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In Russian and French Prisons

Kropotkin, Peter
Publisher:  Black Rose Books, New York, USA
Year Published:  1991   First Published:  1906
Pages:  387pp   ISBN:  0-921689-99-3
Library of Congress Number:  HV9712.K2   Dewey:  365'.947'09034
Resource Type:  Book

Kropotkin's criticism of the penal system, and an inside look into the horrors and realities of what life in prison entails.

Abstract:  In Russian and French Prisons is Kropotkin's criticism of the penal system, and is an inside look into the horrors and realities of what life in prison entails. Kropotkin makes extensive use of the memoirs of former prisoners and the works of contemporary penologists as well as his own personal experience (he spent two years in prison in Russia and three years in France). Although the greater part of the book is focused on Russian prisons, one chapter is devoted to a description of what the author saw in the Lyons provincial prison and the central prison at Clairvaux, in France. The last two chapters of the book contain an analysis "of the profoundly harmful influence which prisons everywhere exert on social morality"

Kropotkin was born a prince of the old nobility of Moscow, was trained as a page in the Emperor's court, and at twenty became an officer in the army. The discovery that he was engaged in revolutionary activities led him to be arrested and held in prison for two years without a trial. He escaped in disguise and lived in exile for the next forty-two years, doing scientific research and writing for periodicals in many countries. He returned to Russia in 1917 and was an early opponents of Lenin's government.

[Abstract by Nabeeha Chaudhary]



Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION TO THE 1991 EDITION
BY GEORGE WOODCOCK

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION(1906)

INTRODUCTORY
I. -MY FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH RUSSIAN PRISONS
II. -RUSSIAN PRISONS
III. -THE FORTRESS OF ST. PETER AND ST.PAUL
IV. -OUTCAST RUSSIA
V. -THE EXILE IN SIBERIA
VI. -THE EXILE ON SAKHALIN
VII. -A FOREIGNER IN RUSSIAN PRISONS
VIII.-IN FRENCH PRISONS
IX. -ON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF PRISONS
X. - ARE PRISONS NECESSARY?

APPENDIX A.-Trial of the Soldiers accused of having carried Letters from Alexis Ravelin

APPENDIX B.-On the part played by the Exiles in the Colonization of Siberia

APPENDIX C.- Extract from a Report on "Administrative Exile," read by M. Shakeeff at the Sitting of the St.Petersburg Nobility on February, 1881

APPENDIX D.- On Reformatories for Boys in France

INDEX

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