Society and Law: "Meet the Charters!" exhibition launched in the Russian State Library

The exhibition "Meet the Charters!" was opened in the Centre for Legal and Business Information of the Russian State Library (Moscow). It presents the collections of the Department of Official and Normative Publications.

The charter as a normative legal document has a long history. The first mention of this kind of document in Russia dates back to the XI century. Its definition can be found in Russkaya Pravda (the legal code of Kievan Rus'), one of the preserved legal monuments of civil law. One of its recensions (Short (Kratkaya) Edition) is in the Novgorod First Chronicle of 1016.

From the very beginning of a charter as a document, its basic principle is the organization and regulation in a specific field of activity and relations.

The Department of Official and Normative Publications has more than 18 thousand charters. It features, among the others, the Collection of Charters of Institutions, Public and Socio-political Organizations of Russia and the USSR (1857-1991). Some documents are digitized and already available to readers of the Russian State Library's electronic library.

The exhibition promotes various types and forms of charters and reveals their development from a legislative to a normative document in different periods. Exposition allows tracing the history of the creation, formation and development of public and political organizations, societies, art unions, industry, finance, health services and education in Russia.

The exhibition will run until June 30, 2021.