The Development of Realistic Jurisprudence. Book Review: Tonkov E.N. Russian Legal Realism. Saint-Petersburg, 2024

Abstract

The relevance of the review of this book is due to the growing interest of the international scientific community in new variants of realistic jurisprudence, including Russian. The subject of the research in the review is the analysis of the structure and main themes of E.N. Tonkov’s monograph “Russian Legal Realism” published in 2024. The purpose of the work is to present and evaluate the author’s philosophical and legal concept of Russian legal realism, which emphasizes the importance of the actual experience and intentions of legal actors, and also seeks to reduce formalism and abstractness in jurisprudence. The novelty of the topic is due to the relatively recent emergence of the term included in the title of the book, because of E.N. Tonkov’s research since 2012. Its comprehensive justification in the author’s work based on a diachronic study of law and order on the territories of the former Russian Empire. The research methods used were descriptive, comparative-legal, formal-logical and other methods that contribute to the reconstruction and interpretation of the author’s views. The main conclusion of the review of E.N. Tonkov’s book is that Russian legal realism is an important part of the postclassical research program currently being developed, allows us to trace the evolution of the Russian law and order and provides answers to many theoretical and practical questions of modern jurisprudence