oops! my secret is out!

[Russell Valentino]

There are plenty of holy fools. Outside that, I suppose Paul I may have been 
deranged (but wasn't much liked), while Nikolai Fyodorov had ideas that suggest 
at the very least a quite lively imagination. Michael Holquist has a fine 
interpretation of Gogol's Diary of a Madman that suggests it may represent 
Peter. Another kind of madness. There doesn't seem to be much of a tradition of 
the "madwoman in the attic" in Russia. Ivan IV was often angry and probably 
sometimes mad, too. I'd be curious to know who did coin the phrase in question.

Quoting Stephanie Sures <sdsures at HOTMAIL.COM>:

> Who was it that coined the idea that "Russians love a madman" (assuming that
> sentiment is true. Madmen that come to mind are Ivan, the infant tsar
> deposed by Elizabeth. As mad as Grigory Rasputin was, we all know his name.
> 
> Other madmen/madwomen in Russian history?

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