Ivan Koreysha - holy fool prophet

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Prophecies and predictions have always interested people. We know names such as Merlin, Nostradamus, Irinarkh, Abel, Jacob Bruce, Elena Blavtskaya, Edgar Cayce, Erasmus Darwin, Wanga, Messing and others. Unfortunately, many names are erased from human memory and disappear into oblivion.

Now, very few people remember about Ivan Yakovlevich Koreish. But in the middle of the 19th century, the name of this holy fool prophet literally thundered in the central provinces of Russia. His fame was so great and serious that Ivan Yakovlevich got into all the dictionaries and encyclopedias that came out before the October Revolution. And not only in dictionaries: Dostoevsky introduced the blessed one into the novel The Demons, Leskov made the hero of the story. Koreisha was brought out in their works by Ostrovsky, Bunin, and Lev Toosta. Well, the life of Ivan Koreysha really was worthy of surprise.

Ivan Yakovlevich was born on September 8, 1783 in the Smolensk region, in the family of a priest. He graduated from the theological seminary, but did not want to accept the priesthood, he went to teach at the theological school. In 1813, a young man was guilty of something (which - history has not brought to us), he was in trouble. Frightened, Koreisha went into the woods. Maybe through this and the mind was damaged, who knows?..

Four years later, peasants found the holy fool in the forest, took him to an old bathhouse on the outskirts of Smolensk, where he settled. It was then that rumors spread about his gift of providence, and soon his incredible abilities became known throughout the area. And he, not wanting any glory at all and trying to isolate himself from people, pretended to be completely mad. Therefore, he was nicknamed the cunning holy fool. It is curious that on the door of his bathhouse, Ivan Koreysha posted a notice: they say, he accepts only those who crawl into his lap. This cooled some who wanted to: who wants to tear and stain their clothes?

This was done, obviously, with intent: whoever just came, out of curiosity, it will definitely be uncomfortable to crawl on his knees, but whoever has a serious problem will crawl not only on his knees - on his belly. Once a noble nobleman was passing through Smolensk. He liked the local beauty - the daughter of a merchant's widow. The girl did not agree to become a kept woman in any way, and then the nobleman spoke about marriage. The widow, of course, was flattered by his proposal, however, and took fear: how can the nobleman deceive the only child? And so she and her daughter decided to go to Ivan Yakovlevich for advice. He showed that the groom has been married for a long time, has three children, which was later confirmed.

The girl refused the nobleman, took her hair as a nun and all her life, until the very death of the blessed one, corresponded with him. (These letters, by the way, were preserved in the local history museum, and it clearly follows from them that they were written by a completely normal person.) The unlucky gentleman, having learned the reason for the refusal, beat the predictor properly, and even filed a complaint with the governor: Koreysha allegedly upsets families and in general, having lost their minds, people spoil …

The complaint, I must say, was accepted: the rank of the "groom" was too high. It was decided to take Ivan Yakovlevich to Moscow, to the Mad House - that was the name of the asylums for the mad. They handed over the unfortunate Koreishu as a violent character and immediately threw him into a damp basement, chained to the wall. Instead of a bed, they threw a bunch of hay, kept it on bread and water - that was the order of the authorities. When Ivan Yakovlevich was still being taken to Moscow, Moscow was already buzzing: the fame of the cunning holy fool ran ahead of him. The people of Moscow had long heard of the soothsayer, and as soon as Koreish was brought in, they piled up to him.

Sometimes a hundred people came a day. The bosses were not at a loss - they took 20 kopecks for entry, while the money went to the needs of the Mad House. In 1821 a young doctor came to the cunning holy fool. Seeing the conditions in which Koreysha lived, the doctor was horrified. The soothsayer was unleashed, placed in a separate room - spacious and bright. But Ivan Yakovlevich began to live here in his usual conditions: he huddled in a cramped corner by the stove. Apparently, such a refuge was more convenient for him. He left the rest of the room for incoming "clients."

Koreishi's scope of application of unusual abilities was extremely wide: he healed a variety of diseases, predicted the future, including such prosaic, but very important things as frosts, droughts, death of livestock, helped arrange marriages … He did not take money, then they began carry food - rolls, sugar, fish, meat, fruits, but he used almost nothing and distributed everything to those around him.

According to the surviving memoirs, Ivan Yakovlevich loved to crush with a large cobblestone everything that came to hand: stones, bottles, bones, literally washing them into powder. The "material" was delivered to him by a permanently retired soldier who was with him, whom Koreysha called Mironka. Visitors, whom Ivan Yakovlevich invited to work, also took part in the crushing process. Usually for "work" he chose rich sissies.

Why he did it is unknown. Either there was some mysterious meaning in this process, or simply put some people in their place, confirming his old nickname: the cunning holy fool. It is curious that Koreisha invited the same rich sissies to share a meal with him. And since the prophet ate untidy, with his hands, dumping everything into one bowl, the rich, under any pretext, tried to refuse …

Sometimes Koreysha ordered some of the wealthy to personally help a poor widow or beggar in his presence. From time to time, Ivan Yakovlevich arranged incredible shows, as befits a holy fool. He swore obscenely, sometimes he could hit. He did not like the idle companies of young and not so idlers who came to gaze at him. Such a case is described by Dostoevsky in The Possessed. Koreysha was bred by Dostoevsky under the name of the blessed Semyon Yakovlevich, whom rich gentlemen came to inquire about. Ivan Yakovlevich answered the questions of the suffering with notes.

At first superficial glance, these were solid scribbles, but Greek and Latin words were encountered in the writing. How did he know them? Mystery. When the blessed one became old and weak, Pavel Aladin, a young educated nobleman who believed in a seer, answered questions under his dictation. Ethnographer Ivan Gavrilovich Pryzhov, skeptical of Koreish, said that in these notes one can see everything and at the same time see nothing, since they are mysterious due to the absence of any meaning in them. However, one can argue with the famous historian: some of Ivan Yakovlevich's written answers have survived to this day and it must be said that they are not at all meaningless.

The whole point, apparently, is that Ivan Pryzhov saw Koreysha towards the end of his life, when the prophet was already under eighty. Pryzhov described how the chamber itself with many icons struck him. There is a whole crowd of sufferers. The holy fool was lying on the floor, half covered with blankets: he could walk, but for several years he had preferred to lie and eat in bed. His head is bald, his face is unpleasant … Among the patients of the Preobrazhenskaya hospital, when the soothsayer was there, there was also a priest, Father Samson. Batiushka was quiet and silent, but Ivan Yakovlevich was the only one to throw off the mask of the blessed one and talked in a friendly way as with a friend in spirit. Many contemporaries left their memories of the fact that Ivan Koreysha very successfully relieved of various ailments.

The notes of a certain Kireev have survived, in whose fate Ivan Yakovlevich took part. Kireev's father, after the death of his beloved wife, fell into a binge and drank almost his entire fortune. He was advised to turn to the elder, but he kept brushing it off: "To go to a madman, you must be an idiot yourself." But all the same it worried him too. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the room, the blessed one suddenly called him by name. Kireev was stunned: how does he know ?! The blessed one cured him (though before that he had made him pound stones for two hours). However, he prophesied death by fire.

And since that time Kireev never slept serenely, got up several times in the night, looked around the yard, all the corners of the house. But the prediction came true in a different way. Did he drink anything, did he eat any kind of poison, but the fever in his stomach was so great that Kireev kept shouting all the time: "Fathers, I am burning, help!" It must be said that many of Koreishi's predictions were fulfilled. Exactly one year before the Sevastopol war, in anticipation of a sea of blood, Ivan Yakovlevich forced everyone who came to him to bring rags with them and pinch the lint (with its help, the wounded were stopped bleeding).

And on February 18, 1855, they say, he was sad all day, tears stood in his eyes. Finally he said: "We, children, have no more tsar …" - and soon they learned that Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich had passed away … Prince Alexei Dolgorukov, known for his works on the theme of mysticism, considered Koreysha a soothsayer. And he cited the following incident in his notes: "I loved a woman who somehow went to Ivan Yakovlevich for a prediction. Returning from there, she told me that she kissed his hands and drank dirty water, which he interfered with with his fingers. I became very angry and I announced to her that if he did so again, I would not touch her.

But after three weeks she went to him again. And when he began to let the ladies take turns kissing his hand and drinking the aforementioned water, when he reached it, he jumped away, shouting three times: "Alexey did not order!" Ivan Yakovlevich Koreysha spent forty-seven years in an insane asylum, of which forty-four years in the Preobrazhenskaya hospital. His end was already near, he himself predicted his own death. On the night of September 6, 1861, he lay down with his feet to the images, as befits a deceased, and died.

For five days people walked to the coffin with his body. During these days, more than two hundred funeral services were served. The fanaticism of some believers went to extremes: the robe in which he died was torn to pieces - they believed that the clothes of the deceased soothsayer could help them in their troubles. Some women incessantly covered the deceased with cotton wool and took it back with a sense of reverence.

This cotton wool was even sold. When Ivan Koreishu was buried, money was poured into the coffin. The flowers with which he was removed were snapped up in an instant. Some in ecstasy gnawed chips from the coffin … When they came with the coffin to the cemetery, it almost came to a fight. Some wanted to take the body to Smolensk, others to the Intercession Monastery for men. But the niece, whose husband was a deacon in the church in Cherkizovo, prevailed. The funeral of Ivan Koreysha was very solemn. Despite the fact that it rained without stopping, the people had accumulated hundreds of thousands.

But no one was hurt in the crush - which is surprising. When the coffin was carried to the cemetery, the young ladies in crinolines fell prostrate, lay down on the road in the mud - so that the body of the holy fool could be carried over them … The newspaper "Northern Bee" burst into two huge materials on Ivan Yakovlevich's death. The reporter wrote with surprise that neither the genius Nikolai Gogol nor the glorious warrior Alexei Ermolov received such honors at the funeral.

It is interesting that Ivan Koreish is still remembered in Cherkizovo. And everyone who comes is advised: go to the old church, where the grave of the great soothsayer has survived to this day. If there is any trouble or problem - ask, and Koreysha will help. And in fact, a variety of people, mostly women, still come to the grave, consult with Ivan Yakovlevich, ask for something … They say it helps.