Kovalevsky, Maxim Maximovich

Came from a noble family of Kovalevsky . He was born on August 27 ( September 8 ), 1851 in a manor located near Olshanka ^[7] , near Kharkov .

Education

After graduating from the 3rd Kharkov gymnasium in 1868, he entered Kharkov University at the Faculty of Law. He specialized in state law of Western European countries. In 1872 he graduated from the university with a degree of candidate rights and was left at the initiative of D. I. Kachenovsky at the university at the Department of State Law of the European Powers after presenting the work “On the Constitutional Experiences of Austria and the Czech National Opposition”.

In 1872-1876 he continued his education abroad, first in Berlin , then in Paris , where he attended lectures at the French College , the Higher Free School of Political Sciences and the Charter School and London , where he studied at the British Museum .

He was familiar with Marx , about which he left memories. It is known that he included Kovalevsky among his “scientific friends”. Kovalevsky himself wrote: “it is very likely that without meeting Marx I would not have taken up the history of land tenure or the economic growth of Europe, but would have focused more on the development of political institutions, especially since such topics directly corresponded to what I taught subject ” ^[8] .

Activities in Russia

After defending his master's thesis, from September 1877 to 1887 he taught at Moscow University , taught a course on the history of foreign state institutions; since 1878 - professor of the law faculty. In 1880 he defended his doctoral dissertation "The Social System of England at the End of the Middle Ages."

In April 1879 he participated in the first Zemstvo congress in Moscow.

In 1879-1880, together with V.F. Miller, he published the journal Critical Review, collaborated in the journal Yuridichesky Vestnik , and the newspapers Poryadok and Zemstvo. He made three ethnographic expeditions to the Caucasus: in 1883 - with V.F. Miller , in 1885 - with I.I. Ivanyukov , in 1887 - with Yu. S. Gambarov . The collected materials formed the basis of his scientific developments in the field of patrimonial relations. In 1887 he was awarded the Great Gold Medal of the Ethnographic and Statistical Divisions of the Russian Geographical Society .

Overseas

In 1887, by order of the Minister of Public Education I.D. Delyanov, he was dismissed from the university and from that time he lived mainly abroad, mainly in London, Paris, in his villa Batava in Beaulieu-sur-Mer near Nice . He gave lectures in Stockholm , Oxford , Brussels , Chicago and other cities at the invitation of universities and private foundations.

In 1901, together with E.V. de Roberti and Yu. S. Gambarov, he founded the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences in Paris, where Russian opposition politicians were trained. Lectures in it were given by scientists and political figures of very different orientations ( S. A. Muromtsev , P. B. Struve , G. V. Plekhanov , V. I. Lenin , G. Tarde ).

Romance with Sofia Kovalevskaya

After being expelled from Russia, Kovalevsky made close friends with his surname, mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya ^[9] . On her initiative, he came to Stockholm , where he lectured at a local university ^[10] . Despite sincere feelings, Kovalevskaya did not want to formalize their relationship. In 1890, after a joint trip to the Riviera, they broke up.

After returning to Russia

In August 1905, during the revolution, Kovalevsky returned to Russia and was actively involved in political life. In September 1905 he participated in the congress of zemstvo and city leaders in Moscow. He became one of the founders of the Democratic Reforms Party , which also included V. D. Kuzmin-Karavaev and S. D. Urusov . Actively collaborated in various newspapers.

In 1906 he was elected a member of the first State Duma from the Kharkov province. The chairman of the commission on drawing up the punishment, was a member of four other commissions, and spoke in the Duma 62 times on most of the issues discussed. In July 1906, he led the Duma delegation at the 14th International Inter-Parliamentary Conference in London. After the dissolution of the Duma of the first convocation, he refused to sign the Vyborg Appeal .

In 1907 he was elected a member of the State Council from academic organizations and universities.

Professor of St. Petersburg University (1905-1916). He also taught at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute and at higher female courses . He participated in the organization of the Psychoneurological Institute . Since 1910, the Psychoneurological Institute has become a private Petrograd University. Within the framework of this institute, Kovalevsky, together with the sociologist E. de Roberti, created the first department of sociology in Russia, overcoming the resistance of the minister of public education, according to which the department of sociology could compromise the educational institution. Since 1910, Kovalevsky worked as dean of the law faculty of the private Petrograd University. His first students were P. Sorokin, K. Takhtarev , N. Kondratiev, N. Timashev, who later became world-class sociologists.

From 1908, M. M. Kovalevsky was president of the Pedagogical Academy of St. Petersburg, and since 1914, he was Chairman of the St. Petersburg Law Society.

M. M. Kovalevsky actively participated in the anti-war movement. He was chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the Peace Society. ^[eleven]

In the “New Encyclopedic Dictionary” by F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron, he co-authored a department of political and legal sciences, in addition, he participated in the creation of the “Encyclopedic Dictionary” by the brothers A. N. and N. N. Granat .

The formation of a sociology section at the Historical Society at St. Petersburg University in 1912 is also associated with the name of Kovalevsky.

In 1912 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ^[12] .

One of the founders of the progressive party , in 1912-1914 - a member of its Central Committee.

The outbreak of World War I caught Kowalewski in Carlsbad on treatment. As a Russian citizen, he was interned until the spring of 1915, then returned to Russia.

He died in Petrograd on March 23 (April 5) 1916. He was buried in the Nikolsky cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra ^[13] ; up to 100 thousand people took part in the funeral.

Personal Library

In 1916, at the will of Maxim Maximovich, Moscow University received his personal library, consisting of 7190 volumes of books on history, economics, law, and works of world literature. The collection contains a large number of valuable autographs. Currently, the Kovalevsky library is stored in the Department of rare books and manuscripts of the Scientific Library of Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov ^[14] .

Pupils

• Sacchetti, Alexander Liverievich
• Sorokin, Pitirim Alexandrovich
• Kondratiev, Nikolai Dmitrievich
• Timashev, Nikolai Sergeevich

Masonic Membership

Dedicated to the degree of apprentice, apprentice and master on the same day - March 14, 1888 in Paris in the box "Cosmos" ^[15] . Since 1906, the founding member of the Renaissance lodge of the Great East of France in Moscow, was her venerable master and 1st guard ^[16] . Almost simultaneously, he became the founder and venerable master of St. Petersburg lodges "Polar Star" of the Great East of France and the " Phoenix " of the Great Lodge of France . Since November 1908, the 1st guardian of the Council of 18 (in fact, the Rosicrucian chapel of the 18th degree of the School for Children's and Political Administration ).

• 1906-1907 - Zhukovsky street, 5; ^[17]
• 1907-1916 - Mokhovaya street, 32.

A historical pattern is the need to advance each society from a lower to a higher stage. However, this progress contradicts the "opposition of poverty and wealth, discord between the haves and have-nots." To overcome this contradiction, he considered it necessary for the state to intervene in the disposal of property in the interests of farmers and workers, to secure the right to work, the free activity of trade unions, and their struggle for social rights.

With the slowness of social change, progress is more reliable than with its speed; evolution should be preferred to revolution ; progress is desirable only under the condition of maintaining order.

Along with teaching, M. M. Kovalevsky worked a lot as an ethnographer and sociologist, studying community tenure, the history of state and law. In 1880, his programmatic methodological work, The Historical-Comparative Method in Jurisprudence, was published.

During his stay abroad, Kovalevsky continued his active scientific activity, which brought him world fame. The most significant works of this period are the four-volume study “The Origin of Modern Democracy” (St. Petersburg, 1895-1897), as well as the initially three-volume, and later brought to seven volumes work, “The Economic Growth of Europe before the Creation of a Capitalist Economy” (Moscow, 1898-1903) ) The work “Ethnography and Sociology”, which began the cycle of his special works on sociology , dates back to the same time.

Kovalevsky entered world science as an outstanding lawyer, sociologist and historian. In his works, M. M. Kovalevsky paid great attention to the promotion of sociological knowledge. At the initiative of him and E. de Roberti, New Ideas in Sociology, vol. 1-4 (St. Petersburg, 1913-1914). Kovalevsky devoted a lot of energy to the formation of the traditions of scientific communication and cooperation of Russian sociologists, to the search for ways of their entry into the international sociological community.

Being primarily a state expert, M. M. Kovalevsky studied state legal institutions in their historical development, in the context of historical and comparative analysis, and also based on ethnographic and sociological studies.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the creative heritage of M. M. Kovalevsky was constituted by the philosophy and methodology of positivism . At the same time, K. Marx played a significant role in shaping his scientific worldview, with whom he met and closely communicated during his studies abroad and whose personality he rated very highly. It was under the influence of Marx that Kovalevsky subsequently began to seriously engage in the history of economics. However, he did not advocate a materialistic understanding of history (that is, he did not accept the thesis that social life is conditional on material production relations), considering this approach to be one-sided. He was far from Marxism and in his ideological and political convictions, being a supporter of the constitutional monarchy. He adhered to the positivist theory of the multiplicity of factors of social development, which later transformed in his works into the theory of the functional connection of social phenomena.

The legal and sociological concept of M. M. Kovalevsky proceeds from the proposition that law is a product of the development of society, determined by the need of society for social solidarity. From these positions, he argued with supporters of the concept of natural law.

In particular, in his work “Sociology” (in the chapter “Sociology and Law”), he wrote:

“Many people think to find a criterion for assessing the current legislation in some kind of metaphysical notion of absolute justice and human-born rights, known as natural rights ... But if nature has taught all living things, then it’s not law, but lawlessness, which consists in sacrifice your neighbor in the interests of your self-preservation. "

Indeed, Kovalevsky believed, grew up in the struggle for survival from the need of people to unite with their own kind, guided by the instinct of self-preservation. Initially, these were associations within the herd, horde of nomads, tribe and clan. Later,

“When, under the influence of universalist religions and international trade exchanges, the sphere of solidarity begins to embrace a number of peoples and states, the notion of law and justice that is supposedly changed for us changes so radically that instead of the old view of a stranger as an enemy against whom everything is permitted, the concept gradually develops about a home who was protected under his own hearth and therefore an inviolable guest, about a fellow believer ...; finally, and all, later, it is developed in our minds ... an abstract idea of ​​a person in general and his inalienable rights. ”

Speaking about the conditionality of law and the state in the interests of social solidarity, M. M. Kovalevsky believed that law arose from the need for solidarity before the state and independently of it. He regarded state and law not as a product of the struggle of the classes, but as an expression of “reconciliation” and social solidarity. Every group, Kovalevsky wrote, be it “an anthill, a beehive, a bird flock, a deer herd or a crowd of nomads,” is, first of all, a pacified environment from which the elements of struggle are eliminated; the place of struggle is occupied by solidarity or consciousness of the community of pursued goals and the interdependence of group members from each other. ” The further development of human society is determined, according to Kovalevsky, by the growth of solidarity: from unions of stray hordes to the modern state. He saw the prospect of this development in world-wide unification.

Law, he said, arises before the state and independently of it. The state does not create the law, but only posits the actually developing law, that is, recognizes it in the form of positive law.

M. M. Kovalevsky devoted considerable attention to the question of the origin of the state. At the same time, he rejected both the theory of the divine origin of state power and the theory of social contract. On the question of the source and nature of state power, the position of M. M. Kovalevsky was close to the psychological school of law, which considers law as a mental phenomenon. The basis of any state hostel, wrote Kovalevsky, is a psychological motive - a willingness to obey. Power arises as a result of a psychic influence on the masses from a gifted person. The source of the emergence of power must be sought “in no agreement of the people with the leader they have chosen ... but in the psychological influence of individuals capable of initiative, creativity, on the masses who are not capable of anything else but their subordination activities to someone else’s example and leadership. ”

Kovalevsky’s great contribution to the development of the methodology for the study of social phenomena is associated with the development of the historical and comparative method. Demonstrating the capabilities of this research method on rich historical and ethnographic material, Kovalevsky constantly emphasized the need to compare only comparable objects:

“A comparison will only be fruitful if the laws of two or more nations are taken, the stage of development of which is identical. It is therefore possible to compare the tribal orders of the Celts, Germans, or Slavs with the Roman and Greek, although in terms of chronology these nationalities are separated from each other for centuries and even millennia ... but it is useless for this purpose, that is, to highlight the common features of the phenomena under study, to compare the Russian Empire with the Empire of Charlemagne or the Holy Roman Empire and the class divisions of modern European peoples with medieval estates and religious castes of antiquity. "

Such a method, based on a comparison of comparable empirical data on the state and development of various societies in order to identify similarities or differences between them, Kovalevsky called a scientific comparison.

M. M. Kovalevsky among Russian sociologists is considered the first professional sociologist.

As a sociologist, M. M. Kovalevsky made a great contribution to the development of the concept of genetic sociology, which, according to him, was “that part of the science of society, its organization and progress, which deals with the origin of social life and social institutions, which are: family , property, religion, state, morality and law ... ”. M. M. Kovalevsky sought to study history from the perspective of a sociological approach, considering sociology as a general discipline.

As noted by E. A. Kosminsky , being a follower of the sociological school, Kovalevsky tried to bring the materialistic foundation to the idea of ​​the historical development of mankind and considered the growth of population density to be the main factor in this development, which, of course, now seems incorrect: he believed that it was under the influence of growth population serfdom is replaced by fixed-term rent ; examining the pandemic of " Black Death " in Europe, he argued that a decrease in population leads to the restoration of serfdom ^[5] . Kovalevsky considered the Economic Growth of Europe to be the main work of his life, published in Russian in three volumes (from the Roman Empire to the fourteenth century) and in German in seven volumes (before the eighteenth century) ^[5] .

Along with I.V. Luchitsky , N.I. Kareev and P.G. Vinogradov , he entered the famous Russian School (Ecole russe) of historians and sociologists, which was highly valued by K. Marx and F. Engels . Последний отмечал, что ей свойственны «и критическая мысль и самоотверженные искания в области чистой теории», что она «стоит бесконечно выше всего того, что создано в этом отношении в Германии и Франции официальной исторической наукой». Но впоследствии в советской критике её несправедливо критиковали за «субъективно-психологический подход» к анализу общества и его истории.

• «История полицейской администрации в английских графствах с древнейших времен до смерти Эдуарда I » (1877, магистерская диссертация)
• «Общинное землевладение, причины, ход и последствия его разложения» (М., 1879)
• «Общественный строй Англии в конце средних веков» (1880, докторская диссертация)
• «Историко-сравнительный метод в юриспруденции» (М., 1880)
• Иванюков И. И., Ковалевский М. М. У подошвы Эльбруса. — Нальчик: Издательство М. и В. Котляровых. 2009 — 80 с.
• «Закон и обычай на Кавказе» (1887)
• «Происхождение современной демократии» (т. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 1895—97)
• « Экономический рост Европы до возникновения капиталистического хозяйства » (т. 1—3, 1898—1903)
• «Этнография и социология» (М. 1904)
• «Современные социологи» (1905)
• Ковалевский М. М. «Политическая программа новаго союза народнаго благоденствія» 1906 г. С.-Петербургъ. 23 с.
• «От прямого народоправства к представительному и от патриархальной монархии к парламентаризму » (т. 1—3, 1906)
• «Социология» (т. 1—2, 1910)
• «Происхождение и развитие семьи и собственности»
• Клан у аборигенных племен России / Пер. with fr. Д. В. Миронова // Социологические исследования . — 2002. — № 5. — С. 129—138. — текст (недоступная ссылка) ( PDF )
• Экономический строй России / пер. с франц.. — Изд. А.Ермолаевой, 1900. — 239 с.
• Очерки по истории политических учреждений России / Максим Ковалевский ; per. с разрешения авт., А. Баумштейна, под ред. Е. Смирнова.. — Санкт-Петербург: Изд. Н. Глаголева, [1908]. — 242, [1] с.
• Конституция графа Лорис-Меликова и его частные письма . — Берлин: Штейниц, 1904. — 117 с.
• Моя жизнь. Memories. — М. : РОССПЭН , 2005. — 781 с. — ISBN 5-8243-0638-9 .

• М. М. Ковалевский // Политическая история России в партиях и лицах / сост. В. В. Шелохаев. — М. : Терра , 1994. — С. 191—214. — 304 с. - 1,500 copies — ISBN 5-85255-622-X .
• Ковалевский, Максим Максимович // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона : в 86 т. (82 т. и 4 доп.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Кони А. Ф. М. М. Ковалевский в законодательной деятельности . — Санкт-Петербург, [1916].
• Гуревич П. В. Максим Максимович Ковалевский // Правоведение . — 1971. — № 5 . — С. 127—130 .
• Карпачёв С. П. М. М. Ковалевский (1857—1916) // Масонство и масоны: Сб. статей. Vol. 1 / Отв. ed. С. П. Карпачёв. — М. : Эра, 1994. — С. 76—90.
• Ковалевский Максим Максимович // Антология мировой политической мысли : В 5 т. / [Нац.-обществ. scientific фонд, Акад. полит. науки] ; Ред.-науч. совет: Г. Ю. Семигин (пред.) и др. — М. : Мысль, 1997-. — Т. 4: Политическая мысль в России, вторая половина XIX—XX в. / [Ред.-сост. З. М. Зотова, Е. Л. Петренко; Предисл. Б. Н. Бессонова]. — М. : Мысль, 1997. — 829,[1] с. ISBN 5-244-00870-6
• Волков В. А., Куликова М. В., Логинов В. С. Московские профессора XVIII — начала XX веков. Гуманитарные и общественные науки. — М. : Янус-К; Московские учебники и картолитография, 2006. — С. 129—130. - 300 s. - 2,000 copies. — ISBN 5—8037—0164—5.
• Долгова Е. А. «Ввиду вредного влияния М. М. Ковалевского на студентов…»: Из официальной переписки о судьбе Русской школе высших общественных наук в Париже (1901—1904 гг.)// Исторический архив . 2011. № 3. С. 9-25.
• Долгова Е. А. Документы Русского социологического общества имени М. М. Ковалевского (1916—1923 гг.) // Социологические исследования . 2011. № 6. С. 135—143.

• Лытов Б. В., Турчинов А. М. Обретение Бессмертия. 150 лет со дня рождения академика М. М. Ковалевского // Вестник РАН . — 2001. — Т. 71 , № 11 . — С. 1012—1025 .
• Лытов Б. В., Турчинов А. М. УЧЕНЫЙ, ПЕРЕШАГНУВШИЙ СТОЛЕТИЯ
• M. M. Kovalevsky // Moscow University project site at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries
• Biography of M. Kovalevsky
• Kovalevsky Maxim Maximovich. Works in the library of the Russian State Humanitarian University
• Biography of M. M. Kovalevsky
• Sidorchuk I.V., Rostovtsev E.A. Kovalevsky Maxim Maksimovich // Biography of St. Petersburg State University
• Kovalevsky Maxim Maximovich (неопр.) . Chronicle of Moscow University . Date of treatment February 8, 2017.