Penitentiary institutions of town of Morshansk at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries

Abstract

Introduction. The relevance of this article is due to the study of the penitentiary system of Russia at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries using the example of the county town of Morshansk, Tambov province. The chronological framework covers the period of Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, as well as the period of the Civil War until its end. Based on the materials presented in the work, a comparative analysis is given, the result of the effectiveness of the state policy in the penitentiary sector using the example of a county town. By the end of the 19th century, imprisonment became the main type of punishment for criminals as a result of the modernization processes of the second half of the 19th century. The problems that persisted throughout the long period of formation of the prison system, namely the lack of funds for the improvement of prison institutions, constant overcrowding due to the increase in the number of crimes, were most clearly reflected in the district towns, therefore it would be fair to study the effectiveness of the policy of Tsarist Russia in this area using the example of district towns. After the revolutionary events of 1917, the penitentiary system experienced new changes in connection with the policies of the new government. The new places of detention that emerged on the ruins of old ones presented new problems in the penitentiary sphere during the Civil War. Specifying the Tambov province of this period, it is worth mentioning the peasant uprising of 1920-1921, during the suppression of which the concentration camp system was used. The new places of detention that have appeared in Morshansk are of substantive interest in the framework of the study of penitentiary policy in early Soviet Russia. Materials and methods. This study was based on archival documents of the State Archive of the Tambov Region, the State Archive of Socio-Political History of the Tambov Region, published documents on the Morshansky Zemstvo and materials reviews of the Tambov province. Thanks to the historical-systemic approach, the penitentiary systems of the ―two Russias‖ were analyzed. The statistical method showed the number of prisoners in Morshansk prisons for the specified period. Results. Based on the analysis of archival sources, a comparative analysis of the penitentiary models of Tsarist Russia and Russia of the period 1917-1922 was carried out using the example of the district town of Morshansk. The situation of the Morshansk prisons before 1917 confirmed the general conclusions about the penitentiary policy of Russia in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries with the problems of financing, conditions of serving sentences, and labor organization. The established concentration camp system during the Civil War in the Tambov province acted as a punitive measure during the suppression of the Tambov uprising, rather than as an evolutionary stage in the establishment of the penitentiary system of early Soviet Russia. Conclusion. The practical significance of the study is expressed in the local history study of the penitentiary systems of the "two Russias" on the example of the county town of Morshansk with the aim of further compiling a generalized work on the penitentiary sphere of Russia.