Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire

We are pleased to reportthat our print Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiˇiskoˇi Imperii), 1649,  has been in significant use by our patrons.

PSZRI is the complete collection of legislation of the Russian Empire and is considered one of the most monumental collections in Russian imperial law. The collection is arranged in chronological order and should not be confused with Polnyĭ  svod zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii, a 16-volume set of laws published in 1911, in which many of the laws were systematically consolidated into topical codes rather than in chronological order.

PSZRI was begun through the efforts of Emperor Nikolas I and in 1826 entrusted to the second branchof His Imperial Majesty’s Chancellery. The set was published under the guidance of M. M. Speranskii, from 1839-1873.

As part of the project designed to establish the National Digital Library in Russia, NLR enriched its library by digitizing the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire. Currently, all readers have open-access to the complete texts of the first, second and third collections.  Comments and suggestions on the use of this resource can be sent to the NLR webmaster.

This is part of one of the digitized volumes (pdf) of the Complete Law which contains beautiful illustrations of Russian crests.

                                                                                                                      ----- Barbara  Olszowa