Author’s preface

DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in BШrЧ iЧ 1941 aЧН РraНuateН iЧ 1965 at PéМs, the two-thousand-year-old SouthWestern town of Hungary, a Mediterranean city of Roman tombs and Turkish minarets, the seat of a short-lived university co-founded by Pope URBAN V and King LOUIS I OF HUNGARY in order to fight the heresy of Bogomilism spreading over via the Adriatic westward six and a half centuries ago, I have had an exceptional chance to start an academic path at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. Albeit interested deeply in philosophy and legal theorising, I had to leave my natal place and alma mater, for by that time I had become doubly stigmatised there: one, my grand-father and father used to be famous car makers (manufacturing full coach, then body, while planting the first petrol station out of the capital in the country), which had ensued in the kids, too, labelled officially as expropriator class enemies and, two, having taken part in Catholic youth evangelisation using some gestures of the already banned scout movement, I had become involved in a show-trial ending in long-term imprisonment for many, an at the same time retaliatory and preventive measure that the political police launched throughout the country, charging all with no less than conspiracy against the socialist regime. Budapest personal life for me, then for my wife and then for my two children born, started as incredibly poor, but vivid professional life at tСe IЧstitute―by realising that my deepest longing for a proper vocation has thereby become my profession―МШulН sШmeаСat МШuЧterbalaЧМe tСe МШst. Working with giants like legal theoretician director IMRE SГABÓ, legal sociologist KÁLMÁN KULCSÁR, law-philosopher VILMOS PESCHKA and legal comparatist ZOLTÁN PлTERI within one unit was sensed as an unprecedented challenging force. Already in 1968 (the вear ШП tСe stuНeЧts’ riШt iЧ tСe Аest aЧН tСe Аarsaа Pact forces invading Czechoslovakia, moreover, of the birth of my son) I was sent to Strasbourg/Paris to six spring weeks and to Moscow/Leningrad to four autumn weeks. Professional and sometimes closer relationship with especially V. A. TUMANOV and D. A. KERIMOV started evolving in Strasbourg then, and developed further in Moscow (involving encountering the great old Madame R. O. KHALFINA and official figures like V. N. KUDRYAVTSEV, V. M. TSHIKVADZE and S. L. ZIVS), arriving in almost friendship with V. P. KAZIMIRTSHUK, S. V. BOBOTOV and, somewhat later on, particularly V. S. NERSESYANTS in the subsequent years. In Hungarian and English languages, I have reviewed a huge amount of books authored by them and also by other colleagues form the Soviet Union and the peШple’s НemШМraМies (mentioning only just V. G. GRAFSKIY and P. S. 1 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in RABINOVICH from the USSR, JERZY WRÓBLEАSKI, KAZIMIERZ OPAŁEK, MARIA BORUCKA-ARCTOWA, ALEKSANDER PECZENIK and STANISŁAА EHRLICH from Poland, VIKTOR KNAPP and OTA WEINBERGER from Czechoslovakia, HERMANN KLENNER and KARL A. MOLLNAU from the German Democratic Republic, RADOMIR D. LUKIĆ from Yugoslavia, ANITA M. NASCHITZ and SOFIA POPESCU from Romania, as well as NENO NENOVSKI from Bulgaria, who have in the meantime become professional friends). In company of professors LUKIĆ and NERSESYANTS, I contributed as Hungarian representative to five-year-long bilateral resp. multilateral research projects, the first on methodological issues and the second on historical approach, during the end period of the regime. On the one hand, of course I СaН tШ―and also siЧМerelв аaЧteН―tШ learЧ what this enormous part of the world, with the Soviet Union and her vast satellite empire from Cuba via Central and Eastern Europe to Mongolia, China, North Korea and Vietnam, can offer in legal theorising. So I read a lot indeed in variШus laЧРuaРes. EЧНШаeН аitС a researМСer’s uЧМeЧsШreН iЧterest, no need to say that I made complementation by studying the literature of so-called Western MARXism as well and, even more importantly, counterbalanced all the above rather keenly by the products of especially American, German and English Sovietology aЧН émiРré repШrts which, happily enough, the Library of Parliament in Budapest has ever been abundant of. In order to substantiate my findings, I met many times JOHN HAZARD in person, and step by step became also the friend (and, later, the host at his Australian National University) of EUGENE KAMENKA, having once started in STALINism but ending in ferocious criticism of anything STALINism. Independent of the political objectives antagonistically alien to me, the more I developed into a legal philosopher of his own the more I was disillusioned from the official MARXism’s Чaive realistiМ treatment of the conceptual world, its “ШbjeМtive аШrlН” epistemology and especially the absolutism of its LENINist reflection theory. Accordingly and on the other hand, my family tradition-rooted genuine sympathy could only be extended to the Western European―especially Latinic, Germanic, as well as Nordic―and Atlantic jurisprudence, reading and commenting quite a few of them, partly of authors whom I could easily approach through correspondence, mostly ending in personal encounter. As a thinker to whom the last teaching of MARXism could only be reduced to the methodological insight of the principle of historical comparatism, I realised soon that all the ideological connotations, debates and charges notwithstanding, it is HANS KELSEN’s Pure TСeШrв tСat is exclusively able to delineate the ideal-typical mental skeleton of, by serving as an irreplaceable key to, the structure and action of the whole reach of Continental Law. Accordingly, such a varied approach may have been best expressed by my early intention to treat, running counter the Soviet practice of concealing as я ия [general theory] what is nothing more than the Soviet theory of 2 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in Soviet law, all the scholarly heritage of this theatrvm legale mvndi in one historical body. So, for long years I tried—and not without success eventually— convincing my communist director to allow me publishing a corpus of original texts, representative of the complete whole, in order that this entire body can be undiscriminatively subjected to scholarly criticism, instead of the general use all over the communist block: simple ideological annihilation of anything depraved as bourgeois/imperialist, without allowing anyone to have previously infected by it. So outstanding collections came in 1977/1981, with no similia in this part of the world. Moreover, following my director consenting commission, I could at once begin working also on its continuation as a series, of a second volume to be dedicated to early Soviet-RussiaЧ as аell as SШviet aЧН peШple’s НemШМraМies’ representation (with A. Y. VYSHINSKY as a watershed, but already processing, e.Р., tСe émiРré jШurЧal и [Riga 1929–1938] as well, at a time when Soviet-Russian literature preceding VYSHINSKY was exclusively available, if at all, from libraries in the West) and a third one to be selected from after-war— contemporary—western legal thought, when the AkaНémiai KiaНó’s baЧkruptМв suspended any progress. By the way, to my knowledge Marxian Legal Theory I edited in 1993 in an Anglo–American series could be the very first undertaking in the world, processing so-called Eastern and Western MARXism in one single body. In any case, for a long period of more than two decades, almost yearly and only for days, I had to visit the two ideological centres of this empiredom― и и А ии Н и in Moscow and Institut für TСeorie des Staates und des RecСts der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR in [Ost]Berlin (unfortunately, the self-sufficiency or, as I sensed, the chauvinism of both academies blocked any effort at extending contacts/visits to either universities or other centres)―while I was allowed/financed to spend weeks and months first in France and Italy, then to the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. As founding secretary of the Hungarian Branch of the Internaгionale VereiniРunР für RecСts- und Sozialphilosophie [IVR], from 1971 on I became a regular participant of its four-yearly (sometimes by-yearly) world congresses. Travelling meant, for me in person, free studies in overwhelmingly rich libraries, access to Hungarian, CeЧtral EurШpeaЧ aЧН RussiaЧ pШlitiМal émiРré priЧteН materials, sСШppiЧР Шr copying most-sought-for books and periodicals and, most exclusively, getting new contacts and the most promising chance of exchanging views and publications on topical issues. Correspondence initiated and such visits cemented such contacts that could turn to be most determinative on the path of my intellectual development in the long run. And I mean the friendship with MICHEL VILLEY in Paris and CHAÏM PERELMAN in Brussels here: the first convincing me, by making me familiarised with the idea of dikaion as proper (ancient but ideal) legal justice as well as on the superficiality of legal 3 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in positivism based on mere voluntarism, and the second teaching me, by showing how much the consent of some auditoire universel is the final test of human action on Earth, the irreducibility of the law in action to mere logic. But, what is even more, I was promised by both to extend a helping hand to me in case of a political conflict with my director in Hungary or if I am to choose forced emigration. For sure, I also risked smuggling a full photo documentation of personal identity out of the country in order to place it with them, at a time when the crossing of state border with any text (including own lecture to be delivered) was bound to most formal ministerial censoring and sealing. After a while, fortunately, the chance for me of being sent to abroad by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences changed over to be allowed by the same authority to leave the country to invited study trips. Such a most honoured situatiШЧ resulteН iЧ Рuest prШПessШrsСip at LuЧН, BerliЧ’s Free UЧiversitв, CaЧberra, TШkвШ’s АaseНa UЧiversitв, Neа HaveЧ’s Вale aЧН EНiЧburРС’s Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, among others, all in all amounting to several years, and all well before the fall of communism. With such an internationalisation in the background, testing also the local limits of political tolerance when building bridges, eventually I could try at and succeeded in organising the first series of East/West bilaterally organised multilateral IVRHungary, and respectively IVR-Austria and IVR-Finland, workshops at the shores of the lake Balaton, respectively at Leibnitz near Graz, and in Helsinki, with genuinely international proceedings published officially as independent volumes accompanying the journal ArcСiv für RecСts- und Sozialphilosophie. Differing from timely Soviet practice, Academician SГABÓ reserved scientific qualification to already established scholars exclusively. Since the beginning, my ever lasting scholarly interest was, on the one hand, in the behind-the-scene relationship amongst law, text, rhetoric, and logic, and, on the other, in treating the law as a mere tool, i.e., artificial instrument of practical action, in respect of which neither epistemological approach nor the query for truth/falsity may have direct relevancy. My director, afraid of ideological connotations, flatly rejected the topic. So, after all, I became―following the Soviet pattern―a candidate of legal sciences with Codification as a Socio-historical Phenomenon in 1977, and a doctor thereof with Theory of the Judicial Process, already touching on my initial interest, in 1991. The first, in addition to a genuine undertaking in historical comparativism involving all ages and cultures, has outlined a (postWEBERian) theory of legal objectification and rationality. The second has offered a full philosophy of autopoiesis in law, exemplified by kinds of artificial reality construction, within a theory-of-speech-acts (post-WITTGENSTEINian) linguistic philosophy. Both of them have proved to be a novelty in the international arena. Meanwhile I became attracted by GEORGE LUKÁCS’ pШstСumШus Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins [The ontology of social being] whose conceptual 4 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in network was rather useful to demonstrate my ideas. It appeared as quite rigid in his MARXism but opened theoretical perspectives for the explanation of what the law in fact is. On the final analysis, it was made to serve me as a Trojan horse in reserving the obligatory MARXist umbrella, deadly needed in a communist dictatorship, while I could ontologise law on paths, following which I could synthesise all I had learned worldwide and developed on law. Unwittingly, this has proved to be already an autopoietical explanation, albeit finished already by the end of 1970s and published―at a time of my director ageing, with his personal control declining―as TСe Place of Laа in Lukпcs’ World Concept. This was tСe ШЧlв laа bШШk AkaНémiai KiaНó veЧtureН ПШr a seМШЧН eНitiШЧ at its own commercial consideration and initiative. Different uses of language varying from axiomatic classificatory to experience descriptive ones, the variety of the civilisational ideas of ordo from the East to the West (including the off-spring of differing mentalités juridiques of Civil Law and Common Law from the inspiration of the same Roman law heritage), rule/norm in function of whether or not legal language is conceptualised, and autopoiesis as the basic methodological framework within аСiМС СumaЧs’ uЧНerstaЧНiЧР aЧН МШРЧitiШЧ sСall at all be eбpliМateН at a societal level: such used to be my basic dilemmas to face―and later on developed into The Paradigms of Legal Thinking―in a night lecture series of the late eighties to those students of mine in their semi-autШЧШmШus Bibó МШlleРe аitСiЧ tСe metrШpШlitaЧ Eötvös LШrпЧН UЧiversitв, аСШ iЧ tСe meaЧtime alsШ happened to found, as early as in the late 1980s already, the first oppositional political party in Hungary and, from the first free election on, excelled as FIDESz in the parliament and now, for the third term already (and with twothird of the votes repeatedly), govern the country. At the Institute, research was our exclusive job. Besides, IMRE SГABÓ permitted teaching law at universities to some selected—already renowned— senior members only. As a half-job, I could start doing so in the early 1980s at the metropolitan university, becoming an ordinary professor there in 1991. My eventual returning at home in Hungary from wandering the entire world over coincided with the fall of communism. Wishing to help my country with experience I may have got, I became a member of the Advisory Board of the Prime Minister of Hungary. Setting the style of a new governance, national security to rebuild, and so on were amongst the many tasks to fulfil, involving assistance, from the heights of state power, for a Catholic (and then also a Lutheran) university to organise. Since the beginning of the Faculty of Law of PпгmпЧв Péter CatСШliМ UЧiversitв iЧ 1995, I aМteН as tСe ПШuЧНiЧР НireМtШr ШП its Institute for Legal Philosophy, the sole whatever department in the country СaviЧР earЧeН tСe aММreНitatiШЧ title “TСe PlaМe ШП EбМelleЧМe”. Once Hungary re-adhered whereto she has ever belonged and European Economic Community schemes were to cover also the country, I won twice 5 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in three-year-projects, enormously richly financed, from 1990 on and 1995 on, to re-conceptualise legal theorising as a subject of research and education, with twenty-five West-European universities as a consortium in the background. In addition to further advances, including international workshops (with participation of colleagues from the Moscow Academy Institute such as Madames E. A. LUKASHEVA and S. V. POLENINA), huge a many novative books by collaborating Hungarians and volumes/collections in translation were the fruits. For also translation of classic western books as well as of papers collected in topical anthologies—alongside with the re-publication (in rehabilitation) of outstanding, internationally renown Hungarian legal philosophers from the interwar period, rejected and buried by the communist devastation—formed a necessary supplement. From involvement in political challenges to face, I thought I had also to advance the national cause by reflecting on timely problems, seen from the point of view of legal philosophising. Revolving around evergreen topics like the nature of civil obedience/disobedience, coming to terms with a (criminal communist) past under the rule of law, and the genuine meaning of the rule of law, I authored three books—including Transition to Rule of Law and Transition? To Rule of Law?—on timely issues and edited two collections on foreign theorising and experience. This last topic concerning the conceptual identification of what the rule of law on the final analysis is―by reference to which, through the intervention of international agencies, Hungary has been so many times made to get off the track of her own natural course of action―led me to raising its dilemma in terms of universalism versus particularism, in the way as the debate is continued worldwide on human rights as well. I guess that on the last analysis social tСeШrisiЧР is a ПuЧМtiШЧ ШП peШples’ liviЧР eбperieЧМe, developed on factual basis as axiologically reflected. Experience being personal and having the most in common in case of populace sharing their life and history, universalising what is par excellence particular is extremely limited. Accordingly, trendy catch-words may prove to be almost empty of verifiably substantiated conceptual criteria, also in case they are heralded publicly as immutable eternal values, although they are nothing but ill-concealed political iЧstrumeЧts, аielНeН bв tСe Чeа imperialism’s iЧterЧatiШЧal aРeЧМies in order to discipline states and other big entities. Since the fall of communism, changing over ratione imperii with imperio rationis, contacts in the enormous region of Russian history have had to build again. My best teaching experience restarted due to the attention and unceasing care of Professor И И И И of the Siberian Federal University, having kindly invited me already twice to have full courses on the legal philosophical foundations of comparative law, and the best co-operative debating on common theoretical problems restarted thanks to Professor ANDREY POLYAKOV of the Saint Petersburg State University and Professors MIKHAIL ANTONOV and 6 DraПt ШП tСe autСШr’s preПaМe tШ Рet iЧserteН iЧ RussiaЧ traЧslatiШЧ in/as ‘ ’ и ы ия ( ч я ) ( : «И „ „» 2015) in EKATERINA SAMOKHINA ШП tСe NatiШЧal ResearМС UЧiversitв »HiРС SМСШШl ШП EМШЧШmв« iЧ SaiЧt PetersburР, as well as thanks to Professors MARINA DAVYDOVA of the Volgograd State University, E. L. POTSELUEV of the И , and A. YU. SALOMATIN of the Penza State University. Thanks to all those specialists of legal philosophy, theory and sociology, as well as of comparative law from Russia whom I may have been honoured to get in personal contact during the many conferences I took part in and out of Russia, Hungary is again a neighbouring part of the world which is in standing intellectual relationship—welcoming to exchange views and messages, experiences and considerations—with Russia. I can only hope that this МШlleМtiШЧ ШП papers iЧ traЧslatiШЧ, аСiМС I am tШ tСaЧk tШ tСe publisСer’s engaging offer by General Director Professor N. A. ISAEV, as well as to Professors POLYAKOV, ANTONOV and SAMOKHINA, all working rather hard in urgency to meet deadline, may solidify in its own peculiar manner the symbolic bridge between those nations concerned, being built since centuries. 7