SOVIET HISTORICAL AND LEGAL INTERPRETATION OF THE EVOLUTION OF CIVIL LAW IN RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN 18TH - 19TH CENTURIES Taraborin Roman Sergeevitch, PhD at law, associate professor. <...> Position: Head of Theory and History of State and Law Chair. <...> Place of employment: Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of RF – Urals Institute. <...> E-mail: trs-2008@yandex.ru Annotation: The article starts with the classification of the existing bibliography on the historical evolution of the civil law in Russia. <...> Such classification helps to adequately estimate the major achievements of soviet historical and legal science focusing on specific features characteristic to certain historiography groups and thus, to determine problem areas in this sphere and find out possible research opportunities. <...> The current research brings the author to the conclusion that in Soviet times the historical and legal approach to evolution of the civil law in the Russian Empire had randomly reflected the whole complexity of specific features of evolution of various branches and institutes of Law. <...> In the existing studies on systematization of civil legislation, the analysis of civil and legal norms and institutes is, in most cases, of a fragmentary character. <...> This, however, does not reveal the true role of this phenomenon in the legislative sphere of this country in 18th – 19th centuries taking into account global social and economic changes and transition to another level of state development. <...> Keywords: systematization of legislation, civil law of Russia, Soviet historical and legal interpretation, historiography of Russian civil law, history of legal science. <...> Literature list: Andreeva M.V. About some codification projects of the early XIX century // Vestnic LSU. 1982. №11. <...> Ahun M. To the history of the Russian law codification (review of handwritten and printed materials, used by codification committees in XVII-XIX centuries) // Arhivnoe delo. 1941. № 2. <...> Bontush P. K. State and legal views of M. M. Speranskiy. <...> Valk S. N. Printed and handwritten legislation projects of M. M. SpОrКnsФТв (HТstorТМКХ notОs) // HТstorТМКХ notОs. № 54. <...> Eroshkin N.P. Codification of law – one of the ways to strengthen feudal and serf-based system // Eroshkin N. P. Serf-based autocracy and its political institutes. <...> Efremova N.N. The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire, 1802-1917. <...> Zayonchkovskiy P. A. Government machinery of autocratic <...>