolutionary period. Such authors as S. V. Pakhman, I. G. Orshansky, P. Skorobogaty, A. A. Leontiev, G. A. Dashkevich, A. A. Charushin, believed that peasants were not ready to be included in the general legal field of post-reform Russia, since they were carriers of a unique legal culture incompatible with official legislation that did not regulate the main issues of peasant legal relations.

Among the most significant works of the modern period, it is necessary to note the works of V. B. Bezgin, L. I. Zemtsov, A.V. Kirillin, B. N. Mironov, T. A. Tarabanova, T. V. Shatkovskaya, I. N. Skuratova, M.A. Melnichuk, etc. The dominant point of view in pre-revolutionary and modern historiography about the low level of legal culture of the peasantry is increasingly being refuted in connection with regional archival studies of documents of volost boards, namely decisions of volost courts. Thus, the study of the post–reform village, taking into account its social and regional heterogeneity, is an important step towards the formation of a conceptual approach to this issue.

Since there is currently no research on the legal culture of the former state peasants of the post-reform period of Russian history, the purpose of this article is to analyze its qualitative state and external manifestation through the prism of bourgeois reforms carried out in the second half of the XIX century. The object of scientific work was the state village, and the subject of research was the legal culture of the northern peasantry of post-reform Russia in the period from 1861 to 1917. The study uses a formal legal method, as well as a multidimensional statistical analysis by identifying, interpreting the content and interrelationships of semantic units of protocols of parish courts, regulatory legal acts, norms of customary law.

The chronological framework of the study includes 1861 – 1917. The choice of the period is connected, first of all, with the beginning of the functioning of official peasant courts not only in the state village (according to the reform of 1837-1841 by P.D. Kiselyov), but also in connection with their extension to former landowner peasants during the peasant reform of 1861. The geographical scope includes the territory of the distribution of the system of volost courts of the Russian Empire in terms of legislative regulation in the post-reform period. To explain the specifics of the problems of this study in terms of the legal culture of the northern peasantry in the unique conditions of the volost justice of the former state village, the materials of the Arkhangelsk province within the boundaries of 1861-1917 are taken. The originality of the historical and legal development of the Arkhangelsk province, consisting in the absence of private feudal dependence, regional aspects of the peasant community, unique land use conditions, the later introduction of justice of the peace and the absence of a jury, determined the features of the provincial legal culture of northern peasants.  

The present study complements the generalizations already available in historical and legal science to recreate the mechanism for implementing the most important state transformations of the era, allows us to determine what is common and special in the process of bourgeois reforms in various regions of the country, especially since the specifics of customary law and the regulatory framework provided for these differences.

The history of the Russian Empire of the second half of the XIX century is associated with an attempt to transform the estate of Russian society into a wordless society. Of course, the bourgeois reforms initiated by Alexander II were aimed at achieving a quick result. Judicial reform, for example, was supposed to be implemented within four years, but in practice the process of implementing one of the key reforms dragged on for forty years. Zemstvo reform, to the great regret of provincial governors, was not implemented in provinces remote from the center, although the urgent need for the introduction of zemstvos was repeatedly reported to the Ministry of Internal Affairs by local authorities [14; p. 264],[7; p. 10-11]. The abolition of serfdom laid an unbearable burden on the shoulders of the Russian peasantry, and the process of including the latter in civil society was not completed until 1917. This state of affairs can be explained by several features of the development of the state-legal and social system of the Russian Empire.

Firstly, the state of Russian society for a fairly long period (from the beginning of the XVIII century to the beginning of the bourgeois reforms) must be assessed as polar, with two class poles – the nobility and the peasantry, whose social relations were regulated by legislation and custom, respectively.

Secondly, the vast territory of the Russian Empire was by no means characterized by uniform development due to the geographical, economic, social and cultural characteristics of the regions. Moreover, the composition of the peasantry was also characterized by heterogeneity within the group. By the beginning of the peasant reform, there were three main groups of peasants: serfs, state and specific. Their management was in the patrimonial jurisdiction or in the hands of officials of different departments, which also caused the spread of acts of peasant reform to former serfs, state and specific peasants at different times.              

 Thirdly, it is impossible not to dwell on the reasons of a political nature. The implementation of bourgeois reforms was accompanied by sharp political discussions between representatives of different socio-political trends. On the one hand, liberals considered it quite timely to carry out bourgeois reforms in Russia, while conservatives considered them premature. Apart from the "modernists" and "protectors" in this dispute were the "people's" authors, who were in the position of carrying out liberal reforms, taking into account the identity of the legal culture of the peasant class.

      Legal culture is a multifaceted and multidimensional concept. In modern legal literature, there are several approaches to the definition of this concept: anthropological, sociological (value), philosophical. However, the value approach is opposed to the activity approach, and the activity approach is opposed to the consideration of legal culture as a qualitative state of society's life. All together, the above approaches create a holistic view of the legal culture as:

1.                 The totality of legal values accumulated by society at a certain stage of its development;

2.                 The method of human activity (existence) in the legal sphere;

3.                 The qualitative state of the legal life of society [6; p. 8]

At the same time, the legal culture of the whole society can be concretized with the help of a social group, a method of activity, a person's legal consciousness, a region of development and the historical period of its existence. In this aspect, it seems possible to single out as a type the legal culture of the peasant community of the second half of the XIX century, namely the legal culture of the northern peasantry, since the absence of private feudal dependence in the Arkhangelsk, Olonets, partly Vologda and Vyatka provinces formed a special type of legal relations of state peasants. According to the eighth revision, the number of state peasants in the Russian Empire as a whole in the middle of the XIX century was 36.12% of the population (this is more than 9 million souls) [3; pp. 59 – 168]

The qualitative state of the provincial legal culture of the Northern peasantry was influenced by several important factors: the history of settlement of the European North, occupation, climatic and socio-economic conditions of existence, as well as state regulation of the peasant community. 

The appearance of the Russian population in the European North was associated with the spread of extensive land ownership and fishing activities.  For these reasons, the population was formed in the North to the greatest extent, which was forced to adapt to special natural and climatic conditions that influenced everyday culture, economic activity, social ties, archaic traditions were preserved here longer, the Russian cultural tradition was reproduced [5; p. 305].

The desire to control the peasant community and the fiscal interest of the state in relation to the state–owned village became the reasons for the reform of Count P.D. Kiselyov (1837-1841), carried out within the framework of the Ministry of State Property. First of all, the changes affected the system of governance and judicial proceedings (in the form of rural and volost reprisals), and the norms of peasant behavior, which were based on religious and moral principles characteristic of traditional societies, were not left aside. The legislative basis for the reform of the state village were three main acts: "Institution on the management of state property in the provinces", "Rural Police Charter" and the "Rural Judicial Charter" for state peasants. The creation of a legislative framework for state peasants became a prototype of normative legal acts in relation to the serf peasantry [12; pp. 17-25].

The reform of 1861 for peasants who came out of serfdom also introduced self–government bodies and a special court - the volost, which could be guided by local custom when making decisions. The volost court has become a unique way of legal activity of peasants.  He "snatched" custom from the mass of other social norms and solved minor criminal offenses and civil disputes on the basis of a customary legal norm. Rationalized by the power of the court, local customs became part of customary law, and at the same time part of the peasant legal culture, recognized for the first time at the state level. The law "On the Transformation of public Administration of State peasants and on the transfer of these peasants to the jurisdiction of general provincial and county, as well as local institutions for peasant affairs" [10] of 1866 extended the administrative transformations of the reform of 1861 to the population of the state village, thereby eliminating the results of the reform of P.D. Kiselyov.

The judicial reform of 1864, which changed the Russian justice system, preserved the volost court: "judicial power... peasant courts are determined by special resolutions on them" (note of Article 2 of the Institution of Judicial institutions) [16]. The Statute of Criminal proceedings in Article 34 contained a norm according to which cases of "rural inhabitants" subordinated to their own courts were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of magistrates [15]. By courts for rural inhabitants, they mean the volost courts provided for in Article 101 of the "General Regulations on Peasants who have emerged from serfdom" [9].  With the introduction of the General Regulation, the volost courts were granted the right to make decisions either on the basis of transactions and obligations declared in the volost board, or on the basis of local customs and rules adopted in peasant life (Article 107).

Legal customs are an important part of the legal culture of the peasant community. They regulated the existence of common family property, family divisions, guardianship, inheritance issues and artels. The law gave local customs legal force, thereby making them the basis for the decisions of the volost court. The opinion is considered traditional for Russian pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet historiography that the level of peasant legal culture did not allow volost judges to use the norms of legislation when making decisions. For example, S.V. Pakhman, based on the Works of the commission on the transformation of parish courts, did not find a connection between the decisions of the parish courts and the rule of law due to the illiteracy of judges. "In one locality (meaning Samara province – M.A. Sosnina), it was explicitly stated that judges never decide according to the law, because they are dark people, they do not understand the law" [11; p. 123]. We consider this statement to be true only in relation to former serfs.  

Modern archival research increasingly refutes the prevailing point of view in historiography about the low legal culture of the peasantry. For example, the American J. Burbank justified her position not by ethnographic research, but by archival documents of the volost courts of the Moscow province from 1905 to 1917 and came to the conclusion that the decisions of the volost courts "were based strictly on the written law set out in the "General Regulations on Peasants" and "The Statute on Punishments imposed by Magistrates"" [17, p. 248].

V. B. Bezgin comes to similar conclusions and believes that the period of the second half of the XIX century – the beginning of the XX century. "it became a time of active law-making, which went in the direction of convergence of custom and law, drew peasants into the scope of official legislation and contributed to the growth of the legal culture of rural residents" [1, p. 1379]. We emphasize that these studies and conclusions relate to former serfs.

To characterize the level of legal culture of the northern peasantry, the protocols of the volost courts of post–reform Russia, the largest of all the northern provinces - Arkhangelsk, were analyzed. The study of the protocols allows us to come to the conclusion that a direct mention of the peasant custom when making a decision is very rare. Of the 1,082 protocols studied, the local custom is mentioned only in 28 cases. The existence of peasant self–government bodies created during the reform of the state village in 1837-1841. (in the form of rural and volost reprisals) led to the fact that more than half of the decisions of the volost courts are based on the norms of the "Rural Police Statute" and the "Rural Judicial Statute" for state peasants, forming a complex synthesis of the acts of two reforms, the reform of the state village and the peasant 1861. 

Zemstvo reform was also supposed to contribute to raising the level of legal culture of the peasant community in the second half of the XIX century. The "Regulations on Provincial and County Zemstvo institutions" of 1864 [8] left the provincial north outside the zemstvo reform. Zemstvo business was based on three basic elements: 1) a territory suitable for exploitation; 2) a population capable of social activity; 3) a developed economic and industrial life. Despite the urgent need for zemstvos, the Government denied the presence of these elements in the Russian North, adding another negative circumstance – large state land ownership [4; pp. 50-54]. In the provinces of Olonets and Vyatka, which were close in social composition and economic development, zemstvos were introduced in 1867, Vologda – in 1870, and in Arkhangelsk – only in 1917.

The main obstacle to the establishment of zemstvos in the northern provinces, according to the Government, was the shortage of human resources, since due to the absence of serfdom there were no landlords, and the peasant and urban population was considered "dark" and "ignorant" [7; p. 5]. With such a view of the population of the Arkhangelsk, for example, province, local authors did not agree: "With deep conviction, I express the opinion that the population of the Arkhangelsk province is by no means darker than any of the other northern ones adjacent to it – Olonets, Vologda, Vyatka... But the "gray" population and most of the central provinces have hardly gone far ahead of the population of the Arkhangelsk province?" [7; p. 6].    

The settlement of the north by the strongest representatives of the Novgorod freemen, the openness of ways abroad, and at the same time constant communication with foreigners and knowledge of foreign languages (especially Norwegian), the unique Pomor sailing fleet, permanent stay at sea, the sawmill industry created "in the far north of European Russia a type of intelligent, thoughtful, energetic and smart Pomor" [7; p. 6-7]. "The peasants are also forced by natural conditions to constantly move both in their own and in neighboring provinces, Vologda and Olonets. Local crafts – timber rafting, logging and sawing, fishing, hunting, - latrine crafts, - mainly to St. Petersburg, - have long since driven the age-old darkness from the Arkhangelsk peasant" [7; p. 9]. In line with this trend, the situation also developed in the northern provinces [13; p. 780], this was the reason that peasants spent most of their time outside the community, actively entering into legal relations regulated by law. 

Discussions on the level of legal culture of peasants, which began in pre-revolutionary historiography, have taken a significant place in modern historical and legal studies thanks to regional archival studies of documents of the volost justice. In order to draw the right conclusions, it is necessary to clearly identify the object of research – the former state village – separating it from the former serf. The specifics of the historical and legal conditions for the formation of two groups of the peasantry – state and serfs – caused the uneven development of the legal culture of the peasants.

The theoretical conclusions and conclusions made during the monitoring of archival documents of the Arkhangelsk province can be extrapolated to a post-reform state village inhabited by free rural inhabitants - natives of state peasants, due to the similarity of social composition and legislative regulation (in particular, the absence of private feudal dependence and zemstvos).

The peculiarity of the organizational and legal regulation of volost justice in the former state village is that the categories of cases and sanctions correspond not only to the legislative acts of the peasant and subsequent reforms of the local court, but also to the normative legal acts of the reform of the state village of P.D. Kiselev 1837-1841. More than half of the decisions of the volost courts are based on the norms of the Rural Judicial and Police charters, which are an integral part of the Charter on Improvement in state-owned villages, forming a complex synthesis of the acts of the two reforms.

In the course of this study, the thesis was refuted that the peasants did not know and did not apply the laws in the courts. The longer existence of peasant self-government in the state village affected the legal consciousness of state peasants in terms of resolving cases in the volost courts in the post-reform period. The volost courts, applying the norms of official legislation, formed the progressive legal consciousness of the peasants, bringing them closer to the common legal field and equal justice for all, taking into account the customs and principles of customary law.

Thus, a fairly high level of legal culture of the Northern peasantry, which has developed due to the unique conditions of the European North, as well as a significant amount of volost judicial practice, reliably testified to the readiness of the peasants of the European North for bourgeois reforms. Through the new post-reform state-legal institutions (volost court and zemstvos), peasants had to gradually be included in the legal culture of Russian society common to all estates. However, the contradictory nature of the reforms and their uneven implementation have slowed down democratic processes and violated the principle of equality of all before the law.

References
1. Bezgin V.B. Legal customs in the everyday consciousness and everyday life of the Russian peasantry of the second half of the XIX – early XX century // Law and politics.-2013. – No. 10. – 1373-1380 p.
2. Military Statistical Review of the Russian Empire, published by the Highest order at the First Department of the Department of the General Staff. Vol. 2. Part 1. Arkhangelsk province. St. Petersburg, 1835. – 282 p.
3. Kabuzan V. M. Changes in the placement of the population of Russia in the XVIII – first half of the XIX century: (based on the materials of revisions). M., 1971. – 190 p.
4. Kolychev A. Zemstvo on the outskirts of the Arkhangelsk province // Izvestiya Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North. – 1909. – No 8.
5. Culture of Russian Pomors: experience of system research / Bazarova E. L., Bitsadze N. V., Okorokov A.V., Selezneva E. N., Chernosvitov P. Yu. / edited by P. Yu. Chernosvitova. M., 2005. – 400 p.
6. Linitseva K. S. Basic approaches to understanding legal culture // Questions of theory and history of the state and law. – 2010. – No 4 (51).
7. Mamadyshsky N. N. Zemstvo in Arkhangelsk province. – Arkhangelsk: Provincial Printing House, 1911. – 28 p.
8. On provincial and county zemstvo institutions: Regulations of January 1, 1864 // PSZRI. Sobr. 2. Vol. 39. No. 40457.
9. About peasants who came out of serfdom: The General situation of February 19, 1861 // PSZRI. Sobr. 2. Vol. 36. No. 36657.
10. On the transformation of the public administration of state peasants, and about ... // PSZRI. Sobr. 2. Vol. 41. No. 42899.
11. Pakhman S. V. Ordinary civil law in Russia (legal essays): in 2 vols. – Pb, 1879. – Part 2. – 400 p.
12. Potapova E. F. State village management reform (1837-1841): political and legal aspect // Topical issues of economics and management. Issue 3: collection of scientific papers / Edited by A. A. Osipov. Tver, 2007. – 254 p.
13. Statistician. Peasant family and family property in the Arkhangelsk province // Izvestiya Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North. – 1912. – No 17.
14. Proceedings of local committees on the needs of the agricultural industry: 1-58. St. Petersburg, 1903-1904. Part 26. Arkhangelsk province. – 1903. – 320 p.
15. The Statute of Criminal Proceedings: The Charter of November 20, 1854 // PSZRI. Sobr. 2. Vol. 39. No. 41476.
16. Establishment of judicial regulations: The Charter of November 20, 1864 // PSZRI. Sobr. 2. Vol. 39 (1864). ¹ 41475.
17. Burbank J. Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside, 1905– 1917. – Bloomington; Ind.: Indiana Univ. Press, 2004. – 374 p.

First Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

to the article The provincial legal culture of the Northern peasantry in the context of the implementation of bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century. The title corresponds to the content of the article materials. The author did not specify in the title of the article: "in Russia." The title of the article reveals a scientific problem, which the author's research is aimed at solving. The reviewed article is of relative scientific interest. The author did not explain the choice of the research topic and did not justify its relevance. The article does not formulate the purpose of the study, does not specify the object and subject of the study, the methods used by the author. In the reviewer's opinion, the main elements of the "program" of the study were not fully thought out by the author, which affected its results. The author did not present the results of the analysis of the historiography of the problem and did not formulate the novelty of the undertaken research, which is a significant disadvantage of the article. In presenting the material, the author selectively demonstrated the results of the analysis of the historiography of the problem in the form of links to relevant works on the research topic. There is no appeal to opponents in the article. The author did not explain the choice and did not characterize the range of sources involved in the disclosure of the topic. The author did not explain or justify the choice of the chronological framework of the study. The author did not explain or justify the choice of the geographical scope of the study. In the opinion of the reviewer, the author used the sources competently, tried to maintain the scientific style of presentation, competently use the methods of scientific knowledge, observe the principles of logic, systematicity and consistency of presentation of the material. As an introduction, the author said that "the bourgeois reforms initiated by Alexander II were aimed at achieving a quick result," noting that both judicial and zemstvo reforms dragged on for decades, and "the process of integrating the "peasantry" into civil society was not completed until 1917," explaining this "several features of the development of the state-legal and social system of the Russian Empire," etc. In the main part of the article, the author reported that in modern legal literature there are several approaches to defining the concept of "legal culture", that "the legal culture of the whole society ... can be concretized using a social group, a method of activity, a person's legal awareness, a region of development and the historical period of its existence," etc., assuming "it is possible to distinguish as a type of legal culture the culture of the peasant community of the second half of the XIX century, namely the legal culture of the northern peasantry, since there is no private feudal dependence in the Arkhangelsk, Olonets, partly Vologda and Vyatka provinces." Why the author then writes "as well as the Northern Urals", without referring to the Vyatka province, remains unclear. The author further explained that "the qualitative state of the provincial legal culture of the northern peasantry was influenced by several important factors: the history of settlement of the European North, occupation, climatic and socio-economic conditions of existence, as well as state regulation of the peasant community," etc. The author reported that "the desire to control the peasant community and the fiscal interest of the state in relation to the state villages became the reasons for the reform of Count P.D. Kiselyov,"etc., and that "first of all, the changes affected the management and judicial system (in the form of rural and volost massacres)," etc., then suddenly that "the reform of 1861 for peasants who came out of serfdom also introduced self–government bodies and a special court - volost," etc. and that "the judicial reform of 1864, which changed the Russian justice system, preserved the volost court," etc. The author explained that legal customs were "an important part of the legal culture of the peasant community," etc., and justified the idea that "the longer existence of peasant self-government in a state village affected the legal consciousness of state peasants in terms of resolution cases in the volost courts in the post-reform period and raising the level of legal culture in general", having analyzed the protocols of the volost courts of the Arkhangelsk provinces. The extension of this conclusion to the "northern peasantry" seems acceptable. In the following story, the author drew attention to the fact that "the zemstvo reform should have contributed to raising the level of legal culture of the peasant community in the second half of the XIX century," but the government refused to implement the latter. At the same time, the author, objecting to the reformers of pre-revolutionary Russia, in fact, again pointed to the "factors" that influenced the "state of the provincial legal culture of the northern peasantry": "The settlement of the north by the most powerful representatives of the Novgorod freemen, the openness of routes abroad, and at the same time constant communication with foreigners and knowledge of foreign languages (especially Norwegian), the unique Pomeranian sailing fleet, constant stay at sea, and the sawmill industry created "in the far north of European Russia a type of intelligent, thoughtful, energetic and sharp-witted Pomeranian" etc . The article contains unfortunate expressions, such as: "According to the eighth revision, the number of state peasants in the Russian Empire as a whole in the middle of the XIX century was 36.12% of the population." The author's conclusions are generalizing and clearly formulated. The conclusions do not allow us to evaluate the scientific achievements of the author within the framework of his research. The conclusions do not reflect the results of the research conducted by the author in full. In the final paragraph of the article, the author reported that "a fairly high level of legal culture of the northern peasantry, which has developed due to the unique conditions of the European North, as well as a significant amount of volost judicial practice reliably testified to the readiness of the peasants of the European North for bourgeois reforms" that "through the new post-reform state legal institutions (volost court and zemstvos) peasants They had to be gradually integrated into the legal culture of Russian society common to all classes." The author summarized that "the contradictory nature of the reforms and their uneven implementation have slowed down democratic processes and violated the principle of equality of all before the law." The final paragraph of the article does not clarify the purpose of the study. In the reviewer's opinion, the potential purpose of the study has been partially achieved by the author. Publication in this form cannot arouse the interest of the magazine's audience. The article requires significant revision, first of all, in terms of formulating the key elements of the research program and their corresponding conclusions.

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The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

A REVIEW of an article on the topic "Provincial legal culture of the Northern peasantry in the context of the implementation of bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century in Russia." The subject of the study. The article proposed for review is devoted to the provincial legal culture "... of the northern peasantry in the context of the implementation of bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century in Russia." The author has chosen a special subject of research: the proposed issues are investigated from the point of view of the theory and history of law, the judicial process, while the author notes that "... the study of the post–reform village, taking into account its social and regional heterogeneity, is an important step towards the formation of a conceptual approach to this issue." The legislation of the Russian Empire relevant to the purpose of the study is being studied. A large volume of scientific literature on the stated problems is also studied and summarized, analysis and discussion with the opposing authors are present. At the same time, the author notes that "The dominant point of view in pre-revolutionary and modern historiography about the low level of legal culture of the peasantry is increasingly being refuted in connection with regional archival studies of documents of volost boards, namely decisions of volost courts." Research methodology. The purpose of the study is determined by the title and content of the work: "... through the prism of bourgeois reforms carried out in the second half of the XIX century, to analyze its qualitative state and external manifestation." It can be designated as the consideration and resolution of certain problematic aspects related to the above-mentioned issues and the use of certain experience. Based on the set goals and objectives, the author has chosen a certain methodological basis for the study. In particular, the author uses a set of general scientific, special legal methods of cognition. In particular, the methods of analysis and synthesis made it possible to generalize approaches to the proposed topic and influenced the author's conclusions. The greatest role was played by special legal methods, "... as well as multidimensional statistical analysis by identifying, interpreting the content and interrelationships of semantic units of protocols of parish courts, normative legal acts, and norms of customary law." In particular, the author used a formal legal method, which allowed for the analysis and interpretation of the norms of current Russian legislation and local customs (customary law). In particular, the following conclusions are drawn: "The study of the protocols allows us to conclude that a direct mention of the peasant custom when making a decision is very rare. ...The existence of peasant self–government bodies created during the reform of the state village in 1837-1841. (in the form of rural and volost reprisals) led to the fact that more than half of the decisions of the volost courts are based on the norms of the "Rural Police Statute" and the "Rural Judicial Statute" for state peasants, forming a complex synthesis of the acts of two reforms, the reform of the state village and the peasant of 1861," etc. Thus, the methodology chosen by the author is fully adequate to the purpose of the article, allows you to study certain aspects of the topic. The relevance of the stated issues is beyond doubt. This topic is one of the most important in Russia, from a legal point of view, the work proposed by the author can be considered relevant, namely, he notes that "the state (state-owned) village occupied a special place in the socio-economic structure of the Russian Empire", "This study complements generalizations already available in historical and legal science to recreate the mechanism of implementation the most important state transformations of the era, allows us to determine what is common and special in the process of bourgeois reforms in various regions of the country, especially since the specifics of customary law and the regulatory framework provided for these differences." And in fact, an analysis of the work of opponents and the NPA should follow here, and it follows mainly in relation to the NPA and court protocols, the author shows the ability to master the material. Thus, scientific research in the proposed field is only to be welcomed. Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of the proposed article is beyond doubt. It is expressed in the specific scientific conclusions of the author. Among them, for example, is the following: "... a fairly high level of legal culture of the northern peasantry, which has developed due to the unique conditions of the European North, as well as a significant amount of volost judicial practice reliably testified to the readiness of the peasants of the European North for bourgeois reforms." As can be seen, these and other "theoretical" conclusions can be used in further scientific research. Thus, the materials of the article as presented may be of interest to the scientific community. Style, structure, content. The subject of the article corresponds to the specialization of the journal "Legal Studies", as it is devoted to the provincial legal culture "... of the northern peasantry in the context of the implementation of bourgeois reforms of the second half of the XIX century in Russia." The article contains an analysis of the opponents' scientific works, so the author notes that a question has already been raised that is relatively close to this topic and the author uses their materials, discusses with opponents. The content of the article corresponds to the title, since the author considered the stated problems and achieved the goal of his research. The quality of the presentation of the study and its results should be recognized as improved. The subject, tasks, methodology, results of legal research, and scientific novelty directly follow from the text of the article. The design of the work meets the requirements for this kind of work. No significant violations of these requirements were found. Bibliography. The quality of the literature presented and used, the NPA and judicial practice should be highly appreciated. The works of the above authors correspond to the research topic, have a sign of sufficiency, and contribute to the disclosure of all aspects of the topic. Appeal to opponents. The author conducted a serious analysis of the current state of the problem under study. The author describes the opponents' different points of view on the problem, argues for a more correct position in his opinion, based on both the opponents' work and court decisions, and offers solutions to problems. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The conclusions are logical and specific: "The volost courts, applying the norms of official legislation, formed a progressive legal awareness of the peasants, bringing them closer to the common legal field and equal justice for all, taking into account the customs and principles of customary law." The article in this form may be of interest to the readership in terms of the systematic positions of the author in relation to the issues stated in the article, which should be typical for legal research. Based on the above, summing up all the positive and negative sides of the article, I recommend "publishing".