LEBEDEV Valerian Alekseyevich,

Doctor of Juridical Science, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Honored Official within the sphere of higher professional education of the Russian Federation, Professor of Constitutional and Municipal Law Department of Moscow State Law Academy named after O. E. Kutafin, Moscow. Bld. 9., str. Sadovaya Kudrinskaya, Moscow, 123995. E-mail: lebedev_va@bk.ru

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The article describes establishing and developing the concepts of human and civil rights and freedoms in the Constitutions of the Russian Federation. Human rights have been interpreted differently at different stages of the Russian government development because the actual meaning of those rights have always been closely interrelated with the form of the government, political regime, ideology prevailing within a society and other factors. Each stage had its own concept of human rights. The article especially focuses on the Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993 which has established a principally new concept

of human and civil rights based on Article 2 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation which states that a human being, as well as its rights and freedoms are the supreme value, and that the government is obliged to recognize, respect and defend them, and to treat an individual as a subject of a legal status.