person
Ivan Yakovlevich Koreisha
Koreisha
also: Корейша, Ivan Koreisha
A Moscow holy-fool and popular mystic-seer (c. 1780-1861) confined for decades in the Preobrazhenskoye insane asylum, where fashionable visitors sought his oracular, often nonsensical pronouncements; invoked here by Chekhov as a byword for erratic, oracular thinking, in mock-permission to Shcheglov to "think even after the fashion of Koreisha."
Reading notes
- To I. L. Leontyev, 3 May 1888. Moscow. §5 think after the fashion of Koreisha even
Ivan Yakovlevich Koreisha, a Moscow holy-fool and mystic-seer confined for decades in an insane asylum, whose oracular, often incoherent pronouncements were fashionably sought after; invoked here as a byword for erratic or nonsensical thinking, in Chekhov's mock-sweeping promise of total intellectual freedom to Shcheglov.