Talk:Kievan Rus' law

Title
Maybe Rus' law is a better title. See Ngram for example. Not to mention that this covers much more than Kievan Rus' and the centuries afterwards. Unless it should be split. Mellk (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately Ngram as a tool has its limits. It often can't find certain terms that definitely are there. I found Kievan Rus' law commonly mentioned in English-language literature on Google Books, and I've cited it here in the intro, and justified the move on that basis. But for some reason, Ngram cannot find a single mention of Kievan Rus' law in any of its books, even though they are there. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes they exist, though I still get more results for Rus law. Mellk (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Obviously. If the phrase Kievan Rus' law appears 5 times, Old Rus' law 2 times, Ancient Rus' law 2 times, and just Rus' law 1 time, but you search only for the exact word combination Rus' law, you will get 10 results, but only 5 results for the exact word combination Kievan Rus' law. But that doesn't prove Rus' law is the WP:COMMONNAME, of course. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:02, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Besides, there is an important practical reason not to name this article Rus' law because it may be confused with the Russkaya Pravda, which could be translated as Rus' Law (or Rus' Justice, Rus' Truth etc.) as well. I see people confusing the general body of legislation of Kievan Rus' with that specific document all the time. That's also why I changed the capital L in the title to a lowercase l. Maybe we shouldn't even show the same image File:The instance Sinodal`niy of Pravda Ruskaya page 1.jpg in the top right corner of both pages either, because this only increases the confusion between the two. They were separate things. If the Russkaya Pravda is a tree, then Kievan Rus' law is the forest the tree stands in, even if it is the biggest and highest tree of them all. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:17, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the term Kievan Rus' law only suggests the Kievan period (when Kyiv was the capital). But the system of law based on Rus' Pravda was also in all the principalities of Rus', in the Lithuanian state (where the majority of the population were Eastern Slavs) and in Muscovy. Perhaps a better term is Rus' law (as you wrote above) or Old Eastern Slavic law. Nikolay Omonov (talk) 10:43, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody uses the term "Old Eastern Slavic law". And there are problems with "Rus' law" as I described above. Whenever we are talking about the legacy of Kievan Rus' law in, say, Lithuania, this can be called Lithuanian-Rus' law, Rus'-Lithuanian criminal and criminal procedure law etc. as the article already does. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:18, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we could replace the image with this, where Rus' makes a treaty with Byzantium. Nikolay Omonov (talk) 10:32, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is a good idea, because the authenticity of the Rus'-Byzantine treaties is widely disputed. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:40, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * So, maybe image by Bilibin from ru:русское право? Nikolay Omonov (talk) 11:00, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with the current image? TylerBurden (talk) 03:12, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Misnomer
There is a crisis in naming. During the late Medieval period and early Modern period, the country that today is known as the Russian Federation was called Muscovy, while Russia was centered in Lwow, capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship or Palatinatus russiae. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)