Korinfsky was born in Simbirsk to a local judge, his extraordinary name tracing back no further than his eccentric grandfather on father's side, a self-educated Mordovian peasant.

[1] Having debuted as a published author in 1886 (under the pseudonym Boris Kolyupanov) with several poems and stories, Korinfsky in 1889 moved to Moscow (where he wrote for Rossiya and Russkoye Bogatstvo), then further to Saint Peterburg in 1891.

In 1895—1904 he worked as an assistant editor for Pravitelstvenny Vestnik (Government's Herald) under Konstantin Sluchevsky, his friend, writing mostly essays on history and ethnography which in 1901 were collected in the compilation Narodnaya Rus (Folklore of Russia).

Among the authors whose work he translated were Heinrich Heine, Samuel Coleridge, Adam Mickiewicz and Taras Shevchenko, as well as Yanka Kupala, with whom he was on friendly terms.

Later the evidence was published that the future Soviet leader often visited the Korinfskys' home and made full use of their library, although the poet himself realized the Bolshevik chief and his former school friend were one and the same person, only in 1917, when Lenin came to power.