The study of the idea of popular sovereignty has a long history. In addition to a comprehensive study of popular sovereignty at the present stage, the last decade has marked a tendency to accumulation, systematization and reflection on available knowledge about it. Due to this reason specific understanding of popular sovereignty by representatives of Russian liberal legal though of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries and their impotence is undoubtful. The article reveals the views of Russian liberal lawyers: V. M. Hessen, F. F. Kokoshkin, B. N. Chicherin, N. I. Lazarevsky, A. D. Gradovsky and N. M. Korkunov on the aspects of theory discussed in Russian pre-revolutionary legal science. The author analyzing the approaches to the understanding of the categories of «sovereignty» and «people», consistently fills them with legal content. The use of this methodology allowed us to formulate the concept of popular sovereignty in the domestic liberal political and legal thought of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
sovereignty, people, popular sovereignty, government
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