On the eve of the judicial reform of 1864: Problematization of temporality regimes in the development of Russian justice in the 1860s–70s

Abstract. The article is devoted to the narratives of the temporalization of the Judicial Reform by contemporaries, which allows us to reconsider the politically engaged and
non-obvious interpretations of the reform as “liberal”. Based on the methodology of the Bielefeld school of the history of concepts, the article analyzes the most polemical
statements about the transformation of the judicial system in departmental documents and periodicals of the 1860s–70s. The temporal series of the development of justice in Russia and the world constructed in them are studied as historical argumentation for the legitimization of the reform or, conversely, its criticism. In conclusion, the author
claims that the reassembly of the structures of the judiciary, which included experts and representatives of the public — in the role of jurors and attorneys — meant that the
work of the transformed courts depended on their understanding of the essence of the reforms. Therefore, it is important to note that the optimistic progressive discourse of the new judicial power, preserved in archival documents and the official press, was far from the only one and encountered many doubting voices. The construction of a progressive temporality of the development of civilization and the assertion that the people would “adapt” to useful innovations encountered great resistance.

Keywords: temporality, historicization, mythologization, Great Reforms, judicial reform, justice