Kharkiv Law Society: history of creation and main areas of activity

The article highlights the history of creation and activities of the Kharkiv Law Society in 1900–1905 based on archival materials. The article is written on the basis of historical sources discovered in the Rare Book Department of the Central Scientific Library of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. These include minutes of meetings of the Kharkiv Law Society, news reports in local periodicals, and brief reports published in the Journal of the Ministry of Justice. These sources are introduced into scientific circulation. The prerequisites and reasons for the founding of the Society are analysed in detail against the background of socio-political and socio-economic changes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The structure of the Kharkiv Law Society, its main directions and forms of work are considered. Particular attention is paid to the topics and content of the reports discussed at the meetings of the Society and the research conducted with its assistance. The author emphasises the role of the Kharkiv Law Society in the development of legal education, popularisation of legal knowledge, and the importance of international cooperation of the Society’s members as a factor in spreading progressive ideas and integrating Ukrainian legal science into the world. The thorough coverage of the activities of the Kharkiv Law Society allows us to conclude that it contributed to the development of national jurisprudence and the formation of elements of civil society in the Ukrainian lands under imperial pressure.