On Legal Realism in a Realistic Manner. Monograph Review. Tonkov EN, Tonkov DE. Legal Realism (St. Petersburg: Aleteya Publ.; 2022. 464 p.)

The review presents the most important provisions of the monograph by E.N. Tonkov and D.E. Tonkov under the title «Legal Realism» (St. Petersburg: Aleteya Publ., 2022. 464 p.) and their assessment. The reviewed work is interesting not only for its in-depth historical coverage of the origin and evolution of legal realism in the USA, Scandinavia and Russia, but also for the analysis of its current state. Legal realism, according to the authors, is one of the most relevant directions for post-modern jurisprudence in the scientific thought of France, Italy, the USA and other countries, including post-Soviet Russia. The relevance of legal realism is justified not only by the search for a «third way» in the legal understanding (between legal positivism and the concept of natural law), but also by bridging the gap between the dogmatic theory of law and legal practice. The first section contains a detailed description and analysis of the main provisions (ideas) of the founders of legal realism in the USA — K. Llewellyn and D. Frank (including from the positions of their modern interpreters), as well as the conceptualization of this trend from the standpoint of today. The distinctive features of the movement (but not the school, which the authors rightly insist on) of legal realism are given. Of particular interest is the analysis and conceptualization of the problem of legal certainty and judicial activism from the standpoint of American legal realists, presented on the pages of the monograph.

The second section of the monograph analyzes the main provisions of Scandinavian legal realism — the legacy of A. Hagerstrom, V. Lundstedt, K. Olivecrona and A. Ross. Perhaps, the content of the third section of the monograph devoted to Russian legal realism will arouse the greatest interest among many readers. The study of the relatively recent historical past of our country is extremely important for a lawyer, according to the authors, because the current state of law and order is largely determined by this past. The analysis of the doctrine as a source of law, the multiplicity of legal systems, including individual regulatory systems and the inevitability of conflicts between them, is one of the best places in the reviewed monograph. The fourth section of the monograph is devoted to the analysis of modern postclassical concepts of legal realism presented by B. Leiter, B. Tamanakhi, M. Troper, B. Bix and others, which will undoubtedly arouse considerable interest in the reader, as well as a wonderful monograph as a whole.

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