Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/213

 in its historical aspect; his pupil Duvernoy manifested a great aptitude for juridical construction, which he applied to Russian civil law. These general conceptions were somewhat neglected by Pobyedonostsev and even impaired in their value by his extreme conservative principles: but he studied Russian institutions in a comparative and historical way, closely connected, as in his dissertations on landed property and succession, with practical aims. Shershenevich turned to more theoretical investigations, breathing a liberal spirit, and expounded them in his manuals. This movement was supplemented by studies in a kindred domain: Sokolov, Pavlov, Gortchakov and others elucidated canon law. The "great reforms" of the sixties promoted legal studies, particularly those which concerned public law and institutions; they were undertaken by Andreyevsky, Romanovich, Slavatinsky and some of their contemporaries. One of the chief of these was Gradovsky: he appreciated very highly the principles of legality and liberty in political life and studied their evolution in European constitutions; from this point of view he considered nationality as a basis of political development and investigated the part it had played in the formation of Russian public law and organization: in his famous treatise he elucidated, besides these principles, the rôle of public offices and of central and "local" institutions in Russia. Gradovsky had many pupils: one of these, Korkunov, conceived the State as a juridical relation, the subject of which is "all the (capable) population" and the object—the power of domination; from this point of view he treated of Russian public law and institutions. Some colleagues