The identity of Russian civil law in the context of conceptualizing the civil law culture

Introduction: the problems related to the identity of Russian civil law as considered in connection with the legal culture of civil law are practically unexplored. The purpose of the study was to define the criteria characterizing the identity of Russian civil law and their relevance as well as to present arguments for their application in the conceptualization of the civil law culture. Methods: a variety of research methodologies associated with the consideration of the criteria characterizing the identity of social phenomena as a factor of the national culture conceptualization; a variety of approaches, including philosophical, psychological, sociological, cultural, and historical ones. Results: we have compiled a list of criteria characterizing the civil law identity and correlated with the theoretical concept of ‘civil law culture’, and conducted a monitoring of these criteria on the basis of search queries made in social networking services, platforms and applications such as VKontakte, Twitter, and YouTube. The monitoring results indicate high demand for legal content and information, effective practices of conceptualizing the civil law culture among the users. The interest in the content concerning the civil law culture is associated with the increasing legal consciousness of people, with the current situation characterized by variability and intensive reformation of civil legislation, which entails continuously updating knowledge about legislation. Conclusions: the identity of civil law is represented by a number of aspects, one of which is the civil law culture, possessing educational potential that is significant in the development of personal legal culture, its cognitive and practice-oriented constituents.