Archival Documents on the Formation of Judicial Organs in the Oryol Gubernia in 1917-1919
| 16 October 2025
Posted in
Publication of archival documents
УДК 340.158
Vadim V. Kulachkov
Bryansk State Engineering and Technology University, Bryansk, Russian Federation
Archival Documents on the Formation of Judicial Organs in the Oryol Gubernia in 1917-1919
Abstract
The article is devoted to a review of archival materials on the formation of judicial system in the Oryol gubernia following the Russian Revolution. Its scientific significance stems from introducing new archival material to supplement the data already available on the subject. The article strives to study the peculiarities in construction of a new Soviet judicial system at the regional level. The article draws on documents from the State Archive of the Bryansk Region (GABO). It uses orders and letters of the Karachev Uezd Executive Committee of the Oryol gubernia on re-election of the volost and rural soviets, on election of judges and people's assessors, and on formation of the volost courts (fond no. 1938). Chronological framework of the article is limited to 1917-1919, as it was in that period that the foundations of the new Soviet judiciary were laid out at the local level. Territorial framework includes the Karachev uezd of the Oryol gubernia. Archival documents are studied through the use of general methods of historical research. The article reviews documents of management and record keeping: reports, certificates, circulars. The revolutionary events of 1917 led to construction of a new court based on principles of the ‘socialist conscience’. Albeit the Bolsheviks combated the bourgeois justice legacy, the situation on the ground required the cooperation of the old regime experts. Former justices of the peace were allowed to run for local judges, but they rarely remained in their former profession. Attempts were made to create volost courts, which were to be guided by conscience, law of custom and new legislation. In election of people's assessors the authorities primarily looked for a revolutionary legal sense, not for education. Archival documents, supplemented by published materials, allow see all the contradictory trends in formation of a new judicial system in the first years after the Revolution.
Keywords
Source, archival documents, revolutionary legal sense, judicial system, Soviet power, people's assessors, judges, volost courts.
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About the authors
Kulachkov Vadim Vitalyevich, PhD in History, department of philosophy, history and sociology, Bryansk State Engineering and Technology University, assistant professor, Bryansk, Russian Federation, +7-953-270-81-37, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it