Pavel Ivanovich Novgorodtsev (russian: Па́вел Ива́нович Новгоро́дцев; in

Bakhmut Bakhmut ( uk, Ба́хмут, ) is a city in the Donbas and the administrative centre of Bakhmut Raion in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is located on the Bakhmutka River, about 89 km north of Donetsk city, the administrative center of the o ...

– 23 April 1924 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

and

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. Novgorodtsev graduated from

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1888 with a degree in law. Following further study in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

he returned to Moscow University, completing his doctorate in 1903. from 1896 to 1911. He was a member of the Central Committee Constitutional Democrat Party (Kadets) and in 1906 he was elected as a deputy to the

First State Duma Legislative elections were held in the Russian Empire from 26 March to 20 April 1906. At stake were the 497 seats in the State Duma of the Russian Empire, the legislative assembly. Election for the First State Duma, which only ran from 27 Apri ...

. He was a signatory of the

Vyborg Manifesto The Vyborg Manifesto (russian: Выборгское воззвание, translit=Vyborgskoye Vozzvaniye, fi, Viipurin manifesti, sv, Viborgsmanifestet); also called the Vyborg Appeal) was a proclamation signed by several Russian politicians, pri ...

. He was also appointed director and a professor at the Moscow Commercial Institute that year.

Ivan Ilyin Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin or Il'in (Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Ильи́н, – 21 December 1954) was a Russian jurist, a dogmatic religious and political philosopher, an orator and conservative monarchist. He perceived the Febru ...

was one of his protégés. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he worked with the

Union of Cities The All-Russian Union of Cities (russian: Всероссийский союз городов, Vserossiysky soyuz gorodov) was a political organisation set up in Imperial Russia in August 1914 to help achieve Russian war aims. It was a liberalism, ...

and was the Moscow Commissioner of the Special Meeting on Fuel. During the

Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...

he sided with the

Whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as " ...

, 1918 and left the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

in 1920. After living in Berlin, 1922-1924, he moved to Prague where, shortly before his death, he became Dean of the Russian faculty of law at the

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

there. Novgorodtsev is buried at the Orthodox cemetery at Prague's

Olšany Cemetery Olšany Cemeteries (''Olšanské hřbitovy'' in Czech, ''Wolschan'' in German) is the largest graveyard in Prague, Czech Republic, once laid out for as many as two million burials. The graveyard is particularly noted for its many remarkable art ...

His views

In 1903 he edited '' Problems of Idealism'' which included his essay "Нравственный идеализм в философии права" (Moral idealism in the philosophy of law). Novgorodtsev was a

Neo-Kantian In late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (german: Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The Neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the "thin ...

and considered

natural law Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...

as providing a moral criterion for criticising and improving

positive law Positive laws ( la, links=no, ius positum) are human-made laws that oblige or specify an action. Positive law also describes the establishment of specific rights for an individual or group. Etymologically, the name derives from the verb ''to posit ...

. In ''The Crisis of Modern Legal Consciousness'' (1911), he declared that all ideas for resolving modern social and moral contradictions were

Utopian A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...

. He criticised the theory of

scientific socialism Scientific socialism is a term coined in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his book ''What is Property?'' to mean a society ruled by a scientific government, i.e., one whose sovereignty rests upon reason, rather than sheer will: Thus, in a given ...

, and viewed all proposals for resolving modern social and moral contradictions as Utopian.

Works

* ''Istoricheskaia shkola iuristov: Ee proiskhozhdenie i sud’ba'', Moscow, 1896 * ''Kant i Gegel’ v ikh uchenii o prave i gosudarstve'', ("Kant and Hegel in his Theories of Law and the State: Two Typical Lines in the Field of Law Philosophy") Moscow, 1901 * ''The Crisis of Modern Legal Consciousness'', 1911

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Novgorodtsev, Pavel 1886 births 1924 deaths People from Bakhmut People from Bakhmutsky Uyezd Russian Constitutional Democratic Party members Members of the 1st State Duma of the Russian Empire Russian Constituent Assembly members 20th-century Russian philosophers 20th-century Russian lawyers Russian expatriates in Germany Russian emigrants to Czechoslovakia Charles University alumni