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In the modern world, Russia is of particular importance in international political and legal affairs. Thus, its legislation and legal views attract the interest of nearly all lawyers and politicians of the world´s community. The satisfaction of this interest requires the existence of literature, which encompasses the Russian legal thought and is perfectly understandable to researchers of international scale. The book of Prof. Dr. Isfandiyar Aghayev constitutes such literature and is an important contribution to Russian legal science, as it represents the first book on Russian criminal law in English language.
Russian criminal law is an independent branch of Russian law governing public relations connected to commitment of criminal offenses, imposition of punishment and application of other penal measures and establishes the grounds for criminal liability and for the exemption from criminal liability and sanctions. The book comprises the well-systematized statement of issues of the General and Special parts of Russian criminal law. In its preparation, a large number of scientific, legal, and educational literature, Decrees of the Plenums of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, laws of the Russian Federation, and other normative acts have been processed. This publication highlights the need to elevate the Russian criminal legislation and ideas of well-known Russian and Soviet criminologists to global scale, and consequently, to attract the world community´s attention to the high degree of perfection of Russian legislation and legal science.
The book is also a contribution to research on Russian history as it offers the most extensive interpretation of the country´s legal thought and legislation since ancient times. The author hopes this publication may fill the gap, which has created obstacles to criminal law researchers of international scale and will be of interest to the world community.

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