Issues of Reform of Civil Law in the Works of Legal Societies in the 1860s - 1890s

The work is devoted to the topic of reorganization of the private law sphere of the Russian Empire from the perspective of legal communities, which, in the course of their development, transformed into legal societies and took a leading place among the institutions of civil society that were actively formed in late imperial Russia. The work highlights the issues that worried the leaders of legal societies in the context of the need to reform civil law, identified their positions, opinions, existing discussions and general contribution to this discourse. The studied materials of law societies allowed us to conclude that one of the most important areas of their work was the theoretical and practical development of civil law, including issues of revising Volume X of the Code of Laws, developing the Civil Code, and improving the legal regulation of individual institutions of civil law. It is concluded that each of the identified issues received its own elaboration within the framework of the activities of members of legal societies, both through discussion of them at meetings of associations, and through the publication of individual works published in periodicals of legal societies, which were supplemented by counter-abstracts of opponents, critical notes of other authors, that created the basis for a fruitful discussion and brought us closer to finding the truth. Thus, using the example of the works of figures from the Moscow and St. Petersburg Law Societies, the fact is illustrated that the source of reform activity in the civil law sphere was not only the offices of government institutions, but also the work of legal theorists and legal practitioners united in professional groups.