Topics: Law in action in ordinary settings, in Muscovite, imperial, Soviet and post-Soviet times: uses of courts by people of various statuses (estate, livelihood, confession, nationality, etc.), the provision of lower-level legal authorities and instances; questions about how, why, and when subjects went to court or used the law in different areas and times; the imperial dimensions of Russian law addressed through studies of the legal status and opportunities of non-Russians and non-Orthodox populations; questions of access to the law (to courts and to officials); the experiences of law-users.
Goals: Identification of salient qualities of legal procedures, exploration of popular legal imaginaries, and preliminary sketch of the evolution of legal/court practices from the 17th century to the present.