The people’s right to determine their future, the basis of popular sovereignty, is the fundamental organizing principle of modern democratic society and the foundation of democracy. In this paper, the generic concept of electoral sovereignty is understood as state sovereignty, which can manifest in various forms and across different legal categories. Popular sovereignty cannot exist apart from the state; it generates state sovereignty and becomes a principle of the constitutional order and a component in legitimizing the state power. State sovereignty, as a defining characteristic of a state, may be present to varying degrees. Encroachments on state sovereignty constitute, in effect, attacks on popular sovereignty and democracy. However, external attempts to influence the people’s free will have become commonplace in electoral practice and are growing increasingly sophisticated.

The crisis of modern states and statehood compels the social sciences to seek underlying causes. Traditionalist theory rejects the paradigm of progress and linear social development, recognizing an involution of the state and law of the 21st century. This article examines the concepts of the state and supreme power from a traditionalist perspective. Within social science frameworks shaped by the progress paradigm, modern Western society — marked by rational knowledge and secular ethics — is contrasted with civilizations beyond its borders and with earlier societies whose ideological cores remain rooted in distinct spiritual and moral values; the latter are labeled «traditional societies». The dominant agenda remains the modernization and Westernization of these traditional societies, ostensibly culminating in the establishment of capitalist economies and democratic statehood. Although modernization theory has been widely criticized for promoting neocolonial dependence of developing countries on the West, modernization discourse still predominates in the social sciences.

The paper examines the relationship between the aesthetic and the legal in the context of organic legal theory. It is noted that in the scientific research of I. A. Isaev, within the framework of this theory, the ratio of law and literature is analyzed in historical discourse. It is emphasized that the aesthetic and the legal are rooted in social activities, contribute to a holistic perception of reality, they are ways of knowing the world, aimed at educating the individual, contributing to the formation of a responsible personal position, actively involved in the transformation of the world. The rootedness of the aesthetic in law is considered at three levels, namely: ontological, epistemological and axiological. In the context of legal existence, attention is drawn to the influence of artistic culture on the formation of legal consciousness. When analyzing the epistemological level of consideration of the sphere of law, the heuristic role of beauty in the legal knowledge of the stage of post-classical science, its role in the language of law is noted. And the principle of beauty is an intermediate criterion for scientific truth, and also affects the style of scientific research. From the point of view of the axiology of law, the author analyzes the role of aesthetic categories of beauty, measure, tragic, baseless in law and legal culture. The aesthetic harmonizes law, expanding the field of social solidarity.

Ordeals were a common means of proof in medieval litigation. Their nature and legal content are often characterized as irrational, and their rationality and applicability are commonly rejected. This study aims to identify the rational component of ordeals in the context of their era, offering deeper insight and new research perspectives. It reveals that the use of ordeals was based on circumstances that could be rationally justified and that ordeals can be understood as a form of evidence distinct from testimony and documentary proof. Practiced in Europe from the 4th to the 13th centuries, they were a widespread judicial procedure, sometimes supported by regulatory frameworks, and were used when no other methods of proof were available. The Church generally regarded them with distrust and, beginning in the 13th century, began to ban them outright, leading to their gradual demise. This development coincided with the emergence of modern state and legal institutions centered on sovereign public power.

The paper offers the author’s interpretation of the phenomenon of justice as understood by the domestic conservative legal doctrine of the 19th to the early 20th centuries. The relevance of historical and legal research that revisits the value and essential foundations of law lies in its potential to increase the effectiveness of legal regulation and to contribute to the harmonious development of the political and legal system within the canons of national culture. The author observes that the category of justice in conservative thought was oriented toward ideals governing the political sphere, where it was associated with moral policy and with the preservation of traditional political institutions, social hierarchy, and the prevailing social order. The study concludes that legal justice, conceived as both the basis and the guiding direction of legal development, was interpreted by domestic conservatism as an imperative of improvement grounded in moral and religious principles — a principle of conduct that seeks to reward each person in their affairs in the pursuit of the highest truth. The author argues that within the domestic conservative doctrine there was an integration of religion, morality, and law, which elevated the regulation of social relations to a new level. The paper asserts that the conservative doctrinal approaches of the period produced distinctive conceptions of justice, rooted in a Christian political and legal worldview, and reveal the category’s potential for promoting conscientious, volitional legal behavior.

The term «social justice» has become firmly established in the science of constitutional law and constitutes one of the fundamental pillars of the constitutional doctrine of the social state in Russia. In the author’s view, social justice is a necessary element of the social state in all its manifestations. In the constitutional law sphere, social justice is expressed through guarantees of citizens’ social rights and freedoms and through the state’s social policy. Accordingly, the author analyzes the current implementation of the social state in Russia through the prism of social justice, in both its general theoretical and its specific, targeted meanings. The study attempts to trace the evolution of the doctrine of the social state within constitutional law by focusing on this crucial component — social justice.

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the sources of legitimation of power in Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War and in anti-Bolshevik regimes on the territory of the former Russian Empire. Relying on the works by O. A. Kudinov, Ya. A. Butakov, V. D. Zimina, D. R. Zaynutdinov and on the corpus of acts of the White Movement, the author demonstrates that the «White» legal legacy represents an alternative trajectory of Russian statehood that is compatible with European developments. The study identifies the key mechanisms of legitimation employed by White regimes: legal succession to pre-revolutionary law and the decisions of the Provisional Government; the doctrine of nepredreshenija [non-predetermination] with the promise of the Constituent Assembly; the restoration of zemstvos and courts; declarations of rights and the principle of separation of powers implemented alongside a de facto military dictatorship. The analysis reveals an internal synthesis of liberal and conservative elements, as well as the debate over a «written» versus an «unwritten» constitution as competing models for future state organization. Within a parallel European context, the paper reconstructs the trajectory from the liberal-democratic constitutions of the early 1920s (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.) to the authoritarian drift of the 1930s, legitimized through new fundamental laws, plebiscites, and the figure of a leader. The study proposes a typology of interwar models of legitimation, namely: popular sovereignty and constitutionalism; imperial succession and national unity; personalist, leader-centered monarchy/presidentialism; and ideological mobilization. From this perspective, the White Movement combines several models: it is oriented toward the rule of law and European standards while simultaneously insisting on a «united and indivisible» Russia and on temporary dictatorship as an instrument for saving the state. The scientific novelty of the study lies in clarifying the place of White constitutional projects within the European legal continuum and in specifying the reasons for the failed institutionalization of the White Alternative. The findings support further comparative research into mechanisms of legitimation across the Eurasian area.

The paper examines major legislative acts of the Soviet State that regulated education from 1918 to 1954. «Spetsialitet» programs as a level of higher education were developed in the USSR and effectively supplied the national economy with qualified personnel. The formation of the Soviet education system occurred in stages. The most important achievements of the Soviet education system in the period under review include: 1) the introduction of universal schooling in the early years of Soviet power and the attainment of universal literacy; 2) the provision of industry with engineers and technicians during the period of industrialization; 3) the active development of correspondence and evening forms of education in the post-war period to expand access to secondary and higher education for workers. The constitutional enshrinement of the right to education played a significant role in achieving the goals of state personnel policy. Despite temporary and forced departures from the principle of free education, the objective set out in the 1936 Constitution was ultimately realized in the post-war period. To analyze Soviet education legislation, the paper employs semiotic methods, which facilitate a deeper understanding of how legislators formulated the provisions of regulatory legal acts and of the factors that influenced those decisions.

The study examines, through the prism of both the theoretical tenets of administrative, financial, and banking law and a number of normative provisions of the current legislation of the Russian Federation, the formation of administrative law regimes in the field of digital innovations on the financial market. The author consistently concludes that the Bank of Russia plays a significant role in the normative and methodological support for the introduction of high-technology infrastructure that is transforming the day-to-day economic activities of participants in banking, monetary-credit, foreign-exchange, insurance, and emerging securities-related public relations. This process is becoming an established feature of modern economic activity, in part owing to the modernization of the mechanisms of administrative law regimes. Today these regimes are not only an exceptional form of public administration used for the rapid prevention of threats through restrictions and prohibitions, but also encompass experimental legal norms aimed at translating the products of innovative activity into practice. As the body responsible for the organizational structure of the digital ruble platform and the payment system of the mega-regulator, the Bank of Russia — by providing for the possibility of remote inspections of supervised entities and by improving electronic document flow in the field of licensing — helps ensure that the financial market responds to the trends of digitalization. At the same time, the author devotes particular attention to the normative regulation of digital innovations within the framework of experimental legal regimes. The study concludes that the issuing (emission) bank, which performs certain state-authority functions within public administration, can today be regarded as a full-fledged subject of innovative administrative law regimes. Nevertheless, the proper practical implementation of advanced technologies requires not only the evolution of legal regulation and the organizational structure of the financial sector, but also balanced economic development of the Russian Federation as a whole. Enhancing mechanisms for ensuring legality through a complex of administrative-legal regimes, together with raising the level of citizens’ financial literacy, constitutes the key to the innovative development of the State.

Currently, law is the dominant regulator of public relations in society. Along with the development of legal regulation, family law was formed and improved, covering an increasing amount of social relations. Due to the development of the production capabilities of mankind, gradually more and more people began to gain access to an increasing amount of material and social benefits, and this was reflected in the distribution of rights and responsibilities both within the family and among all people in developed societies. In the 21st century, the problems of equality between men and women are perceived by Russian society more and more acutely. Following the pan-European trend of protecting women’s rights, based on the ideas of feminism, more and more attention is paid to the ideas of self-realization and hedonism, which has already affected the development of social relations. The egoization of society equally affects the behavior of women and men. The discussion about the balance of rights and legitimate interests of a man and a woman is now increasingly reduced to finding benefits for a particular social group, which destructively affects the institution of the family.

The paper analyzes the legal regime for protecting color as an independent trademark (color per se) in the Russian Federation. The author examines whether an abstract color, detached from a specific form, corresponds to the core functions of a trademark — individualization, information, advertising, and reputation — and concludes that color symbols do not fully satisfy those functions. The study highlights problems in the current approach to color registration, including the high evidentiary threshold for proving acquired distinctiveness, the creation of unequal conditions for applicants, and the real risk of monopolizing elements of public design, a concern often framed as the «theory of color exhaustion». Both Russian and comparative foreign practice are reviewed to assess how protection for color trademarks is afforded in different jurisdictions. The analysis identifies doctrinal and practical obstacles that may preclude protection — most notably the doctrine of functionality and other features that render color inherently unsuitable for exclusive rights in certain contexts. The author argues for the necessity of specific legislative regulation of color designations. To that end, the paper proposes a set of measures to form a coherent legal framework for protecting color as a trademark. Proposed measures include establishing a presumption against distinctiveness for color per se, conditioning protection on clearly defined specific uses, and introducing a limited duration for the exclusive right. These safeguards aim to ensure that the legal institution of color trademarks functions as an instrument for protecting genuinely unique visual identifiers, while minimizing the risk of undue appropriation of public design elements.

Drawing on a synthesis of I. A. Isaev’s works, the author examines the universal features of political fictions and applies these insights to the analysis of medieval state formation, focusing on the Portuguese case of the 11th century. State formation (etatogenesis), understood as a process marked by the tension between the rational and the utopian, is saturated with the politicization of the fictive. Studying etatogenesis in the context of the Reconquista and its frontier dynamics reveals historical referents for the generation of political fictions at the initial stage of Portuguese state formation. The separation from León — first as a county, then as a polity that acquires de facto kingdom status — is largely attributable to the military and political talent of Afonso Henriques. Exploiting maturing objective conditions, he led a separatist movement and demonstrated the capacity to construct political fictions that helped secure and sustain independence from León and Castile and to establish a viable state. The analysis of political fictions in 11th-century Portugal opens new avenues for the study of etatogenesis.

This paper addresses a cornerstone aspect of the theory and practice of modern international law that has retained its relevance over time: the norms of the UN Charter, which are both formally and substantively proclaimed as the Organization’s guiding principles and have, in addition, formed the basis of the entire post-war world order. The principles of the UN Charter enjoy the status of paramount norms, designated expressis verbis in the Charter as «basic principles». The inclusion in the text of the Helsinki Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe of ten principles intended to guide participating states in their mutual relations gives rise to a number of unresolved questions concerning their relationship to the principles of the UN Charter. These questions include whether the Helsinki principles should be afforded the same qualification as «basic» principles; whether they possess a legal nature identical to that of the Charter principles; and, by means of a more nuanced analytical approach, whether their hierarchical position is identical to — or distinct from — that of the Charter’s principles. Such analytical techniques can assist in identifying and distinguishing the principles of the UN Charter from other legal categories that may be mistaken for «principles of international law», notably jus cogens norms, and can help clarify the frequently invoked but imprecise formulation of the «rules on which the international order is based». Against this background, both substantively — by virtue of the discourse itself — and methodologically, the examination of the specific features of the UN Charter’s principles occupies a primary position among scholarly responses to the principal challenges confronting international legal science.

The study analyses questions regarding education, the possible aims of education, the concept of autonomy, and the relationships between autonomy and education. In connection with these questions, the study investigates the role of the state as regards education, and the presence or absence of a duty from the state as regards the promotion and the defence of autonomy. Further themes of the inquiry are the duties of the parents as regards the education of the children and the right of the parents to choose the kind of education for their children. Different interpretations of the state, of the possible ways of life, of models for citizenship, of society and of the relations between individuals and groups correspond to the kind of education which is proposed by the researchers.

The paper analyzes the characteristic features of the «ancient» and «internal» constitutions, which contemporary Spanish constitutional doctrine classifies under the umbrella term «historical constitution». The concept of the «ancient» constitution crystallized in the early 19th century with the emergence of the first national constitution, while the notion of the «internal» constitution took shape in the 1870s in connection with the restoration of the monarchy under the former dynasty. Both variants of the «historical constitution» rested on a mythologized vision of the country’s past legal order, presented as a model worthy of emulation in the future. The paper examines the doctrinal treatment of these concepts and demonstrates their relevance to specific political groupings. Scholars noted the appropriation of terminology, organizational principles, and institutional models that either originated in the medieval Pyrenean kingdoms (the «ancient» constitution) or were products of national evolution (the «internal» constitution) and subsequently became traditional in Spain — most prominently the Cortes and the monarchy and the relationship between them. The study traces the reflection of these principles and institutions in the constitutional acts of 1812, 1837, 1845, in the Royal Statute of 1834, and in the Constitution of 1876. Finally, the paper emphasizes the enduring significance of these ideas for constitutional enactments and legal culture in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The paper analyzes the mythologemes of patriarchy in contemporary Russia and globally in the context of the formal proclamation of gender equality alongside actual discrimination against men in legislation and law-enforcement practice. The author observes that the struggle for women’s rights has succeeded and should be recognized as a major achievement; however, a post-victory «war of women against men» is neither necessary nor desirable — society needs civil peace, including gender peace. Patriarchal mythologemes, as well as the converse practice of discrimination against men, create socio-legal problems in the family, labor, and other spheres of society; they adversely affect birth rates, life expectancy, quality of life, and the stability of marital and family relations. Modern society no longer accepts patriarchy, yet concern about infringements of men’s rights is not widely shared by the majority of the population. The author proposes a critical synthesis of constitutional and traditional values to secure genuine gender equality by reinterpreting traditional values in a modern context adapting them to current realities and legal foundations, and abandoning outdated concepts (for example, the notion of the «head of the family»). It is further argued that traditional values should be formalized by incorporating them into regulatory legal acts from the Constitution of the Russian Federation to sectoral legislation. In particular, the author recommends broader introduction of such norms and values into the Family Code of the Russian Federation. The paper advocates consistently ensuring true equality of men and women, i.e., equality of rights, freedoms, duties, and opportunities to realize them. Achieving this requires eliminating gender-based distinctions throughout the regulatory framework, except where objectively justified (for instance, in matters related to pregnancy and comparable issues).