The soviet model of legal regulation of hunting in Russia: evolution of goals, institutions and legal means

This article presents a historical and legal study of the Soviet model of legal regulation of hunting in Russia as an independent stage in the development of the public-law regime for the use, protection, and reproduction of wildlife. The relevance of this topic stems from the need to identify institutional and normative continuity between Soviet and modern legislation in the field of hunting and hunting resources. Examining this period allows for a more thorough understanding of the origins of current legal institutions, identifying the specific features of their development, and tracing the changing approaches of the state to regulating relations in the field of wildlife use. The purpose of the study is to establish patterns in the development of Soviet hunting legislation, identify its stages, and determine the significance of the legal frameworks developed during this period for the modern system of public administration in the field of wildlife use and protection. Particular attention is paid to analyzing those elements of legal regulation that had the most significant impact on the subsequent development of natural resource and environmental legislation. The methodological basis of the study was formed by the dialectical method of scientific inquiry, historical-legal, formal-legal, system-structural, and comparative-legal methods. Their application allowed us to examine Soviet-period regulations in relation to changing state objectives in the areas of environmental management, wildlife conservation, and the economic development of hunting resources. The scientific novelty of this study lies in its proposal to consider Soviet hunting legislation not as a simple chronological sequence of regulations, but as a succession of three interrelated models of legal regulation: constituent-public, planned-mobilization, and administrative-specialized. This approach demonstrates that the evolution of hunting legislation was determined not only by the development of legal norms but also by changing state objectives in the areas of environmental management, wildlife conservation, and the economic development of hunting resources. It is concluded that the Soviet period laid the foundations for the modern model of legal regulation of hunting, including the public nature of hunting resources, the permitting procedure for their use, the territorial organization of hunting grounds and the decisive role of the state in this area.