Korf, S.A.: The Self-Governing Colonies of Great Britain

Title

Avtonomnye kolonii Velikobritanii, Sankt-Peterburg 1914

The Self-Governing Colonies of Great Britain

Keywords

Summary

The essay is divided into six chapters, each dedicated to: Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the state system of the British Empire. In the chapter on South Africa, Korf explains how the Union of South Africa came to be and how its government is structured following the South Africa Act of 1909. He also describes how the legislature, the executive and the judiciary work. Korf’s treatise is based on a wide range of English, French, and German sources, which are listed in the footnotes.

Bio

Sergei Korf was a Russian jurist and civil servant. Born in Saint Petersburg into a noble family of German origins, he studied law at Saint Petersburg University. During his university years, he also travelled to Germany and Switzerland to further his legal studies. From 1898 to 1903, he worked for the Ministry of Finance, after which he became a professor of the history of law at the University of Helsinki, a position he held until 1918. A supporter of the Constitutional Democratic Party, he emigrated after the 1917 Revolution and settled in Washington with his family. He taught at Georgetown and Columbia universities until his death.

Sources

A. Pavlov, Nauchno-pedagogicheskaia i politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ S.A. Korfa (1876-1924 gg.) v Rossii i v emigratsii, PhD dissertation, Sankt-Peterburg 2006;

E. Petrov, S.A. Korf (1876-1924): pravoved, diplomat, obshchestvennyi deiatel’, Sankt-Peterburg 2018.

A.F.