Law and its interpretation in the context of cultural and historical process

The article attempts to substantiate the approach to law as a socio-cultural phenomenon as decisive for its interpretationтin the historical process. P. Bourdieu’s formula «law is cultural capital» is offered as a starting point. Attention is drawn to law as a socio-cultural phenomenon, legal values as cultural and spiritual values, legal tradition, etc. Attention is drawn to some provisions of Dvorkin’s interpretive theory regarding the conditionality of the content of legal norms by political (strategies pursued by legislators through norms) or moral (principles implemented by judges in resolving conflicts in society) factors. It is concluded that to interpret the law in historical retrospect, when it comes to mastering the legal experience of a society accumulated over the centuries, the most productive, considering and researching law as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Culture, the core of which is values, as a collective programming of consciousness, which distinguishes members of one group or type of people from another (according to G. Hofstede), which includes law, determines the level of implementation and collective life of people in society / state, their social integration and social reproduction in general during a certain historical period. Keywords: law, socio-cultural phenomenon, cultural-historical process, interpretation.