This study of legal historians and legal histories written in Eastern European countries during the socialist era after the Second World War concentrates on a phenomenon of the recent past. Yet it speaks to the contemporary audience, who witnesses the challenging of the European ideal of the rule of law almost on a daily basis. Our book focuses on the way in which legal historians and legal scientists used the past to legitimise, challenge, and explain socialist legal orders that were backed by dictatorial governments.The individual chapters of this volume concentrate on the regimes that are situated between the Russian (and later Soviet) legal culture and the area covered by the German Civil Code. Hence, the geographical focus of the book is on East Germany, Russia, the Baltic countries, Poland, and Hungary, but our approach is transnational. Instead of concentrating on the differences and distinct features ofeach national legal culture, we focus on the interaction and intertwinement of the then hegemonic socialist ideology and the ideas of law and justice as they appeared in the writings of legal historians and historically oriented legal scientists of socialist legal orders. Such an angle enables us to concentrate on the dynamics between politics and law as well as on identities and legal history.