Department of History of State and Law

Head of the Department: Smykalin Alexander Sergeevich
Doctor of Juridical Sciences
Address: 620034, Ekaterinburg, 54 Kolmogorova St., office 315
Telephone: (343) 367-40-55
E-mail: igp@usla.ru

The Department of History of State and Law was established by the order of the first director of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, Yu. M. Pozan, dated September 13, 1936, № 114 - earlier than in many other educational institutions. In 1936-1938. the department was headed by a prominent scientist-historian of Russian law, professor Serafim Vladimirovich Yushkov (1888-1952), who actually became its creator. A remarkable representative of pre-revolutionary Russian jurisprudence, Professor Stepan Fedorovich Kechekyan (1890-1967) taught courses on the General history of state and law and the state structure of bourgeois countries in 1936-1937. In 1938-1939, after the departure to Moscow of S.V. Yushkov and S.F. Kechekyan, the department was headed by Associate Professor Joseph Demyanovich Martysevich (1905-1990). Under the guidance of S. V. Yushkov, he prepared his candidate thesis on the topic "On feudal land property in the Moscow state of the 14th – 17th centuries", which he defended at the Moscow Law Institute in February 1939. This was the first Ph.D. thesis on the history of law and state, defended by the head of the department of history of state and law and a teacher of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute.

The departure of I. D. Martysevich to the Red Army weakened the Department (later S. V. Yushkov, S. F. Kechekyan, and I. D. Martysevich headed the Department of history of state and law of the law faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow state University), It was merged with the Department of theory of state and law. From 1939 to 1963, there was a joint Department of theory and history of state and law.

In May 1943, Professor Ivan Ivanovich Kryltsov (1878-after 1945), evacuated from Leningrad, defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Law on the topic "Management and Court in Turkestan - Colonies of Tsarist Russia" at the Sverdlovsk Law Institute. I.I. Kryltsov's work on the history of Russian state law became the first doctoral thesis defended at the Sverdlovsk Law Institute.

In September 1963, the special Department of the history of state and law was restored. Its head was Boris Fedorovich Livchak (1906-1993) - an intellectual in the third generation, the son of the city architect of Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk), one of the best masters of Russian architectural modernism of the early 20th century, engineer, inventor Fedor Iosifovich Livchak (1877-1919), a graduate Faculty of History and Philosophy of Moscow State University, participant of the Battle of Stalingrad, teacher of the Sverdlovsk Institute of Law (1939-1975), Candidate of Law (1946), Doctor of Historical Sciences (1967), Professor. He became the author of the first department monograph "People's militia in the armed forces of Russia 1806-1856" (Scientific works of the Sverdlovsk law Institute. Series: History of state and law. Sverdlovsk, 1961. 276 p. (17.25 p. p.). It also became the first generalizing study of this military Institute of Russia in the first half of the 19th century in Russian historiography.

In 1971-1990, the Department was headed by Boris Avraamovich Starodubsky (1925-2003) - a graduate of the Moscow law Institute, doctor of law (1966), Professor, one of the leading scientists of the USSR in the field of foreign state (constitutional) law, a recognized authority in the field of constitutional law and the history of state and law of foreign countries, author of the first textbook in the USSR "State law of bourgeois countries" (in 2 vol., Sverdlovsk, 1958-1960).

Since the 1970s, the research of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, which has evolved from a small third-class University into a first-class center of education and science, has formed a separate Ural law school in the system of Russian law. Within the framework of this school, at the Department of history of state and law, the Ural school was created, which can be called "the historical and legal study of the evolution of the Russian and foreign state and law". ne of the few historical and legal departments in law universities has become one of the largest centers of scientific work on the history of the state and law in the country. The leading direction of scientific research of the department in the 1970-1980s became the history of the state and the law of foreign countries. In general, in the country, most university teachers-historians of law were engaged in the history of the state and law of Russia. For ten years (from 1980 to 1990), three teachers became Doctor of Juridical Sciences: Petr Ivanovich Savitsky (1980), Argira Valerianovna Ignatenko (1982) and Vyacheslav Borisovich Evdokimov (1990).

For 17 years (from 1973 to 1990), the department published 14 thematic inter-university collections of scientific articles with a total volume of 125 printed pages, nine of them on the history of the foreign and Russian state and law and four collections on the constitutional law of foreign countries.

In the difficult 90's of the XX century for Russian education and science, the Department was able to preserve its best traditions and expand the focus of scientific research. In 1990, B. A. Starodubsky's successor was his student, candidate of juridical sciences, associate professor Evgeny Rikhardovich Kastel (1949–1997), who headed the department in 1990–1993. and 1996-1997. During his doctoral studies, the department was headed by a graduate of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Nikolai Nikolaevich Ansimov (1944–2014). E.R. Kastel was the first graduate of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute in 1995 who defend his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Law in the history of state and law on the topic "German Federalism: Historical and Legal Research (1849-1990)" and headed the Historical and Legal Department.

Professor E. R. Castel died suddenly in October 1997 in the prime of his creative powers, talent and plans. For some time, the department was headed by Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor Tatyana Miloslavovna Bazhenova, and since 1998 it has been headed by a graduate of the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, Doctor of Law, Professor Alexander Sergeevich Smykalin.

In just 80 years, from 1936 to 2016, teachers of the Department, some of their students, postgraduates, applicants at the Sverdlovsk Law Institute-Ural State Law Academy (University) and other educational and research institutions defended 137 theses, including 22 doctoral theses (15 for the degree of Doctor of Juridical Sciences, 7 for the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences) and 112 candidate theses (76 for the degree of Candidate of Legal Sciences and 36 for the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences).

Since the 90s of the 20th century, the leading direction of scientific research of the department was the history of state and law of Russia in the 18-20th centuries. The main directions of scientific research of the team are: 1) Evolution of the Russian state and law in the 9 - early 20th centuries; 2) Evolution of the Soviet state and law; 3) Evolution of the Russian and foreign penitentiary system; 4) Evolution of Russian law enforcement agencies; 5) Evolution of Russian and foreign legal education and science; 6) Evolution of the Roman and Byzantine state and law; 7) Evolution of the ancient Eastern and ancient Japanese state and law.

The Department trains specialists and bachelors in full-time, distant, and part-time forms of education and teaches the following basic subjects: history of state and law of Russia, history of state and law of foreign countries.