Conservative-liberal terminology and legalism in the works of Russian and foreign researchers in the second half of the 19th – 20th centuries

The article considers an issue that has been actively discussed in science for the past 100 years. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a group of “people of the legal order” (legalists), consisting mainly of lawyers. They were part of the conservative-liberal movement in the late empire. Contemporaries had some idea of conservative liberals and their varieties, although their activities were not specifically studied. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were many terms denoting right-wing liberals: liberal conservatives, conservative liberals, “people of the legal order”, “center”, progressives, etc. After 1917, the history of legalism was gradually being erased from the memory of Russian emigrants and foreign researchers. As a result, researchers narrowed the field of liberalism, throwing out from it certain groups. Only in the 1980s, did foreign scientists begin a systematic study of conservative liberalism.

 The political picture of Russia, getting more complicated with time, quickly resulted in the shades of mass social movements becoming more visible. Nevertheless, at that time, it was only the foundation built by the scholars for future research that would help to better discover the history of liberalism in Russia. 

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