“Pravova derzhava”. Issue 37 (2026), pages 244–258.

DOI: 10.33663/0869-2491-2026-37-244-258

Krestovska Natalia
“Children’s law” of Soviet Ukraine: an unrealised research project of the 1920s–1930s.

ISSN online: 2617-9776 print: 0869-2491

Introduction. History of juridical science is an important element of legal culture and improvement of legal education. The legal juvenile studies in the USSR are still poorly known and underestimated.

Purpose of the article. To reveal and analyse the historical origins of Ukrainian legal juvenile studies.

Results. The article explores the emergence and development of Children’s law (Juvenile law) in Soviet Ukraine during the 1920s–1930s as an unfinished scientific and codification project. The purpose of the study is to identify the intellectual origins, conceptual foundations, and reasons for the discontinuation of Ukrainian legal juvenile studies in the early Soviet period.

The study demonstrates that Ukrainian legal scholars of the 1920s developed a distinctive interdisciplinary concept of Children’s law, which went beyond Family or Criminal law and aspired to form an autonomous field of legal regulation. Juvenile law was conceptualized as a public-law domain closely linked to state social policy, education, guardianship, juvenile justice, and child welfare institutions. At the same time, Children’s law evolved within a protectionist “parens patriae” doctrine, in which the category of children’s rights was largely replaced by the notion of state-defined “children’s interests.” This resulted in ideological bias, class-based discrimination, and the subordination of the child’s legal status to political and social criteria. The consolidation of the totalitarian regime in the 1930s led to the suppression of critical legal thought, increased criminal repression against minors, and the destruction of the scientific foundations of juvenile law through political repression of its leading scholars.

Conclusion. The article concludes that the Ukrainian project of Children’s law in the 1920s constituted a significant but unrealized stage in the development of juvenile legal theory. Its critical re-evaluation through contemporary children’s rights standards may enrich modern juvenile law doctrine and contribute to the development of child-friendly justice in Ukraine.

Keywords: juvenile legal studies; legal biographical research; Juvenile law; children’s rights; child protection in the Ukrainian SSR.

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Дата першого надходження рукопису до видання: 30.01.2026
Дата прийнятого до друку рукопису після рецензування: 03.03.2026
Дата публікації: 24.03.2026