Dostoevsky's Prison House of Nation(s): Genre Violence in Notes from the House of the Dead

Fedor Dostoevsky's autobiographical prison novel Notes from the House of the Dead (1860–62) has been widely discussed—and presented by Dostoevsky himself—as an account of the author's life‐changing encounter with the Russian narod . But, like its Omsk prototype, Dostoevsky's literary prison is home not only to Russian prisoners; it is also a prison house of nations. This article attributes significance to the very heterogeneity of the prison and reads House through an imperial optic that sheds light on the text's generic indeterminacies. The prison condenses Russian space and motivates familiar literary modes for representing the peoples of Russia, but allows none of them to develop their full potential. Ultimately, the literary modes of House express a tension between unity and multiplicity and express a conflict between two ideological projects: patriotic celebration of the diversity and expanse of empire, and desire for Russian national unity.