On the application of Byzantine law in modern Bessarabia

Abstract

The article describes the application of Byzantine law in the region of Bessarabia which formed part of the Russian Empire from the early 19th century until 1917. The empire allowed the local population to apply their local laws for the regulation of their civil law relations. Due to historical reasons, these local laws were identified with the law of the Byzantine Empire which had already disappeared in 1453. The authors of the article provide a general description of the sources of Bessarabian law and then turn to case study research regarding the jurisprudence of courts on the issues of the Law of Succession in Bessarabia. They demonstrate that in interpreting the provisions of the law applicable, Russian lawyers often referred to Roman law as a doctrinal background of Byzantine law. Furthermore, they did not hesitate to identify Roman law with Pandect law. Even though the doctrine of the Law of Pandects had been created in Germany on the basis of Roman law texts, it was far from the content of the original law of the Ancient Roman Empire. The fate of the practical application of Byzantine law in Bessarabia reflects some general problems of the ‘legal transplants’ in the history of law and therefore provides additional materials for the theoretical study of the issues of ‘legal transfer’ in history and nowadays.