The Lillian Goldman Law Library is one of the few U.S. libraries that owns a set of the Complete Collected Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii). We now know that our set is an Imperial set, one that came from a palace of the Tsars.

Tatjana Lorkovic, Curator of Slavic and East European Collections, Yale University Library, provides a detailed account of the set's acquisition in her recent article, "The Past as Prologue: Building Yale University Library’s Slavic and East European Collection from the Beginning of the Twentieth Century until Today; Part One: 1896-1956," SOLANUS: International Journal for the Study of the Printed and Written Word in Russia and East-Central Europe, New Series, vol. 22 (2011), pp. 43-62. In summary, it came about as follows.

In 1927 Professor George Vernadsky, a Russian emigre, who was hired by Yale to teach Russian history, and also to help the library develop its Russian holdings. Vernadsky reported that the most significant gap in Yale's collection was a set of the Complete Collected Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii), a 232-volume set. Vernadsky found a set for sale and warned that it could be Yale's last chance to acquire a complete set. The hefty price tag was initially an obstacle, but Law Librarian Frederick C. Hicks (1875-1956) stepped forward and committed the Law Library to the purchase. The set was purchased from a New York dealer, Simeon J. Bolan, who specialized in Russian books.

The 1920s-30s were the Golden Age for accessioning choice items of Russian origin as the Soviet State sold off unwanted early books in order to earn desperately needed foreign currency and finance ambitious economic plans.

The set is bound in a stunning bright green morocco with the Imperial arms in gold stamped on the front cover as a super libros (see the image below). The Imperial arms are sufficient to indicate Imperial provenance, but precisely to whom did the set belong? The answer lies in at the base of the spine, where the Russian text identifies the origin of the set as the Elagin Palace (see the image at right).

The Elagin Palace, located on the Elagin Island in St. Petersburg, became the summer home of the Empress Maria Fedorovna (1759-1828), mother of Emperor Alexander I (1777-1825). The original building was commissioned by I. P. Elagin, a St. Petersburg merchant, who is believed to have retained Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817), the most noted architect of his day in Russia and a pre-eminent practitioner of the Palladian style, to design the edifice. Emperor Alexander purchased the Palace to ease the burdens of travel for his mother, who found the trip to the outlying palaces at Tsarskoe selo to be too strenuous. Carlo di Giovanni Rossi (1775-1849) was retained to redesign and enlarge the estate. After the death of Maria Fedorovna, Elagin Palace declined into a summer residence for the Imperial family and gradually a place of diversion for Russian prime ministers, among them S. Witte (1849-1915) and P. A. Stolypin (1862-1911). The buildings sustained heavy damage during the Second World War. After restoration the palace became and remains a museum devoted to porcelain, glass, and some folk arts. The island is a popular park these days and has been used in Soviet films as a backdrop.

Although Empress Maria Fedorovna had a bookplate (represented in the Yale bookplate collection), the Collected Laws of the Russian Empire was published shortly after her death and therefore represented a “Palace set” rather than a personal copy.

• W. E. Butler, Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University
  Mike Widener, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," now on display in the Yale Law Library, is perhaps the first rare book exhibit in the U.S. to focus on the history of Russian law. The exhibit's lead curator, Professor William E. Butler of Penn State, will give a talk on the exhibit on May 9, in Room 121 of the Yale Law School (127 Wall Street, New Haven).

Butler is the pre-eminent U.S. authority on the law of the former Soviet Union. He is the author, co-author, editor, or translator of more than 120 books on Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian, and post-Soviet legal systems. He is a member of the Grolier Club, the leading U.S. society for book collectors, and the Organization of Russian Bibliophiles. He is also a leading bookplate collector who has authored several reference works on bookplates, and serves as Executive Secretary of the International Federation of Ex-Libris Societies.

The exhibit features principal landmarks in Russia's pre-1917 legal literature. Among these are the first printed collection of Russian laws, the 1649 "Sobornoe ulozhenie", and three versions of the "Nakaz", the law code that earned Empress Catherine the Great her reputation.

The exhibit is on display through May 25, 2012 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, located on Level L2 of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The exhibit is open to the public, 9am-10pm daily.

Image: Portrait of Empress Catherine the Great, the frontispiece from Instruction donnée par Catherine II., impératrice et législatrice de toutes les Russies: a la commission établie par cette souveraine, pour travailler à la rédaction d'un nouveau code de loix (Lausanne: François Grasset & Comp., 1769). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

One of my most pleasurable duties as a rare book librarian is reading the catalogues sent by rare book dealers. Each book's listing is typcally accompanied by a narrative description that describes the book's context and significance. The best book descriptions do more than merely tout a book or manuscript to potential buyers. They are nuggets of bibliographical and historical scholarship, and models of lively, concise writing. Much of my early training consisted of reading rare book dealer catalogues, and I still learn from them.

Thanks to the Law Library's online catalog, MORRIS, and to the cooperation of book dealers, I have been attaching dealers' descriptions to our catalog records for the books.

When you look at the record of an individual title in MORRIS, you will see a button on the left side of the screen, labeled "Add a review". Those with a Yale ID and password can add a review of the title. If a review has been added, you will see a headline under the "Add a review" button that is a link to the review. Click the headline link and the review pops up in a window. (Note that the display works better in Firefox than in Internet Explorer.)

Since January 2008, I have been adding rare book dealers' descriptions as "reviews" in MORRIS. For example, look at the record for Iustinianae constitutiones civiles (Bologna, 1608). Click the link, "The judicial system in Bologna,1608" and you will see the following description:

"Attractive and rare set of decrees concerning the functioning of the judiciary in the papal city of Bologna. These city statutes were promulgated by the Pope's legate, Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani (1554-1621). Despite the issuing authority, the constitutions (a word indicating legislation of the highest level) are entirely non-religious in content, relating to civil law justice in the city. They shed considerable light into how courts worked in Bologna. Included are instructions on cases involving poor people; rules for notaries; the keeping of registers; seizures of property; taking of suspects; payment of officers; expert witnesses; and the governing of appeals. Pages 192-198 comprise papal edicts on the salaries of Bolognese judges and notaries." -- Leo Cadogan Rare Books (Dec. 2011)

The description adds value to our catalog. It records a wealth of information about the book that would be impossible to include in the online catalog record.

I follow these guidelines:

• I must first obtain the dealer's permission to use the descriptions for all books and manuscripts the dealer sells to me. The descriptions are the dealer's intellectual property and dealers are sensitive (rightly so) about whether and how their descriptions are re-used. I assure the dealer that I will understand if he or she prefers to refuse permission.
• I enter a dealer's descriptions only for the books and manuscripts I buy from that dealer.
• I copy the description verbatim, editing only for length, punctuation, and spelling.
• I enclose the description in quotations, and I attribute the description to the dealer, including the catalogue (or if not in a catalogue, by the date it was quoted to me).
• I never include the price.

To date I have added over 500 descriptions by over forty dealers from across the U.S. and Europe. I hope you find them as useful and educational as I do.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

The exhibit curators wish to thank the following individuals for their help in organizing this exhibit:

Karen S. Beck
Manager, Historical & Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library

Molly Dotson
Bookplate Project Archivist, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University

Paula Zyats
Assistant Chief Conservator, Yale University Libraries

Marjorie F. B. Lemmon
Risk Manager, Yale University

Shana Jackson
Lillian Goldman Law Library

Basia Olszowa
Lillian Goldman Law Library

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Szeftel, Marc. The Russian Constitution of April 23, 1906: Political Institutions of the Duma Monarchy. Brussels: Librairie Encyclopédique, 1976. Yale University Library

The Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 weakened the monarchy sufficiently for demands to introduce a "constitution" limiting the powers of the Emperor and creating a parliament called the State Duma to be realized. Although the word "constitution" was never used in the document itself, the expression "Basic Law" has come to mean the equivalent of a constitution in Russian political theory and practice.

Even though the canons of Marx, Engels, and Lenin did not contemplate the enactment of a post-revolutionary constitution, the Bolshevik Party together with the other Russian political parties and movements in existence after the abdication of the Tsar in February 1917 supported the preparation of a Constitution for the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, ultimately introduced in 1918. In the post-Soviet era those who prepared the present 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation looked back to the Basic Law of 1906 for inspiration and experience.

Marc Szeftel's book contains the only English-language translation of the 1906 Russian Basic Law.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Wortman, Richard S. The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). Lillian Goldman Law Library

The period 1864 to 1917 is widely known as "The Golden Age" of Russian law and the Russian legal profession. The reforms of the Russian judiciary and establishment of the "Advokatura" (the professional society of legal professionals who represented litigants) were perceived to be the principal reasons for this "Golden Age".

Wortman's study (recently translated into Russian) fundamentally altered our perception of these legal reforms. Doubting that a "Golden Age" could appear spontaneously and suddenly, he persuasively traced the reforms back to the professionalization of the Russian civil service under Alexander I, the foundation of law faculties in other urban centers besides Moscow (St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kazan, and others), the formation of a cadre of Russian jurists gradually appointed to administrative, judicial, and academic posts, the inclination of these jurists to regard law as an independent source of authority, the codification of Russian legislation, the publication of treatises and textbooks based on positive Russian law (rather than natural law), and the gradual emergence of an authentic Russian jurisprudence.

For Wortman the judicial reforms of 1864 were not the inexplicable commencement of a Golden Age, but the ultimate culmination of institutional modernization and the happy confluence of personalities. In due course these institutions, and the sense of legal consciousness which they encouraged, proved to be incompatible with the Russian brand of autocratic absolutism and contributed to the appearance of a constitutional monarchy in 1906.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 – May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Tomsinov, V. A. Kvestianskaia reforma 1861 goda v Rossii [Peasant Reform of 1861 in Russia]. Moscow: Zertsalo, 2012. Private Collection

Sometimes reforms are born in the bowels of revolution, but like as not also in the measured reflections of a leadership committed to change. The emancipation of Russia’s serfs is properly dated to 19 February 1861, when Alexander II issued the necessary documents to fundamentally reshape the legal relationship between landowner and serf that had subsisted for centuries. In the United States analogous legal relationships had led to a devastating Civil War.

The emancipation of Russian serfs opened a series of “Great State Transformations” that during the 1860-70s brought far-reaching changes to the socio-economic and political life of Russia. Out of a population of 67 million persons (1858-59 census), some 23 million were serfs. It was this segment of the population that was liberated and granted civil rights under Russian law. The reforms immediately demonstrated inadequacies in the judicial system, still appointed on the basis of the old system of estates and incapable of adapting to new circumstances without major changes in court organization and procedure. Other reforms would ensue in higher education, land assemblies, urban affairs, and the military.

Preparations for the emancipation of the serfs commenced as early as November 1857, and by January 1858 a Chief Committee of Peasant Affairs had been established together with numerous provincial committees, charged with reporting to the Government on peasant reform. Once the legislation had been prepared, the drafts were submitted to the State Council, which met on fourteen occasions to discuss them. Finally, on 19 February 1861 the Emperor signed and issued eighteen manifestos, edicts, statutes and rules to introduce and give effect to the emancipation.

The book shown here contains the principal preparatory enactments adopted from 1857 to 1860 and all of the enactments of 19 February 1861. The editor relates the volume to the contemporary issues confronting Russia: “Russia stands at present, as it did 150 years ago, on the edge of an era of Great Reforms” (p. xiv). Twenty years after emancipating the serfs, Emperor Alexander II remarked to his Minister of Finances, A.A. Abaze, on 20 February 1881: “Of all that I have been able to do, I consider the peasant reform the most important achievement of my entire reign”.

See: Alan P. Pollard (ed. & transl.), The Laws of February 18-19, 1861 on the Emancipation of the Russian Peasants (2008).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 – May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Speranskii, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1772-1839). Rukovodstvo k poznaniiu zakonov [Manual for Knowledge of Laws]. St. Petersburg, 1845. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library

M.M. Speranskii is the individual most closely associated with Russian achievements in the systematization of laws. He was deeply involved during the early nineteenth century in promoting Benthamite and Napoleonic models for Russia. Educated in theology rather than law, Speranskii acquired his formidable command of legal history and theory, Roman law, and skills in legal analysis while serving in various civil service positions. He assisted in drafting the reforms of Alexander I and from 1807 rose rapidly in rank and responsibility. During 1808-09 he helped prepare draft legislation that, if enacted, would have transformed Russia into a constitutional monarchy. Exiled from 1812 to 1816, upon his return he held a number of administrative posts. Emperor Nicholas I, however, directed him to undertake the systematization of Russian legislation, which resulted in the publication of the PSZ and Digest of Laws.

Speranskii’s archive in St. Petersburg contains more than 1,000 notes and articles devoted to legal matters, mostly unpublished. He left three major works on law, including the one shown here, which addresses legal history and codification.

See: Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772-1839 (2d rev. ed.; 1969); “Speranskii, Mikhail Mikhailovich”, in W.E. Butler & V.A. Tomsinov, Russian Legal Biography (2007).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii [Complete Collected Laws of the Russian Empire]. 1st series. 48 vols. St. Petersburg, 1830. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library

Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii [Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire]. 16 vols. St. Petersburg, 1904-1905. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library

Emperor Alexander I laid the ground work for major law reforms. He introduced ministerial reforms to supplant the collegial model of Peter the Great, accompanied by an expansion of the educational system, founding of new universities, and introduction of civil service examinations. Foreign law professors were gradually replaced by Russian-trained candidates. With the abandonment of codification models based on foreign schemes, codification work fell into desuetude. When revived in the spirit of von Savigny, progress was slow.

Nicholas I (1796-1855) acceded to the throne in 1825 and immediately accelerated the pace and altered the direction of systematization. Drawing upon the presence and talents of a small group of lawyers at St. Petersburg University, M.A. Balugianskii (1769-1847), of Hungarian origin, and M.M. Speranskii (1772-1839) brought to completion the most ambitious and comprehensive systematization of legislation attempted in the world.

First to appear was the volume exhibited here, the Complete Collected Laws of the Russian Empire (known by its Russian acronym: PSZ), a chronological collection of Russian legislation (more than 30,000 enactments) commencing with the 1649 Sobornoe Ulozhenie to 1825. The second series of the PSZ was published annually from 1826 to 1881, and the third series from 1881 to 1916. A four-volume addendum to the PSZ includes illustrations such as the guide to weights and measures shown here.

The PSZ formed the foundation for the next stage of systematization, the Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832). Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction: Including Correspondence with The Russian Emperor, and Divers Constituted Authorities in the American United States. London: Printed by J. M'Creery, 1817. Yale University Library

Bentham had genuine expectations of being invited to Russia to help codify the laws of the Russian Empire. The published translation of his work on codification had enjoyed the support of the Emperor himself, who was known to have read the work, and Bentham quietly lobbied his friends in London and in St. Petersburg to further this project.

Napoleon's invasion of Russia derailed the project. Bentham perhaps did not appreciate how deeply the Napoleonic wars had antagonized the Russian court towards anything French, including the example of the Napoleonic codes. Rightly or wrongly, Bentham was seen as being part of the French codification movement. Emperor Alexander I did not pursue Bentham's intimations that he would welcome a return to the project, whereupon Bentham, partly in annoyance, published his correspondence and the Reply of the Emperor, together with collateral correspondence conducted along the same lines with American politicians and statesmen -- for Bentham likewise entertained hopes of contributing to codification in the United States. Bentham's correspondents in the United States included Simon Snyder (1759-1819), the Governor of Pennsylvania, and James Madison (1751-1836), late President of the United States.

Rather than pursue codification of law based on abstract principles and logic, Russia turned to its own historical traditions in law. In this Russia was influenced by the thinking of, among others, Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779-1861), a leading proponent of the historical method and severe critic of the Code system imposed on Europe by Napoleon. Savigny's attack on codification was first published in 1814 and revised in 1828; for an English version, see Of the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence, transl. A. Hayward (1831).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

 Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832). Izbrannyie sochinieniia Ieremii Bentama. Tom Pervyi. [Selected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Volume One. Introduction to the Bases of Morality and Legislation. Basic Principles of a Civil Code. Basic Principles of a Criminal Code], transl. A.N. Pypin & A.N. Nevedomskii. Preface by Iu. G. Zhukovskii. St. Petersburg, 1867. Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library

Jeremy Bentham, the noted jurist and legal philosopher, spent nearly all of 1786 in Russia, visiting his younger brother Samuel (1757-1831), who was in Russian service for more than two decades. The two brothers were unusually close, Jeremy supporting Samuel financially, morally, and intellectually. Samuel made important contributions to Russian industry, shipping, naval victories, and commerce. The two brothers corresponded frequently.

While in residence at the estate of Prince G.A. Potemkin (1739-1791) at Krichev in modern Belarus, Jeremy Bentham composed and sent back to London for printing his celebrated Defence of Usury (1787) and commenced work on his ideas for a modern penal institution, eventually published as his Panopticon (an outline of which appeared in 1790). The Benthams were close to the Russian Ambassador in London, S.R. Vorontsov (1744-1832), and the family of Admiral N.S. Mordvinov (1754-1845).

M.M. Speranskii and Emperor Alexander I were attracted by Bentham's early writings in French on codification and invited Bentham's secretary, Etienne Dumont (1759-1829), to St. Petersburg to supervise a translation of Bentham's writings on codification into the Russian language (published in three volumes, 1805-1810, omitting only Bentham's strictures on press censorship). Every major law reform in Russia through the end of the Imperial Period was attended, in one fashion or another, by a translation and publication of one of Bentham's works.

The present volume contains Bentham's classic treatise on codification. First published in 1803, the edition shown here appeared soon after the celebrated Russian judicial reforms of 1864, in a fresh translation and with additional materials added from the Collected Works of Bentham edited by Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) and the French versions of Dumont. Only volume one appeared.

See: Ian Christie, The Benthams in Russia: 1780-1791 (1993).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Blackstone, Sir William (1723-1780). Istolkovaniia angliiskikh zahonov [Commentary on English Laws of Mr. Blackstone]. Moscow, 1780-82. 3 vols. Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library

Catherine II became aware of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) through the French translation. It became her bedside book, replacing Montesquieu, and greatly influenced her ideas on law and administration. Only volume I of Blackstone was translated into Russian, at her behest by S.E. Desnitskii (c. 1740-1789), the Glasgow-educated first Russian professor of law, and A.M. Briantsev (1749-1821). While Catherine had a special need for the book, it was part of her larger commitment to translations expressed in the establishment of a Society for the Translation of Foreign Books, which survived until 1783 and which she subsidized handsomely.

Among the 700 pages of notes which Catherine II took while reading Blackstone were drafts for a High Court of Justice. On her trip to the Crimea in 1787 Catherine II took her notes on Blackstone and her Nakaz with her to compare the two texts and work on further plans for constitutional reform. Her scheme for a High Court of Justice drawn from Blackstone seemed to combine legislative features of Parliament in England with judicial elements. Her contemplated High Court would have chambers consisting of appointed councilors and assessors elected by the local nobility, urban dwellers, and State peasants.

Blackstone wrote approvingly of Catherinian reforms in penal law:

"Was the vast territory of all the Russias worse regulated under the late Empress Elizabeth, than under her more sanguinary predecessors? Is it now under Catherine II less civilized, less social, less secure? And yet we are assured, that neither of these illustrious princesses have, throughout their whole administration, inflicted the penalty of death; and the latter has, upon full persuasion of its being useless, nay, even pernicious, given orders for abolishing it entirely throughout her extensive dominions." -- William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. 4, p. 10.

See: I. de Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History (1990).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

[Catherine II (1729-1796), Empress of Russia]. Armorial bookplate, engraved. Text: Catherine Alexievna II, | Imperatrice de toutes les Russies. Second half 18th century, after 1762. Irene D. Andrews Pace Memorial Collection, Haas Family Arts Library Special Collections, Yale University

Catherine II was a voracious reader and formed a substantial personal library. Two bookplates are attributed to her collections, neither of which has been actually found in a book. The present plate is the only copy known and came to Yale from Irene D. Pace, a well-known American bookplate collector.

See: News from the Yale Library 10 (1996), 2.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

[Catherine II (1729-1796), Empress of Russia]. Instruction donnée par Catherine II., impératrice et législatrice de toutes les Russies: a la commission établie par cette souveraine, pour travailler à la rédaction d'un nouveau code de loix, telle qu'elle e été imprimée en Russe & en Allemand, dans l'Imprimerie Impériale de Moscow. Lausanne: François Grasset & Comp., 1769. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library

This is the last of three French editions of the Nakaz, testimony to the wide interest in Catherine's law reform project in Western Europe. The translator was the Swiss historian Joseph Anton Felix von Balthasar. The year this edition appeared, the French crown placed the "libertine" Nakaz on its list of prohibited books.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Medal awarded to deputies of Catherine II's Legislative Commission. Private Collection

The Legislative Commission summoned to Moscow has been seen as a "major, highly personal political experiment" formed by election and intended to represent the "estates" of the Russian Empire (I. de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (1981), p. 139). Representation was accorded to state institutions, landowners, and social groups not otherwise included in the first two categories. Deputies were paid a salary, enjoyed certain privileges and immunities, and were awarded a badge of office that nobles were entitled to incorporate in their coats of arms.

Each member of Catherine the Great's Legislative Assembly was awarded a medal in commemoration of their participation, such as the one exhibited here.

Aware that much of her population was illiterate, including some deputies elected to the Legislative Commission, Catherine II composed her Nakaz in a style suitable for reading aloud, imparting to the text an "urgent rhythm" in imitation of Montesquieu's series of short staccato chapters in his Spirit of the Laws. The entire text was read aloud to the assembled deputies, who were said to have received the text with rapture. Many were moved to tears.

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.