The national-state structure of the European empires at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries in the view of the German jurist Georg Jellinek

The article examines the ideas about the nation, the national question, nationalism and the national-state structure of multinational countries, which were developed by the famous German legal scholar Georg Jellinek (1851-1912) in his writings at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Special attention is paid to the German scholar’s perception of the problem of national borderlands in the context of the state-legal theory developed by him, which reveals the statics and dynamics of state and political entities and interprets law as one of the social norms. The author analyzes G. Jellinek’s notions about the confederation and the federation, his understanding of the connection of the federation with social issues and challenges. An important part of the scholar’s national ideas is the justification of the rights of national minorities, based on his view that the principle of majori-tarianism in relation to them is violence. According to the scholar, to overcome national uncertainty and national oppression was to create laws on the national language, to establish special courts to address national issues and injustice prevailing in them, and to introduce national curia in parliamentary institutions. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that G. Jellinek’s ideas about various options of the national state structure and about the problems of national borderlands are permeated with reverence for the values of law and recognition of the principles of justice. As an intellectual and defender of the universal principle of legality, G. Jellinek did not insist on the coincidence of the borders of the state with the boundaries between nationalities, if this did not violate the principles of law and true freedom.