review of central and east european law 41 (2016) 263-341 © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/15730352-04103003 brill.com/rela A Comparative Perspective on the Concept of Ownership in Russian Law: From the Svod Zakonov to the 1994 Civil Code Murray Raff School of Law and Justice, University of Canberra, Canberra, act 2601, Australia Corresponding author, <murray.raff@canberra.edu.au> Anna Taitslin School of Law and Justice, University of Canberra, Canberra, act 2601, Australia College of Law, Australian National University, Acton, act 2601, Australia <anna.taitslin@gmail.com> Abstract The modern European unitary conception of ownership emerged from the disso- lution of feudalism and achievement of a deeper understanding of Roman law to become an ideal of property law in the European Civil-Law tradition. Prior to its dis- solution European feudalism represented hierarchies of legal tenure in land, such as the division of land ownership between dominus directus (direct owner) and dominus utilis (beneficial owner) and overlapping hierarchies of social class descending from monarchy and aristocracy to bonded serfdom. Support for the resolution of divided land ownership and victory for the unitary concept of ownership was found in the Roman law tradition. The dissolution of feudal hierarchies took different historical courses in the legal traditions that we now identify as the French, German, Common- Law and Russian legal systems and with great local variation even within those emer- gent traditions. The unitary concept of ownership is found today in the French and German Civil Codes and is for practical purposes reflected in the prevalence of the common-law tenure of freehold. In Russia the systemized digest of the laws of the Russian Empire, the Svod Zakonov of 1832, provided no civil-law notion of divided ownership or perpetual rights. In the Soviet era exclusive state ownership of land and the means of production was also viewed as unitary, which raised serious questions about how state agencies and enterprises could engage in transactions with their