Russkaya Pravda: Peculiarities of Text Perception in the West

Abstract

The article deals with a review of studies of the most famous and important papers of European and American researchers devoted to Russkaya Pravda (also translated into English as "Russian Justice" or "Russian Truth"), i.e. monumental legal text of Ancient Russia. The authors represent the opinions of German, British, American and French scholars, historians and lawyers in the first place, whose studies involve primarily a comparative text analysis of the Russkaya Pravda with the law systems in other countries of that period (Germanic, Swedish, Anglo-Saxon and Frankish law). The article shows that the researchers analyze the influence of foreign legal traditions on the Russkaya Pravda (e.g. Scandinavian influence from the point of view of political relations). It demonstrates some scholars attempt to determine what Russkaya Pravda is: "local customary law" or the embodiment of "princely law". A number of studies offer evidence of the evolution of justice in Russia by comparing the text of the "Russian Truth" with the later monuments of the legislative discourse, which reflect a shift towards greater social justice. The few philological works carry out terminological analysis based on the interpretation of the translation: the groups of lexical elements are identified, which are most difficult for adequate translation, since they reflect the realities of life in the medieval period in the Russian history; the ways to interpret this vocabulary are suggested.

Keywords

• Russkaya Pravda
• comparative analysis
• legislative discourse
• annotated translation
• translation difficulties