EDITOR’S NOTES

The transliteration adopted in this book is that used in Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia (Vol. I and II; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963, 1971). It follows a modified Library of Congress system of transliteration, without diacritical marks and ligatures.

Given names have been Anglicized (e. g. Peter, instead of Petro), except where a Slavic name has been popularly accepted in English (e. g. Ivan) or has no English equivalent (e. g. Bohdan). Geographical names in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, with a few exceptions, have been rendered in the modern Ukrainian — not Russian — form, following the example of both Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia and the handbook Soviet Ukraine, published by the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian S.S.R. (Kiev, 1969). In order to facilitate proper identification of personal and geographical names, however, the different spelling (Russian, Belorussian or Polish) of the same name or place are occasionally given in parentheses.

The subject-matter of this book belongs to the sociopolitical (constitutional) and legal history, which is a long established discipline in European law schools, although rarely included in the curricula of North American and British law schools or departments of political science. Designated as “General History of State and Law” it is an important subject taught in East European and Soviet law schools. Iurydychnyi slovnyk [The Juridical Dictionary] (Kiev, 1974), p. 309, ormulates the purpose of the discipline as “the study in chronological sequence of the concrete types and forms of state and law, monuments [historical materials] of law, state institutions in different historical periods, the relationship of state and law to the general process of social development and course of the class struggle, etc.”

In his preface to The History of the English Constitution (1886) German jurist Rudolf Gneist expresses his aim to draw “a picture of the inner coherence of the various members of the state and society, on which the history of all constitutions and the fate of all nations is really based” (I, ix).

The English historian William Stubbs warns in The Constitutional History of England (1897) that the work in this field affords “little of the romantic incident or the picturesque grouping which constitute the charm of History in general,” but it has “a deep value and an abiding interest to those who have courage to work upon it”; such a work “presents... a regularly developed series of causes and consequences,” giving the reader “a personal hold on the past and a right judgment of the present” (I, iii). These statements apply to such as yet unsurpassed works as A History of French Public Law (French 1904, English 1915) by Jean Brissaud; A History of Italian Law (Italian 1903, English 1928) by Carlo Calisse; or Russian Political Institutions: The Growth and Development.... (The University of Chicago Press, 1902) by M. Kovalevsky; they also apply to the works of the Author of this book.

It is desirable that the reader should be well grounded in East European and Ukrainian political history, which is here taken for granted, or that he should follow the account closely in some manual of the political history of Ukraine. Such an outline is included in Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopaedia, Vol. I, Part VI: History (pp. 581—916), especially ch. 5, At the Dawn of the Modern Age: Ukraine under Lithuanian and Polish Domination (pp. 618—34); the second volume includes Part I: The Law (pp. 10—119), from the multipartite Kievan realm to the present.

The editorial work on this book was arranged under special circumstances which obliged me to restrict myself to limited improvement of the English text. However, in accordance with the wishes of the Author, no attempt was made to change the original structure or style.

In any case, a translation of the Ukrainian (or Polish and Russian) terms into English is far from easy. In many cases it might appear to call for explanation, the insertion of which, however, would have encumbered the text. For example, the term szlachta (Polish; shliakhta in Ukrainian spelling) is often (and here) translated into nobility which in the modern English usage implies too much (term reserved only for the members of the English peerage) or gentry which is even less satisfactory.

For the most of the middle ages, however, the term nobiles included not only earls and barons, but also knights, esquires, even freemen. The term sotnia is usually translated by theUkrainian writers as company. In Hetman Ukraine this was, however, a territorial division and therefore the literal translation, hundred is more suitable. The Hundred as a territorial subdivision of a shire (later county) has its place in the English constitutional development although as a unit of administration and jurisdiction it survived only in the court organization. The Magdeburg La∙w, Das sachsische Weichbild — Ius municipale magdehurgense — the municipal law of Magdeburg in Germany, served since the twelfth century as the model of juridical organization and self-government for the other East German cities, and later on also in Poland (Cracow, 1257), Lithuania (Vilna, Vilnius, 1387) and Ukraine.

In closing these remarks it is my pleasant duty to express our sincere thanks to Mrs. Patricia Coolen and Mrs. Marion M. Kirby for their typing and editorial assistance, respectively, in the preparation of this book.

Theodore B. Ciuciura

<< | >>

↑

Source: Okinshevych L. Ukrainian Society and Government 1648-1781. Munich, 1978, 145 p.. 1978

EDITOR’S NOTES

More on the topic EDITOR’S NOTES: