Mindaugas Maksimaitis
Mykolo Romerio universiteto Teisės fakulteto
Teisės filosofijos ir istorijos katedros profesorius
habilituotas daktaras
Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lietuva
Tel. (+370 5) 2 71 46 97
El. paštas tfk@mruni.eu
Summary
The value of the relatively short historical period in question to the development of and the achievements of the new legal history science has not always been the same. The period that has been continuously changing in political outlook has provided for different conditions and resulted in deep traces in its results.
Within the period between the two World Wars and having just recovered statehood, Lithuanian law and its history has merely been able to make the first steps.
During the Soviet times legal history has been influenced by ideology and strict requirement to adhere to the views of the political party. Nevertheless, the active interest of scientists in historical issues during the beginning of this period has been determined not so much by the Government’s official and persistent direction towards political and ideological relevance of history but more by the superiority of historical material over the problems of law that has been forced upon and not yet prepared for more serious scientific research.
Emigrants at that time had a more favorable environment for taking up research of Lithuanian legal history, even though they had limited resources. They put most attention to the legal life of Lithuania during 1918–1940, which was investigated looking forward to the needs of the state to be liberated in the future.
This article describes the overview of the research of legal history that has been conducted after 1990, when Lithuania has once more regained independence, as well as certain gaps within this research. Issues are discussed that are relating to the decrease of interest to the academic research of legal history and its elimination from legal curriculum in the official classification of legal sciences.