Prison of peoples or prison of nations (German: Völkerkerker, Russian: тюрьма народов) is a journalistic definition applied to empires and multinational states that pursue a policy of persecution and repression against the peoples whose lands were included in their composition. The Habsburg Monarchy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, socialist Yugoslavia, and modern Russia were most often called "prisons of the peoples". At the same time, the state itself is associated with a prison, and the nations that inhabit it are associated with prisoners or captives.

In 1783, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II decided to create a special prison for the enemies of the Habsburg Monarchy. For this purpose, the casemates of the Spielberg fortress in present-day Brno, the administrative center of Moravia, were «converted». In the political prison created in this way, especially strict conditions of detention were introduced, so it was often called a prison cell (Italian: carcere duro). After a «break» caused by the Napoleonic wars, the prison was reopened in 1820.^[1]

Among the prisoners held in Spielberg were many representatives of the revolutionary and national liberation movements of peoples who were under the power of the Habsburgs — Hungarian Jacobins, Italian Carbonari, Polish rebels, etc. So, over time, it acquired the nickname Völkerkerker — «prison of the peoples». The Italian writer and playwright Silvio Pellico, who was held in Spielberg from 1822 to 1830 under the sentence of the Carbonari case, informed the European public about the terrible conditions of the prisoners in this prison. In 1832, Pellico published his memoirs under the title «My Prisons», which made a huge impression on readers across the continent.^[2][3] The head of the Austrian government Klemens von Metternich was forced to admit that the appearance of Pellico's book was «more difficult than a military defeat» for the empire.^[4]

It was thanks to Pellico, not without the efforts of Giuseppe Mazzini, whose authority in revolutionary, liberal and democratic circles was undeniable, that the nickname Völkerkerker (both in the German original and in the Italian translation as «prigioni dei popoli») was fixed for the entire Habsburg monarchy. Friedrich Engels, in particular, used this definition in his articles during the revolutions of 1848—1849, and German and actually Austrian social democrats followed his example.

The French writer and traveler Astolph de Custine was the first to compare the Russian Empire with a large prison in the book La Russie en 1839. He, in particular, noted: «No matter how huge this empire is, it is nothing more than a prison, the key to which is kept by the emperor». Custine called him the «prisoner of one third of the globe», alluding to both the aggressive foreign policy of Russian tsarism and the oppression of the peoples already conquered by him.

In 1914, Vladimir Lenin combined the Austrian nickname and Custine's definition of the Russian Empire in the form of a prison of nations. Actually, the policy of the Contents hide tsarism was at that time much more repressive and aggressive than the actions of the Habsburg monarchy (which in 1915 began to use the definition of «prison of nations» in its own propaganda against Russia). The formula quickly gained popularity, and when the Bolsheviks came to power, it became part of the official ideology of the Soviet government (in relation to its ousted predecessors).

With the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, the Völkerkerker's definition of the defunct monarchy was also used by the authorities of most of the states that arose in its place, including the authorities of the Austrian Republic. Instead, many modern researchers claim that this term in relation to the Habsburg monarchy was largely propaganda, and the situation of «non-titled» peoples and national minorities in most of the states of Central Europe in the interwar period was much worse than under the Habsburgs. The situation in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia since 1929) was the most egregious, which was also nicknamed the «prison of the peoples» — in particular by the local communists (who referred to Lenin).

The national policy of the Soviet regime in many respects reproduced, and even intensified, the national oppression of the times of the Russian Empire, up to acts of direct genocide of conquered peoples. Therefore, during Stalin's time, Lenin's definition was "softened" to the formula "Tsarism is a prison of peoples." Instead, the slogan "USSR is the prison of the peoples" was adopted by national liberation movements, not only on the territory of the Soviet Union itself, but also in the Soviet "zone of influence" created after the Second World War in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as in communist Yugoslavia.

It is also associated with Soviet historian Mikhail Pokrovsky's criticism of "Russia—prison of the peoples" and "Russia—international gendarmerie".^[5][6]

In "Russia as the Prison of Nations" (1930), Pokrovsky wrote that direct coercion was applied most often by the Russian Empire in areas of expansion in the Far East, Caucasus, Central Asia, and Manchuria, as well as in western parts of the empire such as Poland, and "a great many Poles ended their lives in Siberia". Pokrovsky mentioned that Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Georgian schools did not exist and that in Polish schools the speaking of Polish language was penalized by depriving meals. Pokrovsky highlighted the history of the Jews as the most outcast in tsarist rule, due to the Pale of Settlement restricting where to live. Pokrovsky cited Lenin's idea that "the dictatorship of the serf-holding landowners was not only a reflection of our country's economic backwardness, it was also one of the causes of this backwardness. As it rested on outmoded forms of economy, it did not let the economy move forward at the same time. As long as it was not overthrown, [the Russian Empire] had to remain a backward agrarian country."^[6]

Soviet historians traditionally criticized tsarist policies, which included some usage of the phrase "prison of the peoples" after Lenin. On the other hand, historians have debated how much Stalin was willing to acknowledge the existence of Lenin's and Pokrovsky's "prison of the peoples" idea. The "Observations" were a set of messages sent in August 1934 to Soviet editors providing an official interpretation of history of the USSR, which became public with their publication to state organ Pravda in January 1936. The contents of these "Observations" have sometimes been seen by historians as a Stalinist willingness to acknowledge Lenin's observation. However, historian David Brandenberger disagreed based on the context and time of the original private publications earlier in 1934. In July 1934, Stalin sent a letter to the Soviet Politburo, arguing that Tsarist Russia should not be specifically criticized, because all European countries had been reactionary in the nineteenth century, rather than the Russian Empire alone. In light of Stalin's narrowing of the historiography, Brandenberger argued the important takeaway from "Observations" is not that they included the phrase "tsarism—prison of the peoples", but rather that they replaced the word "Russia" in an earlier turn of phrase with "tsarism" to narrow the target of critique to a form of government. While Stalin used some remaining rubric of internationalism, this shift served a more "pragmatic" interpretation of history, from the Soviet Kremlin's perspective, that began to reuse more elements of nationalism.^{[5]: 359–360}

In January 1936, another history textbook commission was launched, this chaired by Andrei Zhdanov and including a number of top Communist Party functionaries, including Nikolai Bukharin, Karl Radek, Yakov Yakovlev, and Karl Bauman, among others.^[7] In conjunction with the work of this commission, Bukharin authored a lengthy critique of Pokrovsky and his methodology, accusing the deceased historian of mechanistic adherence to abstract sociological formulas, failure to properly understand and apply the dialectic method, and a tendency to depict history as a crudely universal process.^[8] The Zhdanov Commission, in consultation with Stalin, issued an influential communique which categorized historians of the Pokrovsky school as conduits of harmful ideas that were at root "anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, essentially liquidatorist, and anti-scientific."^[9]

Pokrovsky's criticism of the old regime as a "prison of peoples" and "international gendarme" was henceforth deemed to be anti-patriotic "national nihilism" and a new Russian nationalist historical orthodoxy was established.^[10] This new official orthodoxy remained in place for the duration of Stalin's life and to some extent until the USSR's collapse.^[10]

Some historians evaluating the Soviet Union as a colonial empire, applied the "prison of nations" idea to the USSR. Thomas Winderl wrote "The USSR became in a certain sense more a prison-house of nations than the old Empire had ever been."^[11]

• Antisemitism in the Soviet Union
• Forced settlements in the Soviet Union
• Korenizatsiya
• Gulag
• Katorga
• Penal transportation
• National delimitation in the Soviet Union
• Bourgeois nationalism
• Soviet patriotism
• Great Russian chauvinism
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union

• David Brandenberger, "Politics Projected into the Past: What Precipitated the Anti-Pokrovskii Campaign?" in Ian D. Thatcher (ed.), Reinterpreting Revolutionary Russia: Essays in Honour of James D. White. Houndmills, England: Palgrave, 2006; pp. 202–214.
• Russia as the Prison of Nations M. N. Pokrovskii, Russia as the Prison of Nations. 1930 Original Source: 1905 god (Moscow: OGIZ Moskovskii rabochii, 1930). Reprinted in M. N. Pokrovskii, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow 1965-67), IV:129-35.

• Beer, Daniel (2017). The house of the dead : Siberian exile under the tsars. New York. ISBN 978-0-307-95890-7. OCLC 947953988.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)