Customary Law of Russian Peasants in K. R. Kachorovsky’s Views

Abstract

The article focuses on K. R. Kachorovsky’s views on the customary law of Russian peasants. The focus of attention is the peasant volost justice, which was developed in post-reform Russia. The paper analyzes the domestic historiography of the issue. The article is based on the fundamental works of K. R. Kachorovsky dedicated to the rural community. In turn, Kachorovsky’s position was based on the valuable source - materials of the peasant communities which he collected through questionnaires. The article shows that the researcher was a supporter of the theory of labour in peasant law, examines in detail his ideas about the “right to work” and “work right” in rural life. It is noted that Kachorovsky and a number of other researchers in post-reform Russia claimed contradictions between the legal views of labour and the lower classes of the Russian elite, relying on the categories of Roman law. In this regard, the thesis is substantiated that the peasants had a strong sense of ownership, but in accordance with the norms of customary law and the labour principle; in this regard, the agrarian unrest of the early 20th century should be assessed not as “pogroms,” but as attempts of the community to restore justice in its usual legal sense. The novelty of the research lies in the appeal to the creative heritage of the original researcher of the pre-revolutionary village, who studied the legal concepts and values of the Russian peasantry.

Keywords

• volost court
• k. r. kachorovsky
• peasantry
• people’s law
• customary law