Legal traditions of the Slavs: Dump and Veche law

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the current alarmingly tragic social situation, Russian people are looking for ways of physical self-preservation and the revival of their spiritual and cultural identity. We need new ideas, ideals, heroes, customs and holidays, a new model of a just life of society, in no way similar to today's crowd-elitism imposed on us by the West. We clearly see that the vaunted Western-style democracy is not at all popular rule, but a technology of deceiving commoners. During the elections of power structures, we saw a well-directed performance, theater, brilliant show, immoral and anti-moral in nature. The current "democratic" elections are just buying and selling, empty promises, a mercenary and shameless game of caring for the people.

We will not list the misfortunes, problems, injustices that fell on the heads of the Slavs in the XXI century, we all know them well. But could it be otherwise if for many centuries we have been living not according to our primordial laws, but according to Roman and Byzantine laws, born in the depths of slavery with its antihumanism and contempt for the working man.

Let us ask ourselves a question - is there an alternative to the famous Roman law, widely used for many centuries by European states? Exists.

This is the popular Slavic Digging and Vechevoye right, direct democracy or people's self-government, which existed in the Slavic lands for millennia and remained in Russia until the 17th century. Digging law is a set of popular legal norms and customs, which has incorporated the principles of community, mutual assistance and mutual assistance of compatriots.

Unfortunately, very little is known about the ancient Slavic law from official written sources. Thousands of documents and books containing information about him were destroyed by zealous Christians of Russia, interested in the Slavic-Rus forgetting their primordial just social order. An alien slave ideology was imposed on our ancestors a thousand years ago, just as it is imposed on us today. However, written sources that have survived and miraculously survived to us (Russian-Byzantine treaties of the 10th century, notes of the Arab traveler Ibn Rust and the Arab writer al-Marvazi, works of Byzantine authors Leo the Deacon and Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Western European chronicles, treatises and annals, etc. etc.) give us the opportunity to reconstruct the legal life of our ancestors (albeit not in all the details yet), to restore the picture of the root Slavic world order.

The work of the rector of Kiev University N. D. Ivanishev, who lived in the middle of the nineteenth century. Remarkable and truly invaluable for us is his work "On the ancient rural communities of southwestern Russia." Fortunately, it can still be found in large libraries in the country today. Ivanishev studied the basic principles of Slavic law in the agricultural communities of Little Russia, studying many volumes of ancient act books. Many interesting and valuable facts can be found in the book of the Russian historian N. P. Pavlova-Silvansky (1869-1908) "Feudalism in Ancient Rus", published at the end of the nineteenth century. An adherent of the "Aryan" theory of the origin of the Slavic community, he proved its deep antiquity, showed the struggle of the boyars with the community, the subordination of the community to the princely and boyar power. Traces of Kopnogo right can be found in Pravda Russkaya, a written code of laws that appeared in Russia during the time of Yaroslav the Wise. From it we learn about the veche rule in Russia. The descriptions of the Cossack communities, where the popular Koshnoe law existed, also help us in the study of the domestic legal topic.

Kopa (kupa) is a national assembly of the best representatives of clans and families - gatherings, householders, who solved issues of vital importance to the Slavic community. The Serbs still call the National Assembly "Skup", and the highest legislative body in Serbia is "Narodna Skupstina (Skupstina)". Even non-linguists and non-linguists see how close in meaning the co-root words "copa", "gathering", "save", "shock", "aggregate" are. Another name for cops - "community", has survived to this day in the Ukrainian language and it means "society", "state".

The sedentary householders of the descendants who had property, allotments of land, family and household took part in these meetings. They were also called “shock judges”, “muzheve”, “common (communal) men”, in Little Russia the name “panove-muzhove” was common. People from three villages of the neighboring community (one or two each) were also invited to hunt. They were called "third-party", "foreign" or "near neighbors". The elders were also present here. They did not have the right to vote, but their opinion was respected, their advice was listened to. Women, as a rule, attended the popular assembly only by special invitation to give testimony.

Gatherings gathered in the center of one of the villages that were part of the community, or in an oak grove, a sacred grove in the open air. In such places there has always been a natural or fill-up hill and a river or lake. Places of popular meetings were called "kopischi" or "kopischi". The people were called to the meeting by lighting a fire or ringing a bell (beating).

On the hunt, a wide variety of everyday issues were resolved - land, forestry, agricultural, construction, trade, criminal, family, household and others. The National Assembly searched for, tried and punished the criminals, and returned what was taken away to the offended. Here, the sincere public repentance of the violator of the laws and the forgiveness of the victim of the offender were encouraged. The last will of the punished was listened to and taken into account, the mortally wounded were said goodbye. The skhodatai tried to reconcile the disputants. The affairs of the community members were dealt with according to their conscience.

The cops' decisions were respected by all members of the community and carried out without question. Copnoy violations were extremely rare. If such happened, they were perceived as an emergency. Everyone, faced with a violation of popular customs, had to stop it. Otherwise, such a person was considered an accomplice of a misdemeanor or crime and was punished according to the law. For every Slav, the opinion of the cop was the highest spiritual and moral guideline.

The essential difference between cops and other gatherings, meetings, conferences, conferences and conventions held in the following centuries was the principle of unanimity. Here decisions were made that satisfied all those present. The Slavs knew how to negotiate with each other. This suggests that they had a high spiritual culture and morality. Forms of decision-making by a majority vote, as it was in later times and still exists today, did not exist.

At the meeting, mutual responsibility was established, that is, the entire community was responsible for the misdeeds of its members, and also vouched for the safety of the life and property of both its members and newcomers. Thanks to the Kopnaya right, the Slavic communities had a high birth rate, the population quickly recovered after wars and epidemics, patriotic warriors were brought up, the ecology of settlements and their environs was maintained, forests were protected and restored.

On the hunt, during a stormy and emotional discussion of problems and issues, the best qualities of the Slavs were manifested - sincerity, honesty, disinterestedness, frankness, courage and nobility. The meetings took the form of a public confession, the souls of people were cleansed of self-interest, envy, and other individual vices. Public interests were placed above personal interests, the law of justice triumphed. The affairs and actions of the community members were subject to strict control. For many Slavs, the cop was a school of life and a university of morality.

The people chose from ten yards of the ten, from a hundred yards - of the sotsk. The communities themselves were called “hundreds”. In Novgorod, the names "hundred", "hundred" for urban communities were established very early. The rural ones were called mainly "graveyards". In other places (in the Vladimir and Volyn lands), rural, not urban communities were called "hundreds".

The ten and sotskys monitored the ecology of the villages, were in charge of household and land issues, monitored public order in the streets and trading in bazaars, and were responsible for fire safety. Sotsky was empowered to issue decrees on property and corporal punishment of offenders, resolved issues related to the construction of public buildings, and issued residence permits to newcomers and captive aliens.

To protect their lands from the enemy, the Slavic-Rus chose princes, more often from strong families of hereditary warriors. (The election of princes existed until the 8th-9th centuries, surviving in subsequent centuries only under the veche orders). The prince recruited a squad of the bravest and strongest members of the community. For their maintenance, for the construction of border outposts and defensive lines, the cop allocated tithe (one tenth of the income of householders). If there was an urgent need to build military defensive facilities, this was done voluntarily and jointly by all the men of the community. In war times, the entire male population of the community, capable of carrying weapons, became warriors.

In the system of ancient Slavic self-government, all public offices were elective (as a rule, for a short period). Each person elected by the people, in the event of non-fulfillment or unfair fulfillment of the duties assigned to him, was immediately re-elected or financially punished. Thus, society has always remained healthy and mobile, self-cleaning itself from unscrupulous, irresponsible, lazy or incompetent public leaders.

For many centuries, the popular law of the Slavs was passed down in families from generation to generation, by inheritance, orally. It was only with the penetration of feudalism into the Russian lands that the people's legal norms began to be written down.

Some researchers call the set of legal regulations of the Slavic-Rus "Pocon (Law) Russian". It operated in Russia from the 5th - 6th centuries and is mentioned in the treaties with Romea (Byzantium) in 911 and 944. They called it in the old days "The arrangement of the deny and the grandfather." In the era of common Slavic unity in the Old Slavic language, the words "court", "law", "law", "truth", "wine", "execution" and others appeared and became firmly established. "Law (Pocon) Russian" came to the Middle Dnieper region in IX century, together with the Balts and Carpathian Rus, and became common for the population of the Kiev land. This was the legal basis for the Russian communities that existed from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In the Middle Dnieper region, the norms of this legislation worked more in favor of the Russians than the Slavs (the Slavs, for example, were denied the right to blood feud). Many Slavic tribes during the time of Prince Igor lived "each in their own way" according to their own order. “Zakon (Pocon) Russian” did not know freedom as an abstract concept, as an absolute moral value. Only the freedom of a specific person or group of persons was taken into account. Everyone know your place - the main idea of the ancient Russian tribal law. When considering cases, this legal system did not take into account the property status of the litigants; before the Law, everyone was equally equal.

Gradually, the "Russian Law" and Slavic law merged and in this form entered the "Russkaya Pravda", which no longer defended the interests of the people themselves, but the first boyar and then landlord and noble clans emerging in Russia. After the Christianization of the Slavic-Russian lands, many of the provisions of the Pocon were discarded and forgotten.

Our ancestors took their people's right seriously and respectfully. This is evidenced by their oaths - the Russians swore by gods and on weapons, the Slavs did not swear on weapons. They held out with their right hand a tuft of their cut hair (as a symbol of their swearing by their own head). Sometimes the hair was replaced with a bunch of grass, as if calling to witness the mother-damp earth, the giver of life and strength. Sometimes a piece of turf was placed on the head or the ground was kissed. Symbolically, this meant that the gods were watching over people.

Legislative innovations brought to Russian lands from other territories took root with our ancestors with great difficulty. For everything was appreciated and respected from more (paternal) and grandfather (grandfather).

Protecting the life of the Slavic-Rus, their dignity, land, health and property, the Law of those times was very harsh towards its violators. Large fines were imposed on the guilty. For example, for hitting a compatriot with the blunt side of the sword or with a household object, the offender had to pay the victim 1.5 kg of silver. In the "Russian Law" there were two harsh, but fair types of punishment: confiscation of property and the death penalty.

The blood feud that existed at that time was regulated by the talion principle: the punishment had to be commensurate with the damage from the crime. But the right of blood feud was given to the relatives of the victim only after the trial. Fratricide was not forgiven in ancient popular law. (It becomes clear why the Kiev prince Vladimir, who killed his blood brother Yaropolk, in his own favor changed the faith of the Svarozhi people, and with it the legal laws. Although there were other personal reasons).

In the XI-XII centuries, brothers flourished in Kiev - guild associations of Russian artisans. Bratina had her own meeting house and elected self-government bodies. They were headed by the elders (foremen) elected by the people. The brothers were all armed and welded together with iron discipline. They often successfully resisted the pressure of the boyars and princes. The latter were forced to reckon with the working people, restraining their selfish appetites. Similar brothers existed in Vladimir and other Russian cities.

At the turn of the VIII-IX centuries in the Slavic lands, the consolidation of lands into the Union of Tribes, which had a proto-state form of government, was already taking place. The most famous and influential of the tribal unions was the Ilmen Slovenian Union. In the 60s of the IX century, a tribal confederation appeared, which acquired the quality of state education - Novgorod Rus, the State of Rurik.

The forced Christianization of the Slavic-Rus led to the loss of the Slavic-Aryan legal culture, destroyed the worldview that had developed over the millennia. In the era of the baptism of Russia into a foreign faith between the Russian princes, strife became more frequent and intensified, destroying the Slavic unity.

Despite the cruel, forcible Christianization of the Slavic-Rus, which brought other people's rights and laws to Russia, the people's Kopnoe right continued to stubbornly exist in almost all Slavic lands. However, foreign Pospolita (Polish) and Magdeburg (German) law began to creep in here more and more aggressively. Well-to-do townspeople, princes, boyars, and later rich landowners were interested in the new orders borrowed from the West. It was they who were the first ardent persecutors of the cops as the spokesman for the national interests. Numerous emerging princes fought against both the village cops and the city ones. Some too independent and rebellious cities were destroyed by the princes with fire and sword. But they re-emerged from rural communities thanks to population growth and the development of crafts. Largely thanks to the Kopnaya Pravo, they were filled with new vitality. For several centuries, the ever-increasing princely power, already inherited, fought against the people's cop.

Over time, city dwellers who have accepted Western legal innovations have ceased to be on the hunt. The neighboring (outskirts) villages were automatically assigned to such cities, and the tyranny of the landowners began to grow in them. Serfdom (a monstrously cannibalistic invention of Russian feudal lords and their patrons - the Romanov Tsars) contributed to the transformation of the cops into a village court, which was attended by one goat from each village. In fact, the descendants could no longer resist the onslaught of the greedy and increasingly arrogant landowners, who were even allowed to maim their peasants with impunity. There were also murders.

On the side of the landowners there have always been priests and police officers. Therefore, the descendants could no longer prove their innocence and influence the outcome of the decisions of the meeting. Often landowners simply took their peasants away from the cops, and in the 17th century they openly began to prohibit serfs from visiting the cops.

Nor did they come to the hunt themselves. Everything began to be done so that democracy and self-government in Russia would come to naught.

Popular law was attacked not only by numerous appanage princes, but also by the Christian Church, which over the years became more and more rich and aggressive (which, however, is repeated in our time). From the new European laws, only a handful of rich people benefited, most often crooks, embezzlers and scoundrels who were fattening at the expense of working people.

However, the cop did not give up. It was not so easy to kill her. The passionarity of the Slavic-Rus for many centuries remained quite high. Ancient act books tell us that in 1602, in some Slavic territories, the Kopnoe right still lived and functioned. Criminal cases were discussed right at the crime scene - in an oak forest, a forest, by a river or under a mountain. Often a robbed or offended peasant himself looked for his shkodnik, collected evidence against him, and questioned people. This preliminary investigation was called a "search". If the plaintiff could not find his abuser, he demanded to collect the cop. The gatherings listened to the plaintiff's complaint in silence, without interrupting him. The plaintiff could summon a cop three times.

When it was necessary to solve land problems, gatherings gathered on the disputed land. If the landowner did harm to anyone, he was summoned to the cop for a conversation. The landowner was summoned to the meeting three times. If he didn't show up for the third time, the cop would investigate and make a decision on her own. The verdict of the people's court was called "vapalyazok", "utterance", "know-how", sometimes "utterance".

In later acts, the phrase "decree of the cops" was used. If the defendant was reconciled with the plaintiff, he was forgiven.

For a long time, strong Russian cities like Pskov and Novgorod were called free and free precisely because they lived according to the laws of ancient Slavic-Russian law, preserving the Aryan legal culture.

The mining law formed the basis of the Veche law, which was in effect in Russia at the beginning of the Middle Ages. (Translated from the Old Church Slavonic "veche" means "advice"). The veche is mentioned in the annals in Southern Belgorod (997), Veliky Novgorod (1016), Kiev (1068). However, veche meetings of the townspeople took place earlier. Russian, Soviet historian I. Ya. Froyanov believed that at the end of the 1st millennium - the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. e. The veche was the highest governing body in all Russian lands, and not only in the Novgorod Republic. Representatives of the nobility (princes, boyars, church hierarchs) led these powerful assemblies, but did not possess sufficient power to sabotage the decisions of the people or subordinate their actions to their will.

A wide range of issues was discussed at the veche - the conclusion of peace and the declaration of war, the disposal of the prince's table, financial and land resources. Agreements with princes were concluded and terminated, the actions of princes, posadniks, sovereigns and other officials were controlled, masters, posadniks, tysyatskys were elected and displaced, voivods and posadniks were appointed in the city and surrounding villages, the duties of the population were established, land issues were resolved, the rules of trade were approved and benefits, court terms and execution of court decisions were controlled.

Veche was a mechanism for smoothing out the social contradictions of our ancestors. However, the social heterogeneity of ancient Russian society that arose over the centuries made the popular democratic veche gatherings more and more controlled by the boyar aristocracy. Already in the XII-XIII centuries, not only in the Novgorod Republic, but also in other Russian lands, the zemstvo nobility to a large extent subordinated veche meetings to their will.

Sometimes at the city veche gatherings there were fistfights (this has never happened at the village cop). This happened in those cases when one of the boyar groups needed to push through a decision that was beneficial to it.

But these fights were not ordinary street fights, they were corrected by certain rules of a judicial duel. In the XII-XIII centuries, the Novgorodians behaved so violently that the princes refused to go to them. In the fourteenth century, veche passions in Novgorod began to subside somewhat. In fact, over time, the veche became a conductor of the will of the boyars, formalized as the will of the people, a kind of compromise between the so-called. elite and common people.

Veche rule lasted in Novgorod until the middle of the fifteenth century. This truly great city was one of the last strongholds of self-government and democracy in the already feudal Russia. After the forcible seizure by the Moscow princes-tsars of Veliky Novgorod and Pskov, the veche orders began to disappear in these lands. Weaker and less organized Russian cities surrendered to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or Magdeburg legal norms much earlier.

The significance of popular law in Russia was dying away with the development of feudalism. When the tsarist regime gave the landowners full freedom and unlimited rights, the people's legal customs finally lost their force. Although the elements of Kopnoe right remained for some time among the Cossacks. The people's right was most clearly manifested in the Zaporizhzhya Sich. It was the Cossacks who carried through the centuries "the zest of the law of our copnago."

Even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the word "volost" was used in Russia. It appeared in Russia in the 10th century and is closely related to the Kopnoe right. The volost was formed by rural communities run by a cop. On the volost cop, they were elected: the board, the foreman (headman), the court, the clerk, petitioners (intercessors for public affairs in the capital city).

The duties of the board included keeping books, which recorded decisions of meetings, transactions, trade and employment contracts.

The meetings were chaired by the foreman. His duties included the storage of archival documents (decisions, letters, receipts, etc.), bringing any peasant to account, and announcing the cops' decisions in criminal cases. The foreman strictly monitored the observance of the people's laws. He was the link between the householders and the appanage prince, to whom he interceded for the interests of the people. To smooth out conflicts between the prince and the community members, he explained to the dull prince's demands and decisions.

The sergeant major was accountable for his affairs to the sotskiy, the sotskiy - to the ten's, and the ten's - to the householders. Each of the elected people, having lost their trust, could be removed and re-elected at any time. However, this happened very rarely, since public trust was valued at that time.

With the arrival of Rurik in Novgorod, princely power in Russia began to be inherited. The glorious Aryan elected management culture began to lose its significance. The prince (and later - the king) was no more worthy (the strongest, smartest, bravest, etc.) representative of the people, but any mediocre, weak and even mentally defective offspring of the ruling dynasty. The power structures were alienated from the interests of the people (which we witness with our own eyes today).

By the 17th century, we already had a finally established monarchy, where there was no question of any people's rights.

A new surge and revival of democracy, but already in a transformed form, took place during the Soviet era. However, at the end of the twentieth century, not without the help of the same West, we also lost the Soviets.

Let's not go to extremes and idealize the Dig and Veche world order in Russia. Of course, our ancestors had their own problems and difficulties. But surely the Russians and Slavs did not have such lawlessness and anti-humanity that reign in our society today. It seems that the world order of their society was much more reasonable, fairer and more moral than ours. Community (in the twentieth century - collectivism) is a great thing. Losing it, we, the descendants of the Slavic-Rus, are losing ourselves, our identity, spiritual culture, our moral and ethical core, our unique soul. The sooner we realize this, the more chances that New Russia will not only survive in the 21st century, but will rise to the level of the world's leading powers.

Naturally, today we will not be able (and it is not necessary) in all their completeness and authenticity to transfer the laws of the Coop and Veche law to modern society. But to take the best from the depths of centuries, from an honest and just system of direct democracy, we not only can, but also must.

Any sane person will agree that the current parasitic system of popular fooling must be changed. How to do this technically is another matter. Now we know one thing - the Russian people need to return direct democracy. Self-organization is our salvation. Not the violence of the authorities from above, but its independent formation from below. This is the only way to ensure a decent life for our compatriots in the 21st century.

Ahead is the time of Slavic civilization (whatever it is called). And today the Russian people need to get out of the state of the thousand-year biblical slavery and servitude before the West.