The article examines the development of the concept of legal pluralism in Russian historical and legal science in relation to the study of local law of the Moscow state of the 14th–16th centuries. The main scientific approaches to understanding the relationship between customary law, grand ducal legislation and church law norms in the process of forming a unified legal system of a centralized Russian state are analyzed. The methodological framework of the article is based on the dialectical method of cognition, which makes it possible to explore political and legal doctrines about the legal pluralism of the Moscow state in their historical development. The methodological core of the research is normative, historical, approaches, the methodology is the traditional analysis of documents and scientific literature. The scientific novelty of this study lies in substantiating the thesis that legal pluralism in the Moscow state of the 14th–15th centuries was not a transitional phenomenon to be overcome in the process of centralization, but was a stable characteristic of the legal system that ensured its adaptability to the diverse social and cultural conditions of the united territories. As a result of the research, it has been established that in Russian science there are three main approaches to assessing legal pluralism: the concept of the gradual displacement of local legal traditions by centralized legislation, the theory of the synthesis of various legal sources into a single system, and the modern paradigm of the coexistence of multiple legal systems. It is shown that legal pluralism was an integral characteristic of the Moscow legal system, which ensured the adaptation of national norms to local conditions. Finally, modern research emphasizes that studying the customary law of the Moscow state allows us to better understand the origins of Russian legal culture and its unique features. It shows that the legal system was formed not only "from top to bottom" through decrees and laws, but also "from bottom to top" through everyday practices, customs and ideas about what should be.
Valentina Igorevna Kuz'menko (Thu,) studied this question.