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Private Law in Former Socialist States: Legal Survivals in Central and Eastern Europe

Coming Soon Private Law in Former Socialist States: Legal Survivals in Central and Eastern Europe

Private Law in Former Socialist States: Legal Survivals in Central and Eastern Europe

Author: Rafał Mańko; Piotr Eckhardt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781041116431
Published In: September 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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More than three decades after the fall of state socialism, certain legal institutions forged during the socialist period continue to shape private law across Central and Eastern Europe. This volume identifies and analyses case studies of 'legal survivals' — legal forms which, though created under state socialism, endured the political, socio-economic, and cultural upheaval of the 1989 transformation and remain operative within contemporary capitalist legal orders.

Building on the insights of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Karl Renner into the persistence of legal forms beyond the conditions that produced them, the book develops and applies a theory of 'nomostasis' — a term coined from the Greek nomos (law) and stasis (persistence) — to denote the endurance of old legal forms after revolution, transition, or other profound societal change. Although legal survivals are familiar in legal cultures founded on long traditions, such as the common law or Roman-law-based civil law, the vestiges of twentieth-century state socialism have received only scattered scholarly attention. Bringing together sociologists of law, legal historians, and comparative lawyers, the volume reveals remarkable continuities in institutions of property, family, and contract law across the region, and raises fresh questions about the wider relationship between law, society, and the economy.

This book will appeal to sociologists of law, comparative lawyers, and legal theorists, as well as to political scientists and area studies specialists working on Central and Eastern Europe.

Introduction

1. On Nomostasis: A Brief Restatement of the Theory of Legal Survivals in the Central and Eastern European Context.

Rafał Mańko

2. Defining the Boundaries of Legal Survivals from the Perspective of Legal Historians: Object, Anachronism and Shift in Legal Culture.

Michał Gałędek and Tomas Kucharski

3. How to Deal with Legal Survivals: the Role of Courts in Adapting Legal Provisions to Changing Circumstances.

Paulina Konca

4. The Agrarian System of the Polish State as a Legal Survival.

Adam Sulikowski and Joanna Kuźmicka-Sulikowska

5. Legal Survivals and Politics: the Case of the Polish Allotment Federation (PZD) in Post-Communist Poland.

Piotr Eckhardt

6. The Right of Perpetual Usufruct: A Socialist Spectre in Polish Private Law.

Rafał Mańko

7. Romanian (and CEE) Associations of Condominium Owners as Exemplary Legal Survivals and Ideological Paradoxes.

Liviu Damşa

8. The Survival of the Separate Ownership of Buildings (Aedificium Solo Non Cedit) in the Slovak Republic.

Tomáš Gabriš

9. In Rem Divided Use of Joint Ownership: A Remnant from the Socialist Legal System Fitting for Latvian Property Law.

Aleksandrs Fillers

10. Succession Rights for Unmarried Partners in Ex-Yugoslavia: Historical Context and Modern Implications of a Legal Survival of the Socialist Era.

Dorota Miler

11. The Rules of Socialist Coexistence, Good Morals, and the Dark Secrets of Bulgaria's Law on Obligations and Contracts of 1950: What Lessons for Legal Survivals?

Radosveta Vassileva

12. Conclusions: Central European Legal Survivals and Their Implications for the Theory of Nomostasis.

Rafał Mańko