Imperial Russian Law Exhibited at Yale Law Library
- by Michael Stillman
On display at the Yale Law Library.
The latest exhibition from the Yale University Law Library's Rare Book Collection is on display from now through May 25, 2012. This exhibit takes a look at MonumentsofImperialRussianLaw.This brings us back to the days before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Russia had built up an extensive code of law under the czars, but once the Communists came to power, they tried to bury all mention of the nation's past. There was to be no memory of those terrible days before the land became a workers' paradise.
With the fall of the Communists, Russia is again looking to its earlier past to help guide it through the post-Soviet era. According to William E. Butler, Distinguished Professor of Law and International Affairs at the Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University, “The post-Soviet era of Russian history has made the legacy of the pre-1917 era newly relevant in ways unimaginable. It is not merely a country recovering historical experience suppressed or distorted for ideological reasons during the Soviet regime, but a country seeking to modernize partly on the basis of its earlier legal legacy.” Butler is co-curator of the exhibition, along with Yale Law Rare Book Librarian Michael Widener. William Butler is the pre-eminent U.S. authority on the law of the former Soviet Union and is the author, co-author, editor, or translator of more than 120 books on Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian, and post-Soviet legal systems.
Among the items on display is a copy of the Sobornoeulozhenie, printed in 1649. It was the first printed collection of Russian laws, and it continued to be used into the 19th century. There are also three versions of the Nakaz (Instructions). This statement of law was promulgated by Catherine II in 1767. It was patterned on the enlightenment thoughts coming out of France at the time. She actually wrote it in French. It provided for such things as equality of men before the law, and disapproved of the death penalty and torture (no wonder the Soviets didn't want to to remember their past). If not applied in all its humanitarian splendor, it was still a remarkable document for its time, and helped earn Catherine the sobriquet of “Catherine the Great” (without it she simply would have been “Catherine the Ordinary”).
The exhibit includes material from the Yale University libraries, the Harvard Law Library, and a private collection. It is open to the public daily from 9:00 am – 10:00 pm at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at the Yale Law School in New Haven.
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE Le Neptune Oriental
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: CASSAS Eaux fortes de la Sicile et quelques vues d’Espagne
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: CASSINI DE THURY Carte générale et particulière de la France.
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: JOUY; GARNERAY Vues des côtes de France dans l'Océan et dans la Méditerranée
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: LA PÉROUSE Voyage autour du monde
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: LE GENTIL DE LA GALAISIERE Voyage dans les Mers de l’Inde
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: LICENT Hoang Ho, Pai Ho, Loan Ho, Leao Ho. Itinéraires suivis dans le bassin du golfe du Pei Tcheuly
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: FRENCH SCHOOL FROM THE 19th CENTURY Panorama d’Athènes
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: PEETERS Description des principales villes, havres et isles du golfe de Venise
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: PÉRON; FREYCINET Voyage de découverte aux terres australes
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: STACKELBERG La Grèce : vues pittoresques et topographiques.
Gros & Delettrez, 7 November: VALENTINER Atlas des Sonnensystems.
Forum Auctions Online Sale: The Detective Fiction Collection of John Cooper Ending 7th November, 2024
Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). The Thirteen Problems, first edition, The Crime Club, 1932. £15,000 to £20,000.
Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Dumb Witness, first edition, 1937. £3,000 to £4,000.
Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Cards on the Table, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £2,000 to £3,000.
Forum, Nov. 7: [Carr (John Dickson)], "Carter Dickson" and John Rhode. Drop to his Death, first edition, Heinemann, [1939]. £600 to £800.
Forum, Nov. 7: Berkeley (Anthony). Jumping Jenny, first edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1933. £800 to £1,200.
Forum Auctions Online Sale: The Detective Fiction Collection of John Cooper Ending 7th November, 2024
Forum, Nov. 7: Marsh (Ngaio). Overture to Death, first edition, The Crime Club, 1939. £600 to £800.
Forum, Nov. 7: [Day-Lewis (Cecil)] "Nicholas Blake". The Beast Must Die, first edition, 1938. £750 to £1,000.
Forum, Nov. 7: Brand (Christianna). Green for Danger, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, John Lane the Bodley Head, 1945. £600 to £800.
Forum, Nov. 7: Christie (Agatha). Murder is Easy, first edition, signed by the author, 1939. £3,000 to £4,000.
Forum, Nov. 7: Sayers (Dorothy L.) Lord Peter Views the Body, first edition, Gollancz, 1928. £6,000 to £8,000.
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RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide ABAA Dealer
RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
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Sotheby’s: Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven and Other Poems, 1845. 33,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Leo Tolstoy, Clara Bow. War and Peace, 1886. 22,500 USD
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