Monument to outstanding Russian lawmaker Mikhail Speransky unveiled in St. Petersburg

On 19 May 2025, the first day of the 13th St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, a ceremony of unveiling the monument to the statesman, lawmaker and jurist Mikhail Speransky took place on the square in front of the Russian National Library.

Mikhail Speransky entered the history of Russia in the first half of the 19th century as one of the state minds of the first magnitude. He is the founder of Russian legal science and classical legal education, the founder of the Higher School of Jurisprudence for the training of qualified lawyers.

The location of the monument was not chosen by chance. Numerous professional works of Mikhail Speransky are kept in the manuscripts department of the Russian National Library. The monument to Speransky became part of a sculptural group: last year a monument to the outstanding lawyer Anatoly Fedorovich Koni was unveiled near the building of the Russian National Library.

“This is an amazing man in his magnitude, in his services to the Russian state. He was the first to raise the issue of systematisation of legislation. He was one of the first to work systematically on the draft of a new Constitution, which provided for the transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy. He was also the first to raise the question of the need to abolish serfdom. Everything he did became a prototype of the reforms that were carried out in the 60s of the 19th century,” noted Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation Konstantin Chuychenko at the opening ceremony.

The monument unveiling was attended by Alexander Beglov, Governor of St. Petersburg; Alexander Gutsan, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation, Sergei Stepashin, Chairman of the Association of Lawyers of Russia; representatives of the Russian Military Historical Society, and guests.

The creators of the monuments to Mikhail Speransky and Anatoly Koni are sculptor Alexei Stepanenko and architect Sergei Bukin. Both monuments were put up on the initiative of the Russian Ministry of Justice with the support of the St. Petersburg administration and the Russian Military Historical Society.

The Forum is organized by the Roscongress Foundation with the support of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

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