This publication includes selected works of A. E. Zhalinsky, a famous researcher in the field of theoretical problems of criminal law and criminology, sociology of law, comparative law and foreign criminal law and criminology. He has written more than 350 scientific papers on this topic, including monographs published in academic and professional journals in Russia and abroad. Many works, as well as ideas put forward and substantiated, played a significant role in the development of science. Volume 4 includes the works of A. E. Zhalinsky, which embody the new directions of his research in terms of topics. Readers are presented with both extracts from his books and individual articles on legal thinking, professional activity of a lawyer, issues of legal education and its improvement. A separate important section is devoted to the science of criminal law and scientific research in this area. The book is intended for specialists in the field of criminology, criminal law and sociology of law, i.e. practical and scientific workers, university teachers, graduate students, students and anyone interested in the history of legal and criminological thought in Russia, the goals, means, achievements and failures of the fight against crime in our country. Compiled by: K. A. Barysheva, O. L. Dubovik, I. I. Nagornaya, A. A. Popov EXPLANATION TO SECTION 1 This section includes works by A. E. Zhalinsky on legal (socio-legal, criminal -legal and criminological) thinking. He first began to thoroughly investigate this kind of problem back in the 80s of the last century, publishing a widely distributed The monograph “Social and Legal Thinking: Problems of Fighting Crime” has been published in large quantities. Then A. E. Zhalinsky repeatedly returned to this topic, revealing its various aspects and connections with the professional activities of lawyers in general, with the peculiarities of legal thinking in relation to the implementation of crime prevention, environmental measures, training of legal personnel in our country, etc. Features he identified and patterns of legal thinking contribute to the effective implementation of legal norms, error-free decision-making on their application, and increasing the level of legal culture. A.E. Zhalinsky himself thought strictly legally. This is manifested in his publications, and in speeches, and in opinions prepared for the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and other courts, and in methodological recommendations for law enforcement agencies, crime control agencies at various levels. His ideas about the content, structure and development of legal thinking are not outdated today: readers of the fourth volume, I hope, will find a lot of useful and applicable things both in scientific research and in practice. EXPLANATION TO SECTION 2 To the development of problems of professional activity of lawyers A. E. Zhalinsky started in the early 90s of the twentieth century. in parallel in two directions: teaching the relevant course at the Moscow Institute of Economics, Politics and Law, its branch in Smolensk, the Academic Law University at the Institute of State History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and publishing individual articles. The accumulated material was systematized in a small monograph published in Smolensk, then significantly expanded and published by the Beck publishing house. Subsequently, after the course “Introduction to the Specialty: Fundamentals of the Professional Activity of a Lawyer” gained popularity and became an integral part of the training of law students in our country (it is usually taught in the first semester and is often repeated with other positions in the ninth semester) - a book labeled “textbook” began to be published by the Prospekt publishing house. Nowadays, bookstore shelves are filled with brochures and monographs about the profession of investigator, judge, lawyer, etc., but the works of A. E. Zhalinsky were pioneering in their time and, in addition to scientific value, helped many young people decide on what they they want what specialty they prefer, to understand the difficulties that they may encounter. The volume of the publication does not allow us to reproduce in full the texts devoted to the study of problems of professional legal activity, and the published books are still in circulation and available to users. Therefore, this section includes separate fragments from them, showing the contribution of A. E. Zhalinsky to the formation and improvement of professional legal activity. This section also includes works on legal education. Being a teacher with many years of experience, A. E. Zhalinsky always strived for perfection - it was not for nothing that students called him their favorite and best teacher. But, as you know, a lot depends not only on the talent of the professors, but also on the organization of the education of lawyers in the country, which is the most important stage in preparing them for professional activity.A. E. Zhalinsky devoted a lot of time not only to developing proposals for improving legal education in Russia, using the experience of Germany for these purposes, but also sometimes solving problems that deviated from purely scientific ones. Therefore, the section includes prefaces to two works completed under his editorship and with his large-scale participation - “Criminal Law. Bibliography (1985–2006)” and “Workshop on criminal law”. Along with the textbook “Criminal Law. General Part" and Commentary on the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, these publications, published by the Gorodets publishing house in the 2000s, provide students with complete training in the subject "Criminal Law", which is one of the main disciplines in accordance with the state standard of legal education .A. E. Zhalinsky also took into account the latest requirements for training of lawyers in domestic universities, the influence of the Bologna process and developed a draft master's program in criminal law for the National Research University Higher School of Economics, including several new special courses. Familiarization with his works on legal education is also useful for advanced training and retraining of lawyers. EXPLANATION TO SECTION 3 Having devoted his entire life to science, A. E. Zhalinsky very realistically and often critically assessed the state of scientific research in the field of criminal law and not only them. He always assessed his own works demandingly and, as a rule, made changes to the prepared texts five or six times and was dissatisfied with them. It is not for nothing that he noted in the questionnaire (see Volume 1) that he considers the best book to be the one that has not yet been written. A. E. Zhalinsky believed that excessive attention to individual issues such as the fight against organized crime, manifested to the detriment of other problems, in his opinion, more relevant for Russian society, and sought to orient his students and colleagues towards their development and solution. Over the past few years, he has published a number of works on the state and changes in the science of criminal law, its effectiveness, tasks in the context of globalization, emphasizing that the science of criminal law must be ready for the challenges of our time, must adapt to the conditions of what he called the era of change. At the same time, A. E. Zhalinsky highly appreciated the works of outstanding Soviet (Russian) and foreign scientists in the field of criminal law and criminology. Periodicals (“Russian Criminological View” and others) published not only his articles about V. N. Kudryavtsev, I. I. Karpetse, A. B. Sakharov, M. D. Shargorodsky, P. S. Dagele, H.-H. Eshke and others, but also numerous reviews of books by these and other authors. In our opinion, A.E. Zhalinsky’s assessments of the state and prospects of criminal law science deserve special attention. The science of criminal law should not and, of course, cannot stand still. It, like any other science, serves society, people, and the state. A. E. Zhalinsky, perhaps more than anyone else among Russian criminologists, emphasized the need to ensure the sovereignty of Russia’s interests in the field of criminal law, updating research, taking into account the latest trends, developing a critical view, strengthening requirements for the products of scientific activity, be it proposals to change the criminal law law, transformation of the judiciary systems, restructuring the processes of training lawyers or improving the indicators of dissertation works. Several publications on this topic, placed in this section, clearly show what was the position of A. E. Zhalinsky in relation to the science of criminal law and its tasks. EXPLANATION TO SECTION 4A. E. Zhalinsky sought to evaluate the concepts and ideas prevailing in criminal law and law in general, adapting philosophical teachings, views of economists, sociologists, and representatives of other sciences to the problems solved by lawyers - scientists and practitioners. Being a man of encyclopedic knowledge and at the same time a scientist not of a stagnant, conservative type, but, on the contrary, a researcher who reacts extremely quickly to everything new, but also does not forget about previous achievements, in the last years of his life he spent a lot of time wrote and often gave reports on the methodological foundations of jurisprudence and, first of all, criminal law. The section includes his articles reflecting the influence of Marxism and liberalism on criminal law and its application, which caused a wide response from specialists. No less significant are the works of A. E. Zhalinsky, which explore the relationship of criminal law with other branches of law (civil, criminal procedure, etc.). It also contains works on new approaches to the methodology of criminal law, produced by the need to change paradigms and determine the place of criminal law in systems of rational and symbolic understanding of modern goals and objectives of this branch of law.