ABSTRACT
Codification is believed to be a unique, hard-won, and hard-to-be-defended creation of Western European legal culture. Codes became Western Europe's major export around the civil law world and still dominate its legal landscape. Yet, codifications outside major civil law jurisdictions may vary considerably. This article examines the pattern of Russian legal codification. It built on and resembled the styles of the French and German branch codifications of the 19th century but assumed several unique features, namely codified legislation as a political tool of social modernisation; the assistance of legal experts; the formalistic theory of codification; preference for branch codification over the compilation of laws; and the predominance of criminal over civil codification. The article explains these features in Russia's particular context of a ‘torn country’ and illustrates their persistence despite the ruptures in social order and ideology through the late Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods. Diachronic and synchronic comparison requires, firstly, outlining the context of codification in Europe and Russia; secondly, summarising the theory of codification; and thirdly, analysing its practical implementation, with spherical reference to civil and criminal law.
