Dissertation defended about the history of surveillance in the Russian Empire

The article is devoted to the analysis of the dissertation on the topic «Institute for Surveillance in the Law Enforcement System of the Russian Empire (Historical and Legal Research)», submitted by A. V. Matveev to the dissertation council 03.2.008.03, created on the basis of St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, for the degree of candidate of legal sciences, specialty 5.1.1 Theoretical and historical legal sciences (legal sciences). The author of the article, invited as an official opponent, gave a positive review. Determination of the specifics of the organization and functioning of the state-legal institution of surveillance and the surveillance service, a retrospective analysis of the experience of using the method of surveillance by bodies specially created for this purpose in the Russian Empire - these are the main advantages of A. V. Matveev’s dissertation. The applicant, relying on a wide range of research in various scientific fields such as the history of law and the state, the theory of law and the state, the history of law and the state doctrine, the history of the bodies that implement the law enforcement function of the state, carefully studied and analyzed a variety of archival material, including previously unpublished documents , thus introducing them into scientific circulation. 
Historical and legal research, the results of which supplement and give concrete expression to the sections of the history of the domestic state and law concerning the development and state of the state-legal system of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, deepen the understanding of the organization and functioning of the law enforcement system of imperial Russia. The information about the features of implementation of political investigation in Russia, the rule-making specifics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire and the practice of the implementation of external observation in Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was accompanied by the applicant with theoretical and legal generalizations, including the field of state studies, in which the concept of «statelegal institution» may be in demand. Although a number of the applicant’s theoretical generalizations are by no means indisputable and are of a debatable nature, they can also be attributed to the merits of the work as a bold attempt to introduce something new into the conceptual and categorical apparatus of legal science.