New exhibit: Monuments of Imperial Russian Law

Michael Widener

“Monuments of Imperial Russian Law,” the latest exhibit from the Yale Law Library’s Rare Book Collection, is perhaps the first rare book exhibit in the U.S. to focus on the history of Russian law.

The exhibition features principal landmarks in Russia’s pre-1917 legal literature. Among these are the first printed collection of Russian laws, the 1649 Sobornoe ulozhenie, and three versions of the Nakaz, the law code that earned Empress Catherine the Great her reputation.

The exhibit draws on the riches of Yale University libraries, augmented by loans from the Harvard Law School Library and a private collection.

“The post-Soviet era of Russian history has made the legacy of the pre-1917 era newly relevant in ways unimaginable,” writes William E. Butler, one of the exhibit curators. “It is not merely a country recovering historical experience suppressed or distorted for ideological reasons during the Soviet regime, but a country seeking to modernize partly on the basis of its earlier legal legacy.”

Butler is the John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law and International Affairs at the Dickinson School of Law,  Pennsylvania State University. The exhibit’s co-curator is Mike Widener, Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Butler is the pre-eminent U.S. authority on the law of the former Soviet Union. He is the author, co-author, editor, or translator of more than 120 books on Soviet, Russian, Ukrainian, and post-Soviet legal systems. He is a member of the Grolier Club, the leading U.S. society for book collectors, and the Organization of Russian Bibliophiles. He is also a leading bookplate collector who has authored several reference works on bookplates.

Widener has been Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library since 2006. He is a member of the Grolier Club and a faculty member of the Rare Book School, University of Virginia.

The exhibit is on display through May 25, 2012 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, located on Level L2 of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The exhibit is open to the public, 9am-10pm daily. The exhibit will also go online via the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

For more information, contact Mike Widener, Rare Book Librarian, at (203) 432-4494 or .@yale.edu>

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