CODIFYING RUSSIAN LAW 331islative material was left out of the compilation of the laws of the
Russian Empire. 1
The Complete Collection is also defective from the point of view of
its strict textual accuracy and as a scientific edition of historical sources.
Although Speransky claimed that when several versions of an act were
available, they had all been compared and the copies carefully collated
with the original text, wherever available, the practice of the Second
Section and the results themselves belie the claim. We know that the
Section did not always wait until the original had been obtained from
Moscow or elsewhere and prepared their text from a copy. Even when
versions were compared and texts collated, the sources used were not
indicated, nor were the variant readings reproduced, so that the final
text is based on a version that has been selected by the editor arbitrarily
and cannot be verified. It was not a very significant defect in regard
to those laws which had been printed earlier and were easily available.
But in the case of many acts that were in circulation only in a few
manuscript copies the textual varia might be of great significance for
a proper understanding and interpretation of the legislation. For
instance, we know of several versions of the Code of 1649, but the
text printed in the Complete Collection of 1830 is not an absolutely
faithful copy of any of the known versions; it is rather a composite of
several. As Russian law before its codification had been casuistic rather
than dogmatic and systematic, these differences mattered a great deal
for a correct appreciation of the norms involved. Speransky's superficial
approach was fraught with serious consequences when relied upon in
the preparation of the Digest. 2
The incompleteness of the Complete Collection was by no means
balanced by the inclusion of various expletive acts, projects, tables of
organization, which had little legal value. Nor was the external form
of the Collection overly satisfactory. The acts were arranged mechan-
ically, chronologically, without adequate headings. There was no index
to each volume, oniy a general index for the entire compilation, and
the tables of contents did not specify clearly the subject matter of each
act listed. At first glance, it would seem that the Complete Collection
had only historical value, as a selective record of old legislation. This
was the opinion held by Nicholas 1.:3
1 Filippov, "K voprosu 0 sostave pervogo Psz," loco cit., pp. 98-99 and 100-101.
2 Filippov, Uchebnik istorii russkogo prava, I, p. 588; Filippov, "K voprosu 0
sostave pervogo PSZ," loco cit., p. 78.
3 Nicholas I wrote to Balugianskii on the latter's proposal to furnish a set of
the PSZ to all district courts: "I do not see any need for it, for the PSZ is now
a purely historical book, for which district courts have no use,"' quoted by Filippov,
"K voprosu 0 sostave pervogo PSZ," loco cit., p. 130.