Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky and the Development of Russian Legal Statehood in the 21st Century

The paper is devoted to the 250th anniversary of the outstanding statesman of Russia Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky. The authors set the task in a short essay to combine the analysis of state, legal and stylistic aspects of the reformer’s activities. A special feature of the research methodology is the combination of studying the essence and results of Speransky’s program of state reforms with the ideological struggle around liberal and conservative alternatives to the development of Russia; an attempt at ideological identification of Russian statehood and the rule of law of the 19th century. The conclusion is made about the significant role of Speransky in the formation of the foundations of Russian constitutionalism, in the development of conceptual ideas about the constitutional order of the activities of the highest state authorities. The paper examines Speransky’s key approaches to the systematization of Russian law. It is concluded that at the beginning of the 19th century Russian legal architecture has been identified based on the historical experience of the Russian incorporation of the 16th–17th centuries. The priority way of its development means continuous incorporation, the continuous implementation of new norms unfolding over time into the fundamental structural matrix. Speransky showed that law is a unity of a suprasystem nature that goes far beyond the limits of individual normative complexes. The paper elucidates the tasks of a new stage in the development of modern Russian legislation in the context of systematization of Russian law in the first half of the 19th century. It is concluded that the nature of the Russian legal form means legal constructivism that allows creating and regulating social relations of a complex nature rather than universalism of sectoral codifications. The analysis of the legal aspects of Speransky’s state activity is carried out in close connection with the characteristic style of his analytical work. It is concluded that Speransky acted as a statesman of a new type, whose personality was commensurate with the challenges and trends of the development of Russian statehood in Modern times.