Hans Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law [1934]

Title: Pure Theory of Law.

Author: Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) [Austrian jurist and legal philosopher, founder of the pure theory of law, principal author of the 1920 Austrian Constitution].

Edited by: Dr. Tadeusz Przeorski, who prepared the Polish edition with the author’s authorization.

Foreword: Kazimierz Władysław Kumaniecki (1880–1941) [professor at Jagiellonian University, specialist in administrative law, Minister of Religious Denominations and Public Education in 1922].

Publisher: Warsaw, reprinted from the “Gazeta Administracji i Policji Państwowej.”

Year of publication: 1934.

Format: 23 cm.

Number of pages: 70.

Binding: original paperback cover, publishing-grade paper.

Polish edition of a lecture on the principles of pure legal theory, compiled by Tadeusz Przeorski with the author’s authorization and featuring a foreword by Kazimierz Władysław Kumaniecki. The print is a reprint from the “Gazeta Administracji i Policji Państwowej,” a ministry periodical of the Second Polish Republic. In 1934, a German edition of “Reine Rechtslehre” was also published, considered one of the key works of 20th-century legal theory. In it, Kelsen separates law from morality and from facts, constructing a system in which a norm derives its validity from a higher-order norm. The Polish reprint was reviewed by Czesław Znamierowski (1935), one of the leading Polish critics of normativism.

Hans Kelsen was born on October 11, 1881, in Prague, and died on April 19, 1973, in Berkeley, California. He studied law at the University of Vienna, where he earned his doctorate in 1906 and his habilitation in constitutional and administrative law in 1911. He was the principal architect of the Austrian Constitution of 1920, which, with subsequent amendments, remains in force to this day. The rise of totalitarianism forced him to leave Austria and Germany, and in 1940 he emigrated to the United States. In 1934, Roscoe Pound recognized him as the leading legal scholar of his time.

Kazimierz Władysław Kumaniecki (1880–1941), born in Radziechów, was a professor at the Jagiellonian University, serving as an associate professor from 1917 and a full professor from 1919, twice serving as dean of the Faculty of Law and Administration, and a member of the Jurisdictional Tribunal. From August 1922, he headed the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education in Julian Nowak’s government. He was a critic of the March Constitution and a co-author of the collective work *On the Reform of the Republic* (1922).

Provenance: a piece free of ownership inscriptions and institutional stamps.

A valuable resource for researchers of the philosophy of law and political theory, historians of Polish legal thought of the interwar period, and collectors of interwar ministerial publications. A brief, pioneering Polish exposition of one of the most influential legal doctrines of the 20th century, preserved in its original cover.

The piece is in very good condition (with a slight flaw), complete, and bibliographically intact. The original paper paperback cover is in good condition, with slight surface soiling and delicate acid discoloration along the limp edges and spine, with no paper loss. The block is compact and stable, the original stitching is intact, and the pages lie flat. The paper is clean and bright, with adequate stiffness, and bears a patina typical of the 1930s: a few small foxing spots and acid-induced yellowing of the pages, without impairing the legibility of the text.

Catalog ID: 12023-23-A-X