The history of crime and punishment in the works of professor A.V. Naumov

Abstract

Professor Anatoly Valentinovich Naumov is one of the most renown authorities in Russian criminal law doctrine, the author of a course of Russian criminal law that went through five editions. The publication of his two-volume «Crime and Punishment in Russian History» was a real event. Volume 1 encompasses a considerable period of time: from the establishment of the Ancient Russian state to the Soviet Union before WWII (1930s included). Volume 2 contains the views of A.V. Naumov on the development of Russian criminal law from the period of WWII to the present. Especially interesting is the position of A.V. Naumov on the causes and conditions of adopting active Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 1996, its endless amendments, the role and place of criminal law science, the prospects of developing Russian criminal legislation and the contemporary condition of criminal policy and criminal law enforcement. According to the author, the principal position of A.V. Naumov on the history of the development of crime and punishment in Russia can be characterized by the following statements: 1. The formation of an adequate historical view of crime and punishment requires the analysis of the philosophical basis of criminalization and penalization. 2. An important component of studying crime and punishment is the analysis of historically significant criminal (court) cases. 3. The most difficult thing is the issue of ideological vector of researching Russian criminal law history. Professor A.V. Naumov uses a rule of the great historian S.M. Solovjov («Do not divide, do not break Russian history into separate parts or periods, but unite them») when evaluating the development of Russian criminal law at different historical stages (the Middle Ages, the Modern Period, the Empire Period, the Soviet Epoch, the Contemporary Period). The author believes that the book by A.V. Naumov «Crime and Punishment in Russian History» is the best publication on this topic in modern Russia