Great Muscovite Law Code

About the Author

The Ulozhenie was established at the order of Czar Alexis I. Alexis was born in March of 1629 and took the throne at the age of sixteen. His father and royal predecessor, Mikhail, was the founder of the Romanov Dynasty. Most historians consider Alexis to have been a pious and fairly effective ruler. Conservative rather than reactionary, he was cautiously favorable to reforms that appeared likely to strengthen or preserve tradition and authority, such as a new and more comprehensive law code. He was also distinguished by an ability to choose wise and talented advisers and to give them sufficient freedom of action. This latter trait is also clearly exemplified by the Ulozhenie, which Alexis authorized but did not compose. He died in 1676.

In the early summer of 1648, Alexis consulted with Patriarch Joseph of Moscow, church officials, boyars (nobles), and other prominent advisers. Then, on July 16, he appointed a five-person commission headed by the talented and prominent state servant Nikita Odoevsky and ordered them to compile a draft law. This was done by October 3. Odoevsky, a favorite also of the previous czar, was a minor noble who had already carved out successful careers for himself as a diplomat and military commander. Before being recruited for work on the Ulozhenie , he had proved himself in legal affairs, running the chancelleries of Kazan and Siberia. His commission drew on a wide body of existing legislation, including past legal cases, earlier Russian secular law codes, Orthodox ecclesiastical law, and Byzantine and Lithuanian codes. The draft was then amended and expanded by an “Assembly of the Land,” comprising men from every rank of society (except the peasant masses) and two noblemen from each town. All these men were required to read and sign the finished product. The Ulozhenie was essentially a compilation and codification of existing laws, rather than an original composition. Nonetheless it is considered one of the great achievements of Russian literature prior to the nineteenth century.