311 teenth century, this institution had a great effect on the development of legal traditions in Sweden since, through its judgements, it initiated an extensive assimilation of Roman law.^® 2. The iustits-kollegiia and the Reform of the Courts The available source materials are all too fragmentary to allow us to do more than present a very general description of the genesis of the institskollcgiia, but even such a presentation should be of interest in view of the fact that information concerning this initial phase of the college’s history is very sparse in the historical literature.'^^ The organization of the iustits-kollcgiia began during the spring of 1718 when, on the basis of the ukaz of April 24, 1718, which directed that “all colleges shall now, on the basis of the Swedish regulation (ustav), prepare (a regulation) in all matters and orders in points,” its president. Count Andrei Matveev, requested of the tsar more specific directives for the establishment of the college,^^ It is evident from Matveev’s letter that there was great uncertainty in the newly founded college concerning the system of justice the tsar had asked it to organize. The resolutions Peter made in connection with Matveev’s questions show, however, that the tsar was determined that the Swedish organizational forms should be used as a model. The iustits-kollegiia was to be given a position corresponding to that of the Svea Court of Appeals at Stockholm. The introductory portion of Matveev’s letter to the tsar itself revealed that the Swedish court of appeals was the immediate model upon which the Russian college was to be patterned. An important organizational point of departure here was the independence of the Swedish system of justice in relation to the rest of the Swedish administration. Matveev noted that: Stig Jägerskiöld, Studier rörande receptionen av främmande rätt i Sverige under den yngre landslagens tid (Lund, 1963), 49—53. The most recent treatment of the origins of the iustits-kollegiia is that by the Soviet legal historian L. A. Steshenko, "Obrazovanie kollcgii iustitsii (1719—1725 gg.),” Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Scriia Pravo, no. 6 (1966), 63—69. Steshenko did not, however, discuss the planning that preceded the foundation of the college, and therefore did not discuss the question as to whether it was patterned on any foreign model. Thus, the authoritative Russian work on this question remains M. M. Bogoslovskii, Oblastnaia reforma Petra Velikogo (Moscow, 1902). 3- ZA (no. 49), 60. For the dating of Matveev’s report, see ZA (no. 37S), 369. Ibid., 368.
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