Modern humanities on the legal activities of Anatoly Fedorovich Koni

Abstract

The study analyzes modern research on the life and work of the outstanding Russian lawyer Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. Koni’s works are considered using modern analytic methods (content analysis, narrative, discursive analysis, etc.). Authors study the narrative of the lawyer (philologists and historians) and his linguistic personality (philologists). Seven dissertations were defended, many books and hundreds of articles were published. Conferences were held regularly. The memory of Koni is celebrated by many lawyers. Authors consider these studies in a chronological order and using comparative analysis. Currently, active “production” of publications on Koni’s work continues. Slightly more than half of publications represent a rewriting of older legal publications; we skip these and consider only those works that have contributed to the study of Koni and his environment. Of these publications, authors limited the review to those works devoted to Koni’s legal and personal life. The study of a vast amount of such work allows to identify the main experts in the field: Z. V. Baishev (philology) and S. A. Domanova (history). Authors were able to fully learn about Koni’s literary gifts, to see his theory of practical ethics, to understand many of the motives for his activities, and to create a psychological portrait, learned much about Koni, his fight against drunkenness and prostitution, relationship with the Soviet authorities, the influence of ethics on modern legal proceedings, Koni’s psychology and psychologism, and his relations with the press. Koni’s epistolary works await further, without which it is impossible to understand the motives of his actions. It is necessary, finally, to reveal his contribution to the philosophy of law.