Легалисты между русскими революциями: воспоминания современников
Legalists Between the First and Second Revolutions in the Memoirs of Contemporaries

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the history of the legalist movement through memoir sources. The purpose of the study is to identify internal connections and groups that formed within the liberal jurisprudence of the Russian Empire based on memoir literature. Liberal legalists are understood as an association of liberal dignitaries of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, mainly those from the judicial corps and legal scholars, as well as their “companions”, economists, liberal officials, etc. The ideology of the legalists can be defined as conservative liberalism, and the famous legal scholar B. N. Chicherin was their ideological inspirer. In our work, through memoirs of legalists, we trace the development of this group. Moderate liberals, captured by turbulent events, tried, relying on their ethical dogmas, to introduce a moral principle into politics. Despite constant defeats, they again renewed attempts to introduce law and order in the state. What is interesting, and this is reflected in the memoir literature, is that despite constant defeats and complaints, the legalists did not lose heart and looked to the future with optimism. They proceeded from the fact that Russia was part of the world process and in due time it would have “everything that is in Europe”. Their experiences after 1917 were even more bitter. Russia lost the chance for European development and “slid into wild barbarism”. A significant part of the memoirs and diaries have been published. This makes the researcher's tasks easier. The use of archival sources together with printed publications allows us to compare disparate data and come to common conclusions. The use of the problem-chronological method and the comparison method allows us to conduct this analysis.

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