Didn’t she also keep her brother incarcerated until his death? I’m not quite sure. I thought he was a prisoner at the age of six.
The only one of Cecil’s columns I know of that is about C the G is Is it true about Catherine the Great and the horse? I fail to see how her brother enters into it, unless you mean to ask “Is it true about Catherine the Great’s brother and the horse?” After years in prison, even that might start to look better than nothing. 
I believe his name was prisoner 1. He died by knife.
I can see how that might have affected his later life.
“Your Highness! It’s a boy!”
“That’s wonderful! Now, what should I name him? Alexander? Yuri? Vladimir? No, my son will be Prisoner 1!”
Make up your own dialogue for the rest of his life…
“Prisoner 1, you eat all of your asparagus right now or it’s bread and water for the rest of the week!”
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Cecil’s column can be found on-line at the link kindly provided by bibliophage.
The column (including Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 109-110 of Cecil Adams’ book «The Straight Dope».
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No, I don’t believe so. She did keep the Tsar Ivan VI prisoner until he was killed by his guards-Ivan was only an infant when he was on the throne and his mother was Regent.
A year later, Ivan’s mother was overthrown by Peter the Great’s daughter Elizaveta.
Ivan’s claim was obscure at best.
I think Guinastasia basically got it right.Catherine the Great did not imprison her brother. She imprisoned(or continued the imprisonment of) Ivan III(or VI, depending of how you look at it). Ivan III was the ruler of Russia from late 1740 until deposed at the ripe old age of 14 months by Elizabeth in 1741. Catherine comes in in 1762, and Ivan was killed in 1764, in jail. Definitely not her brother.
That’s what I get from collecting Russian coins these last 35 years.
I see from the column that it was the original Polish joke. You can imagine how that concept mutated over the years, to the Polish joke of today. Folks are just jealous of our sense of humor.