A.D. Gradovskiys concept of a national progressive state

Alexander Dmitrievich Gradovskiy is both a brilliant historian and lawyer of the end of the19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. He left big scientific heritage, which has not been properly studied yet. In this his theory of thestate is reconstructed. The state, according to А.D. Gradovskiy, is a historical phenomenon. Starting with the statement of the communalhuman nature, the author investigates the problem of the origin of state, analysing the basic conditions the humankind lived through onthe way of historical evolution. Sharing the view of modern economists and sociologists on the division of labour as one of the primaryfactors that gave start to the first forms of human communal life, А.D. Gradovskiy emphasizes that this factor is a result of a certainprogress of humankind. The origin, development and structure of what we call a society, is created under the influence of the fact… ofthe division of labour; the moment the real division of labour begins is the moment of transition of nomadic tribes to a settled condition.the author writes. During this period the object and form of labour are modified: transition to agriculture results in the need formany kinds of additional activity of other persons (handicraftsmen, dealers, etc.), introduction of private property, exchange, societydiscrimination into public groups (castes, estates, classes) and establishment of economic relations between them. It is in the first formsof human communal life (family, kin, community) that A.D. Gradovskiy fixes the then inseparable combination of elements (power,religion, economic activities, property, science, freedom, right, morals) that developed and split; and in the process of their historicalevolution state was established. He comments upon this process, A squad with the king or the prince, curia, a kin with the elder or thefounder, communities, municipalities, unions of cities, feudal system, period of independent principalities and popular assemblies - theyall follow one another, allocating one public element from another, giving every element organization and subordinating these organizationsone to another, a higher one, until the highest − the state − is reached.

Keywords

Authors

References