Judicial Reform of 1864

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the judicial reform, which was intended to provide a fast, fair and merciful justice to all Russian citizens, the Presidential Library makes available to a comprehensive collection of sources on the history of elaboration and introduction of the legislative reform in the Russian Empire, which were previously almost inaccessible.

The collection contains a large number of documents of the State Council, State Chancellery, ministries and agencies, provincial governments, involved in the development of Court Regulations of 1864 and their practical implementation. The materials of the collections for the most part have never been published, they were available only in the central archives (the main scope of the originals, digital copies of which make up the collection of the Presidential Library, is held by the Russian State Historical Archives).

For the first time researchers of Russian history and the history of Russian law have obtained free access to the "Dossier on the transformation of the judiciary in Russia" in 74 volumes, compiled in 1866 by one of the main developers of the judicial reform, S. I. Zarudny (1821-1887) on the basis of the documents, which circulated in the State Council, State Chancellery, Second Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery during the elaboration of draft Court Regulations. The digital copy posted on the website of the Presidential Library has been made from the only fully survived "Dossier" from the collection of RSHA, and is supplemented with the inventory of the "Dossier on the reform..." composed by S. I. Zarudny himself and first published in 1891.

The website is also featuring the Court Regulations of 1864 (official and unofficial publications), indexes to them and a large number of reference books.

There is a particular block of the new collection, which consists of documents and materials on the progress of judicial reform in the regions of the Russian Empire in 1864-1899.

Of particular interest is a large collection of unpublished documents, first made available to the general public, which relate to the outstanding Russian lawyer of the era of judicial reforms, A. F. Koni (1844-1927), from the State Archives of the Russian Federation.

The collection also includes numerous studies of judicial reform of 1864-1899, and the history of judicial system of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century (including the theses, the texts of which are available in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library).

On the whole, the collection numbers 198 units.

In addition to the above mentioned documents from the Russian State Historical Archives and the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the collection includes papers from the Russian State Library, State Public Historical Library, Russian Book Chamber, Belgorod State Universal Scientific Library, National Library of the Republic of Karelia, N. K. Krupskaya Moscow Regional State Scientific library, Omsk State Regional Scientific Library, Tyumen Regional Scientific Library, Moscow State University, Center for Information Technologies and Systems of the executive branch, open resources from the websites of the Russian Academy of Justice, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Tyumen State University, South-West State University.