https://legal.excellentwiki.com/russia/legal-philosophy/ Recent content in legal philosophy on ExcellentWiki - Legal Encyclopedia Hugo en-US Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/russia/legal-philosophy/russian-legal-philosophy/ Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/russia/legal-philosophy/russian-legal-philosophy/ <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <p>Russian legal philosophy follows a distinctive trajectory shaped by the country&rsquo;s oscillating relationship with Western European thought, its Orthodox Christian heritage, the revolutionary rupture of 1917, and the post-Soviet search for legal foundations. The tradition is marked by extreme positions — from religious idealism through Marxist negation of law to contemporary struggles with <em>legal nihilism</em> — and by a persistent ambivalence toward law as a social institution.</p> <h2 id="pre-revolutionary-legal-philosophy">Pre-Revolutionary Legal Philosophy</h2> <h3 id="boris-chicherin">Boris Chicherin</h3> <p><strong>Boris Chicherin</strong> (1828–1904), a jurist and political philosopher of the <em>liberal</em> Westernising tendency, developed the most systematic Russian liberal legal theory of the nineteenth century. Drawing on <strong>Hegel</strong> and <strong>Kant</strong>, Chicherin conceived of law as the external framework of freedom — the sphere in which individual liberty is reconciled with the liberty of others. He defended the <em>inalienable rights</em> of the person, constitutional government, and the <em>Rechtsstaat</em> (rule-of-law state) against both autocratic absolutism and revolutionary socialism.</p>