Articles

The review of the scientific conference dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Professor V.Y. Koldin provides information about the speakers and the topics of their reports. The variety of topics indicates the versatility of the analysis of the scientist's work. The discussion focused on the influence of the professor's teachings on the development of criminalistiks science and forensic examination in Russia over the entire period; the significance of the fundamental collective works of criminalistiks scientists, forensic doctors and specialists in other expert fields published under his editorship and with the authorship participation in 2002 "Material Evidence. Information Technologies of Procedural Proof" and in 2007 "Forensic Science. Information Technologies of Proof", as well as his monograph "Forensic Identification" (2002), published in 2019 in English; the problems of personal identification when examining numerous remains, especially; on the importance of forensic analysis methodology in combating crime in the financial market. The main thesis of these speeches was the relevance of the provisions characterizing the scientist's contribution to the development of scientific knowledge for modern criminalistiks and forensic examination and the use of this knowledge in law enforcement activities, as well as his high moral qualities.

This article presents the recollections of a grateful student regarding his teacher — Ruslan Fedorovich Vasiliev, Doctor of Law and Professor at the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law of the Moscow University Law Faculty. The author talks about his teaching style and scientific supervision, recalls his contribution to the scientific support of law-making activities, and turns to the most interesting topics of a number of scientific studies by R. F. Vasiliev.

The importance of P. Atiyah's views for the development of the will theory of contract cannot be overstated. His studies on contract law stand out among other doctrinal sources of common law, which were strongly influenced, on the contrary, by the bargain theory. Their analysis shows that the influence of civil law on the understanding of the contract, which became most powerful in the 19th century, still exists to this day. However, a number of critical remarks and challenges regarding the will theory force the author to seek answers to the expressed doubts. Their analysis helps to conclude whether the will theory is able to retain its significance and adequately respond to the demands of contract law.

The article deals with the issues of limiting property rights in the western provinces of Russia. The study touches upon the problems of peasant land ownership and the policy of Russification of these territories. Extensive normative and legal material, judicial practice and archival documents are involved. The Polish uprisings in 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 radically change the state activity in the region. There is a consistent restriction of the rights of the Polish gentry, and the Russification of the region begins. The decree of 10 December 1865 introduces the concept of a "person of Polish nationality" and limits the right of the gentry to own land. Polish peasants did not fall under the Decree, and their right to purchase plots of land was not limited. The process of forming a new layer of large Polish landowners from former peasants begins, which raises serious concerns in government circles, since this does not correspond to the ongoing policy of Russification of the region. At the end of the 19th century the practice of applying the Decree of 1865 identified a number of problems, including those concerning the circle of persons to whom this normative legal act was to be applied. When determining the authority of a subject, religious affiliation is put at the forefront. At the same time, the issue of replacing the concept of "person of Polish nationality" with "person of foreign religions" is raised. The article shows the difference in views in the government regarding the legal regulation of the lands of non-noble Poles. A conclusion is made about the sufficiently balanced approach of the legislators in developing the laws and in-depth study of the problems identified in practice.

The article is devoted to the Faculty of Soviet Law, which existed at the 1st Moscow State University from June 1925 to April 1931. Within the framework of this faculty, there was a significant revival of the legal training system that operated at the Imperial Moscow University before the 1917 revolution. The article reveals the background and causes for the new reform of legal education in Soviet Russia, which resulted in the establishment of the Faculty of Soviet Law at Moscow University instead of the law department of the Faculty of Social Sciences; it describes the internal organization of the faculty, analyzes its educational program and the methods of teaching law used here. Special attention is paid to the students, the teaching staff and the heads of the faculty. The article consists of three sections: 1. Introduction, 2. Establishment of the Faculty of Soviet Law of the 1st Moscow State University: its structure, curriculum and methods of teaching law. 3. Students, teachers, and deans of the Faculty of Soviet Law.

Among the variety of forms of criminal activity with the use of firearms and (or) explosive devices in recent years, cases of armed attacks on educational institutions, which take the form of mass murders, have taken a special place. Given the comparative novelty of this phenomenon of russian reality, there is an urgent need to develop adequate tactical and methodological approaches to their investigation and prevention. This article is the first attempt in the Russian criminalistics science to make a systematic analysis of the structural elements of the criminalistic characteristics of mass murders in educational organisations. Typical information about the crime scene conditions, the method of committing the offence, the trace picture, as well as the characteristics of the personality of the offender are considered. The article substantiates the position that it is inexpedient to single out as a separate element of criminalistic characteristic the information about the personality of victims — their choice is non-personalised, the determining factor is physical reach. These offences are often replicas of previously known acts of violence. This directly reflects on their criminalistic uniqueness and emphasises their supranational character, as well as indicating the potential specificity of their manifestation in the Russian context.

The article analyzes the problems of expert assessment of the emotional state of persons who have committed offenses, including multiple murders, in order to establish the presence or absence of affect in them. The criteria of the forensic psychological examination of legally significant affect, the features of its diagnosis and methodological approaches to the definition are considered. The subspecies of affect and the specifics of their qualifications are considered. There is a discrepancy between the psychological concept of affect and the legal concept of a sudden strong emotional disturbance; unjustified exaggeration by the legislator of the importance of circumstances provoking affect, when qualifying affective actions under privileged articles of the Criminal Code (107, 113), while not paying due attention to the analysis of the characteristics of the behavior of the accused at the time of the crime, before and after aggressive actions, and also not taking into account the subjective factor in the perception of the conflict situation, the personality of the accused, the presence of "pathological soil" and others. At the same time, in persons with mental abnormalities (within the framework of sanity), one can observe a weighted picture of affect with signs of deep affective narrowing of consciousness, when at the height of an affective explosion, affective aggression radiates to others, who often happen to be accidentally involved in a traumatic situation or have a distant relationship to it (the so-called widespread or radiating affect-torts)

March 13, 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Valentin Yakovlevich Koldin, Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honored Professor of Moscow State University, veteran of the Great Patriotic War, methodologist, outstanding criminologist, whose developments had the most significant impact on the development of domestic criminology and the birth of forensic expertise. This date has become a serious reason for rethinking the scientific and methodological legacy of the scientist. It has been established that the role often attributed to Valentin Yakovlevich in the formation and development of forensic identification reveals only a small part of his significant contribution to science.

The work carried out shows that the evolution of his methodology and system of views is concentrated in three fundamental results: the consolidation of universality for criminalistic identification not only in criminal proceedings, but also in all other types of legal process, as well as in law enforcement in general; the formation and development of the idea of forensic technologies in law enforcement, which united several generations. criminologists; substantiation and presentation of an expert-criminalistic picture of the world of law enforcement. Taken together, these provisions rightly claim to be paradigmatic in nature and may (already are) influencing the revision of the place of criminology in the system of scientific knowledge.

The modern criminalistic recognition of corruption crimes was resulted after long evolution of scientific views, developed by both Russian and foreign scientists. Initially, such kind of crimes was a matter only for criminal law studies. However, their criminalistic awareness started already in the first quarter of the 20th century. The increasing role of the state in social life after the First World War make it inevitable due to increasing risk of any disruption in functioning of the administrative apparatus. The concept of "white-collar crime" was put forward in the United States, as a kind of criminality which was significantly different from the crime of the "lower classes" ("blue collar"), since such criminals are formed in completely different social conditions and have different skills than ordinary offenders. Basing on it, the doctrine of "corporate criminality" was developed. Soviet scientists followed a similar path, which was shaped not only under the doctrine of the class nature of crime but for increasing demands to solve practical problems. Initially, they considered "economic and official crimes" as a unified group, since it was the state that became the main business entity. Subsequently, the managerial component was selected out, and that ideas became foundations of a modern understanding of corruption crimes