CRISIS PHENOMENA IN THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN STATEHOOD AND WAYS TO OVERCOME THEM: LEGAL DIMENSION

The article concerns new opportunities that open up when applying the theory of crises to historical and legal issues. The author’s definition of the crisis phenomena of statehood is proposed as a certain chronological period when the state cannot or for some reason does not want to perform its internal and external functions, loses its core part in the political system of society and the thread of interaction with society. An original approach to the periodization of the history of the state and law of Russia has been developed, showing that overcoming crisis phenomena and even a large-scale crisis can contribute to the emergence of new crisis phenomena. Using examples from the history of Russian statehood, a classification of crisis phenomena is proposed in terms of the succession of power, the level of development of the bureaucracy, national-territorial problems, the place of the state in the international legal system, differences in approaches to the official politics of memory, and the systemic nature of the crisis. Such ways out of the crisis that the Russian state used at various stages of its history are characterized as constant interaction between the state and society, reliance on state and legal traditions, refusal to idealize any experience, use of temporal characteristics in assessing crisis phenomena, etc. It is concluded that with the exception of large-scale crises, crisis phenomena have not only negative, but also positive significance, since they are indicators of the need for reforms.