Piontkovskii, Andrei

Born Aug. 8, 1898, in Iaroslavl’; died Nov. 9, 1973, in Moscow. Soviet jurist and scholar, specialist in criminal law, general legal theory, and the philosophy and methodology of juridical science. Honored Scholar of the RSFSR (1968). Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968).

Piontkovskii graduated from the law faculty at the University of Kazan in 1918. He began teaching in 1921 and taught at the University of Turkestan (1921-23) and at Moscow State University (from 1923). He also worked in the Moscow Institute of Law (from 1931), the All-Union Institute of Criminalistics (from 1950), and the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (from 1955). He served as a member of the Supreme Court of the USSR from 1946 to 1951.

Piontkovskii’s principal works dealt with general and specific aspects of Soviet criminal law. They became the first Soviet textbooks in this discipline and greatly influenced the development of Soviet juridical science and the legal science of other socialist countries. Piontkovskii was vice-president of the International Association of Penal Law (from 1964) and an honorary doctor of Warsaw University. A deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.