LAUSR

ABSTRACT This article examines legal nihilism, which represents a kind of calling card of Russian legal culture. Nihilism’s penetration of the culture has found expression and has been substantiated in philosophy and literature. The study demonstrates the theoretical foundations of legal nihilism: logical negation, irrationalism, absurdity, and the paradoxical nature of existing. It reveals the ambivalence of legal nihilism: on the one hand, a denial of law, the state, and the church and, on the other hand, a recognition of moral law (“pan-moralism”), of “law as the minimum of morality,” as well as “infectiousness,” and the norm-establishing role of art. The author concludes that the distinguishing features of Russian culture are the priority of internal freedom and the shift in the formation of legal consciousness and norms not only into ethics but also into aesthetics.