Svod Zakonov of the Russian Empire – Its Character and Scope of the Regulation

Abstract

The „Svod Zakonov of the Russian Empire” was the first comprehensive codification of law in the Russian Empire. It was developed in the years 1832-1835 by the Codification Commission, led by an outstanding Russian stateman Mikhail M. Speranski. The Svod Zakonov was a special codification based on assumptions different from those
adopted by the European legislation, aiming at creating separated, according to the material criterion, complete code sources of law applicable in each field. Its creators rejected the possibility of developing new codes and instead used the Bentham method leading to the creation of the so-called „Code de concordance”, that is, to issue a collection of legislation currently in force, coordinated internally according to the systematic order o individual fields of law and without any changes in its content. Consequently, the „Svod Zakonov of the Russian Empire” was a codification of the applicable legal provisions arranged according to the substantive criterion, covering almost all areas of law in separate volumes. Although it was systematically supplemented, and in subsequent reissues of its individual volumes their content was updated, such editions appeared sporadically and never fully reflected the current legal status in a given field.