Justice dans la mémoire des Slaves : le débat juridique et philosophique au sein de l’Institut d’études slaves

Abstract

In 1919, Ernest Denis founded the Institut d'études slaves. The Slavic world it sought to study and discuss was a radically-changing one. After the Russian Revolution and the fall of the German and Austrian monarchies, centuries oldtraditions in these empires collapsed with them, but the customs of the people that inhabited those lands remained. In the emerging nations, from the new model of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the construction of nation-States such as Poland, new institutions were crafted, sometimes in explicit dialogue with old traditions, as it was the case for countries like Hungary, that retained a monarchy although without an heir; sometimes with strong apparent ruptures, as it was the case with Soviet Russia.In 1921, under André Mazon, Antoine Meillet and Paul Boyer, the Revue of the Institut d'études slaves starts to be published. Discussing matters of all sorts in the Slavic world, from Linguistics to History and sometimes even Economics, and because of the relevance Eastern Europe achieved after the Russian Revolution, the Revue, alongside the Institut, starts to become a global Place of Memory, or Lieu de Mémoire, as defined by Pierre nora, 1 in the field of Slavic studies. The customs, the forms of speech, the institutions of the Slavic world, all come under this place of debate that is the Revue. So does Law, in the Arendtian definition, 2 as something capable of altering our surroundings and changing 132 CAIo HEnRIqUE DIAS DUARTE life in society. Memory, as a living and changing construct, relates to the human condition. Memory of language, of laws constructed by language and of the institutions constructed collectively by each society, which makes the Revue a receptacle of the legal discussions, not only when it explicitly deals with these questions in articles, but also in the publications it lists or even in its obituaries, that in one way allow us to see what is deemed relevant, what is considered and debated in the construction of law. From studies of the psyche of autocrats and the cultural influences of their aristocrats to the relation of given-names to property among peasants in the farthest corners of the Slavic world, those that wrote in the Revue give us detailed accounts of what constitutes the legal constructs institutions and customs as a linguistic game, telling us about the actors that construct, operate and are conditioned by legal norms, the performance of discourse and the usages of law. 3 With this in mind, this article will look at all the editions of the Revue that mention relevant legal aspects, trying to provide the reader with a history of how the legally-related discussions unfolded in its pages over the decades. It will mention the articles and editions using the following selection criteria: (i) articles that are explicitly about legal topics, (ii) articles that discuss the nature of the State, (iii) articles that encompass discussions on customs that are related to legal topics, such as naming customs, (iii) articles that discuss intellectual influe...