Dnistriansky, Stanyslav

Dnistriansky, Stanyslav [Дністрянський, Станислав; Dnistrjans'kyj], b 13 November 1870 in Ternopil, d 5 May 1935 in Uzhhorod. Prominent jurist in Galicia, professor of civil law at Lviv University and Prague University, rector of the Ukrainian Free University (1922–3), of which he was one of the founders, member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and full member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Dnistriansky edited Chasopys’ pravnycha and Pravnychyi vistnyk. He served as president of the Society of Ukrainian Lawyers in Lviv and, in 1907–16, as a deputy of the National Democratic party to the Vienna parliament. During this period he presided over a civil-law-reform commission. He wrote numerous works in Ukrainian, German, and Czech on civil law, particularly on obligation, ownership, and the general legal scholarship. His main works were Das Wesen des Werklieferungsvertrages im österreichischen Rechte, Die Aufträge zugunsten Dritter, Avstriis'ke pravo obligatsiine (Austrian Contract Law, 1901), Zvychaieve pravo ta sotsiial'ni zv’iazky (Customary Law and Social Relations), Tsyvil'ne pravo (Civil Law), and Zahal'na nauka prava i polityky (The General Science of Law and Politics, 1923). He contributed to the development of Ukrainian legal terminology and prepared a draft of the Constitution of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. Dnistriansky belonged to the sociological school of law and tried to weaken legal positivism by emphasizing the social character of norms and the natural principles of law. He constructed his own interpretation of legal freedom, which was later adopted by Austrian civil jurists.

Vasyl Markus

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]