Law and Literature. How Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy Invented the Constitution and Other Laws

This book is an attempt to study legal phenomena through literary texts, as well as to trace the mutual influence of literature and law.

The all-powerful Woland, cowardly Khlestakov, cunning Bender, principled Levin — all these characters are familiar to us from school. But few consider how closely literature and law are intertwined in Russia. Could Raskolnikov not commit a crime? What is the essence of Chichikov's scheme? How did Onegin, Prince Bolkonsky, and the Karamazov brothers help lawyers write the Constitution and other laws?

Author Alim Ulbashev discusses how legal themes permeated Russian literature and the challenges they faced along the way; he examines which aspects of civil and criminal law are found in famous works of Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries, and investigates how literary plots changed the perceptions of domestic lawyers and set the tone for public discussions over the course of centuries.

Who is this book for?
-- For anyone interested in literature, law, and the history of Russia