Grigori Rasputin - An Infamous Murder - Extra History - Part 4

siberia august 1914 rasputin lies in his hospital bed recovering from the assassination attempt while trying to stop a catastrophe the archduke franz ferdinand has been murdered tensions are rising and government ministers are arguing over whether or not to mobilize day after day rasputin telegrams emperor nicholas in saint petersburg sending 20 messages in all trying to influence him begging him not to take the action he's so fierce do not go to war over the balkans he says it will only bring disaster that it will be the ruin of russia and bring danger to the imperial family no good can come from it he appeals to alexandra who behind closed doors has hour-long arguments with her husband over the question of war yet as he lies in his hospital bed rasputin gets the news the first world war has begun he won't live to see its end [Music] thanks so much to skillshare for helping to keep the history flowing when police questioned rasputin's would-be assassin they quickly began to suspect that she'd been put up to the act by eliador a suspicion that only hardened once an informer told them that eliador had paid the woman and tried to acquire explosives for a series of terrorist attacks they came for iliador at his home but he fled via a tunnel dressed as a woman a month later he was in norway writing a book about rasputin called the holy devil meanwhile rasputin began to spiral already hounded by press and police attention there was now the added stress of both acting as a spiritual advisor to a royal couple at war and the fear of assassinations he started to become more the man his enemies made him out to be now rasputin had always had mistresses and it appears he did sleep with followers and sex workers but as the war continued this got more brazen the secret police logged him visiting sex workers sometimes twice a day and he openly propositioned society women also while he as a pilgrim gave up alcohol rasputin resumed its use upon coming to court throwing massive parties and starting to appear drunk in public at one point he became so intoxicated on a train that people could look into the window of his private compartment as he vomited passed out and wet himself and while the most infamous stories about his behavior during this period are fabrications the real stuff was bad enough he also gained unprecedented political influence since nicholas was frequently off visiting the front leaving alexandra with few close companions she trusted for guidance in fact rasputin was in the imperial couple's lives non-stop he wrote nicholas with advice telling him to throw his weight around as monarch and even proposing policy he suggested for example to delay the second military draft until after the harvest to minimize the impact on peasants but nicholas disregarded rasputin's advice frequently for instance when he chose to take personal command over the army a move that went against rasputin's advice to stay close to home but to be fair everyone knew that was a bad idea nicholas was already seen as weak and incompetent and this would tie his reputation to a conflict that was in every way not looking good for russia rasputin was far more successful exerting power through alexandra a power that mostly consisted of getting allies appointed to government offices and his enemies removed from them sometimes for good reason like mistreatment of religious minorities but at other times simply because someone's presence in power made rasputin feel unsafe and when opponents did cross him he increasingly threatened to take it up with the tsar but the thing was rasputin wasn't being paranoid they really were out to get him more press campaigns hit him in 1915 but this time with a new and dangerous element the claims that he was a german spy pushing nicholas toward peace with the central powers a particularly toxic accusation given how he was now so associated with alexandra whose already low popularity had dropped even further due to her german heritage one duma member vladimir putiskevich went so far as to give a speech calling the royal couple marionettes of the evil genius rasputin and saying that alexandra had remained a german on the russian throne alien to the country and its people the speech was purposely incendiary a year before demonstrators had called to have alexandra banish to a convent and mobs had killed ethnic germans in moscow budozkevich was playing with fire but a fire that drew others because after this speech puruskevich found himself approached by prince felix yusupov one of the richest men in russia who invited poroskevich into a plot to kill rasputin along with himself an army officer from an elite guards unit and grand duke dimitri pavlovich the tsar's cousin december 29th 1916 yusupov palace a cold night in saint petersburg a good night for a housewarming and that's what rasputin has been told this is a celebration of the palace's renovations nearing completion prince yusupov a man who has come to him for healing getting close to him for years ushers him into a basement room with a gramophone playing yankee doodle over and over before dawn rasputin will be shot three times that's the only thing we know for sure because the only accounts of that night come from people who have every reason to lie to shift and spread blame to make rasputin out to be a monster whose killing was justified by his demonic refusal to let death take him prince yusupov's account the most famous claims that he served rasputin cyanide laced cakes and tea yusuf says that he sat there in awe as rasputin gobbled them down with no ill effects next he says he plied him with poisoned wine which again did nothing a man prone to believing in the supernatural yusupov began to panic he says he went upstairs got a revolver from other conspirators and then returned telling rasputin to look at the crucifix before shooting him once through the chest stashing the body in the basement the group dressed in army officer in rasputin's coat and drove the man to rasmutin's apartment so witnesses would see him going home then they went to move the body but when yusupov lifted the corpse it came alive rasputin wounded clawed at his would-be killer then scrambled to his feet and fled into the snow of the courtyard the assassins following and that is where grand duke dimitri put him down with two shots one point blank through the forehead then with it perilously close to dawn they dropped him off a bridge into a river through a hole in the ice now it should be noted that historians don't generally believe yusupov's account it doesn't match up to the memories of other conspirators and yusupov himself had a lifelong fascination with theatricality melodrama and play acting and there are plenty of other theories but one thing most everyone can agree on these guys were in no way professional killers they'd never murdered anyone before and because the postmortem examination found no trace of poison it's been suggested that yusupov's supplier hadn't even given him real cyanide instead the whole thing from start to finish seems like a drunken botched job by aristocratic flunkies alexandra insisted the plotters be shot but nicholas quietly transferred them to the front or confined them to their estates instead and when word spread that the police had pulled rasputin's body out from under the ice people came to the river where they found him and scooped buckets of water as if it were sanctified it was an expression of the old russia one that did not have long to live for two months later when winter food prices led to looting and police opened fire riots broke out the february revolution had begun and by march nicholas had abdicated and was living under house arrest with the provisional government in charge in october the bolshevik seized control of course this would have likely happened without rasputin after all with 1.7 million russians dead in the war hunger throughout the country and an aristocracy refusing to modernize there were more than enough historical forces to drive change but there's no doubt that rasputin played a role providing a concrete figure the opposition could rally against and once he was removed the criticisms he'd absorbed for years instead fell personally on nicholas in looking back it's hard not to think of rasputin as a figure of our modern age one who whatever the truth had his public image defined through partisan press conspiracy theories and the distortion of fame one whose memory could be defined by men like eliador and yusupov who had both literally tried to kill him and then wrote books about him casting him as a wicked advisor or fairy tale sorcerer who brought down a monarch ultimately rasputin serves as a warning against being seduced by a good story one that's too cut and dry to be true because history isn't like that it's messy full of contradictions often told by people who are unreliable deeply biased or that don't know the whole story and if those stories work hard enough they can change a man in the eyes of history into one who never really existed which just goes to show you how powerful people's creativity can be and on that note i think it's time i checked out more courses from our friends over at skillshare for the uninitiated skillshare is an online learning community featuring thousands of inspiring classes for creators letting you explore new skills and deepen existing passions plus since skillshare is curated specifically for learning that means there are no ads like this one and they're constantly launching new premium courses so you can focus on wherever your creativity takes you lately i've been trying to figure out exactly how really awesome logos tick and found the class by erin draplin logo design secrets of shape type and color not only was it useful as heck but it helped me get some ideas out of my head and into production another great course i clicked with was creative writing for all a 10-day journaling challenge by emily gould which taught me to notice new details i could use in my writing and really helped me get some ideas out of my head and into production and since i'm always trying to utilize my time more efficiently i turned my old nebula pal thomas frank and his productivity master class create a custom system that works which not only helped me get hours of my work week back but also really helped me get some ideas out of my head and into production more efficiently are you sensing a theme here a new show oh sorry uh something in my throat so whether you're a dabbler or a pro a hobbyist or a master you can discover what you can make with classes for every skill level all for just 13.99 a month when you sign up for an annual plan though if you want to get really creative with a sweet deal the first thousand of you good beans that click the link in the description below we'll receive one entire month of skillshare absolutely free so you can learn something today you didn't know yesterday all while supporting us at ec at the same time creativity for the win [Music] that's right zoe ahmed zion turk alicia bramble casey muestia dominic valenciana joseph blame kyle murgatroyd and o reals one are fantastic legendary patrons [Music] you

Channel: Extra History

Views: 474,069

Keywords: extra credits, extra history, history lesson, learn history, study history, world history, Gregori Rasputin, extra credits Gregori Rasputin, history of the world, history channel, Gregori Rasputin part 4, home learning, documentry, russia, russian history documentary, siberia, tsarist regime, starets, prince yusupov, history of russia, nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, czar of russia, russia ukraine, russia ukraine news, russian revolution, ww1, world war 1, explained

Id: l8iTHsS-Iu0

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021