Sushkova Yu.N.

National-state construction in the Russian Empire and the USSR (review of the materials of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Legal Historians of Russia).

The article highlights the individual legal aspects of the institution of property in the traditional legal system of the Mordovian people. Great attention is paid to the analysis of “signs of ownership” (in Moksha-Mordvin language “tyashks”, in Erzya-Mordvin language “teshks”), which marked the belonging of the particular object to the concrete owner.

The article investigates the features of the legal nature of customary law from the perspective of ethnographic theory of law (ethnic legal studies). On the base of Russian and foreign sources the essence of the customary law is substantiated, the legal owner of which are people (ethnos), providing understanding of multiple legal categories, regulated most important spheres of their livehood. Customary law studies are done on the base of civilization approach to historical-legal development of the institutions as reflection of legal values of the particular ethnos.