Our Notes & References

One of the first works on criminal law in Russia. Prepared in the run-up to the publication of the celebrated Code of Laws of the Russian Empire in 1832, Guliaev’s work covers the entire history of Russian criminal legislation, beginning with Yaroslav the Wise’s ‘Russkaia Pravda’ and the Judicial charters of the Grand Princes. The author also examines key concepts – crimes, their various types, complicity, punishment, arrest and reprimands – and he discusses in detail each type of crime: state, public and private. The concluding chapters are devoted to the workings of the courts.

Up to the beginning of the 19th century, a lack of a systematic judicial approach was affecting the work of the investigative authorities and the courts and hindered the effective training of law students. Different laws were applied to similar cases, and there were instances where laws were not applied at all. The situation began to improve following the decree of 1809, which required candidates for the ranks of collegiate assessor and state councillor to sit examinations demonstrating ‘thorough knowledge’ of, amongst other things, criminal law. Yet even by the time the first edition of the book was published, the problem remained, as Guliaev notes: “to this day, we do not have… a systematically set out body of criminal law”.

It was only under Nicholas I that a separate volume containing a collection of criminal laws appeared in the Code of Laws, and the term ‘criminal’ was officially adopted in the legal sphere for the first time.

Petr Nikolaevich Guliaev (1793–possib. 1854) was a civil servant (Titular State Councillor) and provincial administrator. He wrote other books related to similar themes and, alongside Osip Goregliad, the author of the first textbook on criminal law (1815), Guliaev was one of the pioneers of the academic study of criminal law in Russia; he contributed to the systematisation of legislative material and to the establishment of criminal law as a distinct branch of law.

Very rare outside Russia, with no copies traced on the market in recent decades. This is the second, significantly expanded edition, some 7 years avec the first from 1826. We couldn’t trace any copy of this first edition either. In libraries, we could fine one copy only of the first edition (in Berlin) and 5 of our edition, incl. 4 in the US (Stanford, Illinois at Urbana Ch. and 2 in Harvard).