person
Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov
Ashinov
also: Ашинов
Russian adventurer and self-styled Cossack ataman whose unauthorized 1889 colonial expedition to found "New Moscow" at Sagallo in the Horn of Africa (near what Chekhov calls "Abyssinia") was broken up by French naval bombardment, becoming a diplomatic embarrassment covered heavily -- and, per Chekhov, mockingly favorable -- in Suvorin's Novoye Vremya.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 14 February 1889. Moscow. §5 the Ashinov scandal
Nikolai Ashinov's unauthorized 1889 expedition to found a Russian colony ("New Moscow") at Sagallo in the Horn of Africa was broken up by French forces that February, a diplomatic embarrassment that Suvorin's Novoye Vremya covered in a way Chekhov finds tellingly partisan -- mocking the rival explorer Miklouho-Maclay while praising Ashinov.
- To A. M. Yevreinova, 10 March 1889. Moscow. §9 Ashinov
Nikolai Ivanovich Ashinov, already established as the adventurer whose failed "New Moscow" colonial expedition to the Horn of Africa was a recent press scandal; invoked here purely as a comic "doorman" name-drop trading on his notoriety, with no real connection to publishing.