William Elliot Butler

The article is devoted to the work of the student of the faculty of law of Kazan University L.N. Tolstoy about the “Nakaz” of Empress Catherine II. This work of the future famous Russian writer, which was set out in his diary for 1847, shows that he had undoubted ability to research in the field of law and could carry out at a fairly high level comparative analysis of legal texts. If he were serious about studying law, he would have undoubtedly become an outstanding legal scholar. But in this case Russia would lose one of its greatest novelists.