342 CODIFYING RUSSIAN LAWof the laws' organic evolution. It bureaucratized wh~t had been living
and constantly changing legal relations. With the modernization ofthe native way!! of life, it was perhaps an inevitable process anywaYJ
but it was still a pity that it had to be speeded up and congealed by a
fundamentally bureaucratic procedure. 1
The local codes, with the exception of the Baltic, were never im-
plemented, even within the narrow limits of Speransky's conception of
their role. Nicholas I was very reluctant to give even limited authority
to laws whose historical and social traditions were different from those
of Russia. He delayed the application of the codes and looked for the
first convenient pretext to abrogate local law altogether. In the case
of the Western provinces, this pretext was offered by the events of
Poland and the revolutions of 1848. Desirous of obliterating Polish
influence, he forbade the application of the Lithuanian Statute; the
same happened in the Ukraine. As to the Siberian laws of the steppe,
though applied in fact, they were never given legislative sanction and
administrative recognition. Only the influence at court and better
organization of the Baltic nobility secured the application of the
"Ostsee" codes. 1I
In the final analysis, the codification of local law had no positive
practical results. But to the extent that it led to a change in legal
norms and administrative practices, it illustrated and furthered Speran-
sky's basic aim: organic Russification by means of the gradual and
voluntary assimilation of the peculiarities of non-Russian peoples. It
led to the superimposing of a centralized, standardized, and systematic
bureaucratic pattern upon the variety and complexity of an historically
conditioned reality. But it was to be done gradually, indirectly, by
bending rather than by breaking the local pattern. In this sense, codi-
fication was only another means for creating a Kulturgemeinschaft in
the existing Staatsgemeinschaft of the Empire. Again it showed Spe-
ransky's belief that far going social and economic processes can be
introduced and helped along by administrative measures.
1 In the case of oral customary law (as that of Siberian nomadic natives), the
material was gathered by means of interviews and decisions of the leaders of the
tribe. As we had occasion to mention, this was the procedure followed in Siberia.
The history of the codification of local law is most fully and ably told by A. E.
Nol'de, Ocherki po istorii kC'ditikatsii mestnykh grazhdanskikh zakonov pri grate
Speranskom, 2 vols. (St. Pbg. 1906-1914); an interesting picture on the codification
of the law of the Baltic provinces is given by A. Ch(umikov), "Speranskii· i Balug'-
ianskii - Uchastie ikh v sostavleni svoda uzakonenii dlia Pribaltiiskikh gubernii (iz
zapisok ochevidtsa: F. Grinval'dt)," Russkaia Starina, XXXV Ouly 1882), pp. 41-58;
for the codification of the customary law of the Siberian natives, see note 1, p. 276.
2 Nol'de, Ocherki po istorii kodifikatsii mestnykh grazhdanskikh zakonov, I. pp.
230-247. 255-282 passim.