Larger than life. Legendary. Debaucherous. Mesmerizing. Master of the occult. An illiterate pig. A monk. A healer. A scoundrel. I think I could go on for a few minutes in
that vein and only scratch the surface of the descriptions that abound about the most
famous figure of late imperial Russia, Rasputin. I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War
Bio special about Rasputin. Grigory Rasputin’s life is difficult to
document, as his tale has been warped by popular culture, rumors, and the destruction of documentation
regarding his life by the Bolsheviks. Still, a significant amount of truth can be
established by what remains, and that’s what I’ll try to do today. He was born in the small village of Pokrovskoe
January 21st, 1869. His father was a well-off peasant, but Grigory
was never educated, as there was no school in the region and the majority of the village
was illiterate. Grigory apparently underwent some sort of
religious epiphany as a young man and possibly became associated with the Khlysty religious
sect. This was a form of Orthodox Christianity that
rejected the abstinent life of the priest and the veneration of the saint; instead they
believed one could experience the divinity of God through ecstatic rituals like orgies. Rasputin’s daughter later said that he investigated
the cult but rejected its values. It’s kind of open to debate. He did marry, at age 19, Praskovia Fyodorovna,
with whom he had four children. He eventually left his family to travel, to
places like Greece or Jerusalem, where he visited holy sites. He himself was neither a monk nor a priest,
but he had a reputation as a religious wanderer, who offered his teaching for hospitality,
returning home only to help with the harvest. In the hub city of Kazan he attracted attention
from the clergy and aristocracy, who were fascinated by his interpretations of scripture. It is debated exactly when Rasputin met the
Tsarina Alexandra. He was already professing his abilities as
a holy healer when he arrived in St. Petersburg in 1903. I understand that Montenegrin Princess Milica
introduced him to the royal couple. Tsar Nicholas first mentions him in his diary
November 1st, 1905, simply calling him a man of God. The Tsarina was very religious. She believed in the power of prayer and prayed
for a cure for her son Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia. Willing to try virtually anything to heal
the heir to the throne, she allowed Rasputin to see him, and the result was fairly miraculous
because the current bleeding spell came to an end. This was likely because Rasputin stopped the
palace doctor from giving Alexei aspirin, which acts as a blood thinner and was only
making him worse. But whatever it was, the Tsarina thought he
was truly a miracle-working healer. After this, Rasputin quickly climbed the social
ladder in the capital and began associating with many members of the royal family. He also gained a reputation for sexual depravity
and scandalous behavior to such a degree that the Prime Minister even asked the Tsar why
he would associate with such a character. Alexei suffered an accident while on vacation
in 1912 that led to more hemorrhaging and it appeared he would die. Alexandra cabled Rasputin begging for help;
his reply was, “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers, do not grieve, the
little one will not die, do not allow the doctors to bother him too much”. Yet another miracle followed as the Prince
recovered and Rasputin became Alexandra’s trusted companion. Rasputin’s magnetic personality was his
main attribute. He was incredibly persuasive and when he entered
a room, all eyes were on him. He was consequently able to calm the Tsar
and Tsarina in times of crisis. Also, because of his humble origins, the Romanovs
held the belief that the rest of the Russian peasantry was as vehemently Royalist as Rasputin. This was a mistake. Rasputin quickly became a very controversial
figure. Aristocrats were against him because he had
more access to the royal family than they, the Orthodox Church accused him of spreading
false doctrine, rumors even spread that he was the lover of the Tsarina herself, and
Rasputin was hated by both sides of the political spectrum. To the left he was a Tsarist and an enemy
of democracy, while to the right he was a pacifist and traitor to Russia. He had, at the war’s beginning, spoken out
against Russia taking any part in it, prophesizing, “If Russia goes to war it will be the end
of the monarchy, of the Romanovs, and of Russian institutions”. By the summer of 1915, his hold over the royal
couple was deep and he often advised them. Most of his influence over events in Russia,
though, came after the Tsar dismissed Grand Duke Nikolai and took personal control of
the army in September 1915. It’s suggested that this actually happened
because Rasputin persuaded the Tsarina to persuade the Tsar to dismiss Nikolai, who
hated Rasputin and saw him for what he was. With the departure of the Tsar for the front,
Rasputin’s influence over royal affairs grew dramatically. The Tsarina soon had to deal with a mass political
revolt from the council of ministers. Because of labor strikes and social unrest
in the cities, the ministers pleaded for a new ministry of competent officials that had
the support of the people. Alexandra saw this as total disrespect and
asked her husband to stand his ground. He did, and surprised the ministers by dissolving
the Duma and returning to autocratic rule. Several ministers were dismissed. Alexandra had arranged those dismissals, but
they were recommended by Rasputin, who used the chaos to have opponents and critics removed
from power. Indeed, over the following months, several
ministers were replaced by men loyal to Rasputin. With him ensconced as the power behind the
throne, good government sort of stopped happening because without his patronage you couldn’t
remain in office very long, and many of those that were loyal to him and the Tsarina were
pretty incompetent. Prime Minister Boris Stürmer was one of those. I talk about him in the regular episodes,
but he sometimes refused even to act without consulting Rasputin or Alexandra, and his
German name, the Tsar’s family ties to the Kaiser, and the fact that Alexandra was born
German stoked a wave of anti-German hatred for the royals. The constant changing of ministers had also
broken down most government organization and there were food shortages and rampant inflation. And Rasputin’s pal Protopopov, the deeply
unpopular Minister of the Interior, wished to turn all the public discontent into a revolution
for the purposes of putting it down, to get Russia out of the war. By the end of 1916, there were even several
coup plots to remove the Tsar from power. None got off the ground because of poor organization
or cold feet, but one plot did succeed; the murder of Rasputin by Prince Felix Yusupov,
though the facts surrounding his death are still disputed today. Yusupov originally claimed his motive for
the killing was patriotism for the monarchy that Rasputin was destroying, but later said
it was his distaste for Rasputin’s debauchery. Whatever the case, he posed as his own wife
and invited Rasputin to his house. The room for the murder was as soundproofed
as possible and Yusupov’s memoirs say that he offered Rasputin cakes laced with cyanide,
but Rasputin didn’t eat them. So Felix shot him, piercing his liver and
stomach, but that didn’t kill Rasputin, who wisely made tracks. He made it out of the palace, but was shot
in the spine in the courtyard, killing him. One of Yusupov’s co-conspirators then shot
him through the head. Actually, some sources say that it was Grand
Duke Dmitri who did the whole killing beginning to end. Anyhow, not being experts in murder, they
then made blunder after blunder. They wrapped his body in broadcloth and dumped
it off a bridge through a gap in the ice into the Malaya Nevka River. They didn’t weigh him down though, so he
didn’t sink, and anyhow one of his boots fell off and was stuck in the struts of the
bridge. Also, policemen had heard the gunfire, but
they couldn’t really investigate because of Yusupov’s rank. Long story short, Rasputin’s body was soon
found. But if the murder was carried out to protect
improve the image of the Tsar, it backfired. Once Rasputin was gone, more and more people
realized that he hadn’t been the problem, the problem was perhaps the Tsar itself. Well, Rasputin had done well for himself,
no question, considering his origins, but his legacy was to divide the Russian aristocracy
from the royal family, and to make the Tsarist regime appear to the people to be corrupt
and decadent, and by the time of his death, it was only a matter of time before public
resentment for the monarchy, which Rasputin and the Tsarina had done much to foster, spilled
out like so much gasoline waiting to be ignited.
