Gabriele Crespi Reghizzi and his time: A comparative lawyer against the background of the epoch

Abstract

The article is devoted to an Italian lawyer, a prominent specialist in comparative law Gabriele Crespi Reghizzi (1941–2022), who in the last period of his life worked at the Department of Law of St. Petersburg State University. It talks about main milestones of his academic career: emergence of interest in Soviet and Chinese law, acquaintance with leading scientists in these fields, creation of innovative works. In addition to the law of the USSR and China, he was interested in the law of states of Eastern Europe, India and Africa, focusing on not only genesis of legal systems, but also their development and interaction in the context of international relations. The knowledge and experience of G.Crespi Reghizzi, as it seemed, should have remained within the framework of a narrow academic interest, but economic reforms in China in the 1970s and 1980s and political changes in Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s gave them a fresh start. Professor G.Crespi Reghizzi was widely known by his professional activity as a business lawyer, international commercial judge, consultant on legal aid projects for post-Soviet states. His contribution to the codification of civil law in Russia is noted. Among G.Crespi Reghizzi’s distinctive features as a scientist, the author notes his extremely attentive attitude to legal terminology, and in the case of the Chinese language — to legal ideography, extensive use of primary sources and non-traditional sources, knowledge of several foreign languages. He attracted people, students and colleagues, by virtue of his personal qualities as attentiveness, spiritual generosity, originality of views, willingness to share his exotic experiences. To compile a complete bibliography of G.Crespi Reghizzi’s works seems to be quite difficult, since, besides professional legal publications and publishing houses, he willingly published in a variety of places and forms, wrote a lot of practical and popular scientific works, not to mention the linguistic diversity of his publications. Nevertheless, the article presents his main works, which made a great contribution to understanding the legal system of socialist and post-socialist countries and comparative law.