On the Theoretical Legacy of Professor M. D. Shargorodsky (1904—1973) — an Outstanding Theorist of Russian Criminal Law

The article analyzes the content of the main works of the classic of Russian criminal law, Professor Mikhail D. Shargorodsky of Leningrad State University. The latter retain their scientific significance in modern times for the domestic criminal law doctrine. These are works devoted, first of all, to the problems of the general theory of law, the theoretical foundations of criminal law, international criminal law, punishment and its effectiveness, scientific progress and criminal law (works on the latter problem are “useful to re-read” and in connection with the need to resolve the “collapsed” issues related to the “artificial intelligence” and “digitalization”), the qualification of crimes against life and health and the imposition of punishment for them. The historical aspect of the problem allows us to objectively assess the ideas embedded in the theoretical works of M. D. Shargorodsky, published in Soviet times as retaining their historical significance regardless of the well-known “raid” of the ideological “totalitarianism” of that era. For example, the author’s idea of the need to form international criminal law as a legal basis for the prevention of international crimes, which later became known as crimes against the peace and security of mankind, the norms of which are fixed in the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The comparative legal aspect brings us back to the need to solve the problem of preserving the importance of generally recognized principles and norms of international law, fixed in Part 2 of Article 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and which have become so modern and significant in the latest geopolitical conditions of opposition from the official West and the Russian Federation.