person
Alexander the Great
also: Alexandra the Great
King of Macedon (356-323 BC) and conqueror of much of the ancient world; invoked (with a comic gender-garbled 'Alexandra') as a hyperbolic compliment to a woman's commanding presence.
Reading notes
- The Boredom of Life §75 Alexander of Macedon
A quotation of Gogol's Inspector General (Act I), where the schoolmaster Khlestakov's colleague is described as smashing chairs while lecturing on Alexander the Great -- "Alexander of Macedon was a great man, but why break the chairs?" had become proverbial Russian shorthand for excess in an otherwise sound cause; Arkady Petrovich borrows the tag to argue that plain speech to the peasants is legitimate even if blunt.