The study presents ways of structuring civil codes on the basis of selected codifications from Central and Eastern Europe since the end of 18th century until the modern times. In five chapters the author depicts the arrangement of an possible general part, of the law of obligations, of ius in re, of family law and the law of persons as well as of inheritance law. The focus of the study is searching the most commmon systematic patterns and the main differences between the socialist and bourgeois codifications.