Mikhail Kapustin

Born Jan. 11, 1828, in Ekaterinoslav Province; died Nov. 11, 1899, in St. Petersburg. Russian jurist, an expert on civil and international law and on the history of the state and law.

From 1852 to 1870, Kapustin was a professor at Moscow University, and from 1870 to 1883 he was director of the Demi-dov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1883 he became the superintendent of the Dorpat (Tartu) school district and in 1891 of the St. Petersburg school district. Kapustin was the first in Russia to write systematic handbooks on international law. In 1898 he was a member of the arbitration tribunal in the dispute between France and the Netherlands over Guiana. Kapustin attached a great importance to the historical method in jurisprudence, but many of his works were dogmatic in nature and were written in the spirit of legal positivism.