Legal realism in Chicherin's philosophy of law

The paper considers the problem of determining the origins of legal realism by the example of the views of the outstanding representative of the Russian philosophy of law B.N. Chicherin as a generalized characteristic of the methods of legal knowledge and legal understanding that are widely used in modern legal thought. Taking into account the variety of meanings and interpretations of the realism of law, the study demonstrates, first, the problem of articulating the central meaning of the principle of realism in the philosophy of law of the XIX century, which is fixed in Russian legal thought, secondly, the author substantiates the thesis that the name “legal realism” is not unambiguous and implies a variety of options for its conceptual design. Analyzing Chicherin’s legal views, the paper argues that legal realism in the modern history of political and legal thought is not seen only as the installation of the legal version of the philosophy of pragmatism, with its focus on making meaning based on social facts, but as a direction, articulated the recognition of the reality of law as a spiritual phenomenon.