On a cold winter night in 1916, Felix Yusupov anxiously prepared
to pick up his dinner guest. If all went as planned,
his guest would be dead by morning, though four others had already tried
and failed to finish him off. The Russian monarchy
was on the brink of collapse, and to Yusupov
and his fellow aristocrats, the holy man they’d invited to dinner
was the single cause of it all. But who was he, and how could a single monk
be to blame for the fate of an empire? Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin
began his life in Siberia, born in 1869 to a peasant family. He might have lived a life of obscurity
in his small village, if not for his conversion
to the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1890s. Inspired by the humbled monks
that wandered endlessly from holy site to holy site, he spent years on pilgrimages
across Russia. On his travels, strangers were captivated
by Rasputin’s magnetic presence. Some even believed he had mystical gifts
of prediction and healing. Despite Rasputin’s heavy drinking,
petty theft, and promiscuity, his reputation as a monk
quickly spread beyond Siberia and attracted both laypeople
and powerful Orthodox clergymen. When he finally reached the capital,
St. Petersburg, Rasputin used
his charisma and connections to win favor with the imperial family’s
spiritual advisor. In November 1905, Rasputin was finally introduced
to Russian Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas and his wife Alexandra
devoutly believed in the Orthodox Church, as well as in mysticism
and supernatural powers, and this Siberian holy man
had them transfixed. It was a particularly tumultuous period
for Russia and their family. The monarchy
was barely clinging to control after the Revolution of 1905. Their political struggles
were only intensified by personal turmoil: Alexei, the heir to the throne, had a life-threatening blood disease
called hemophilia. When Alexei suffered
a severe medical crisis in 1912, Rasputin advised his parents
to reject treatment from doctors. Alexei’s health improved,
cementing the royal family’s belief that Rasputin had magical healing powers, and guaranteeing
his privileged place on the royal court. Today, we know that
the doctors had prescribed aspirin, a drug that worsens hemophilia. After this incident,
Rasputin made a prophecy: if he died,
or the royal family deserted him, both their son and their crown
would soon be gone. Outside the royal family,
people had mixed views on Rasputin. On one hand, peasants regarded him
as one of their own, amplifying their often-unheard voice
to the monarchy. But nobles and clergymen
came to despise his presence. Rasputin never ceased
his scandalous behavior, and they were skeptical
of his so-called powers and thought he was corrupting
the royal family. By the end of World War I, they were convinced
the only way to maintain order was to eliminate this sham
of a holy man. With this conviction, Yusupov began
to plot Rasputin’s assassination. Though the exact details
remain mysterious, our best guess at how it all unfolded
comes from Yusupov’s memoirs. He served Rasputin a number of pastries,
believing they contained cyanide. But unbeknownst to Yusupov, one of his co-conspirators
had a change of heart, and substituted the poison
with a harmless substance. To Yusupov’s shock,
Rasputin ate them without ill effect. In desperation,
he shot Rasputin at point-blank range. But Rasputin recovered,
punched his attacker, and fled. Yusupov and his accomplices pursued him, finally killing Rasputin
with a bullet to the forehead and dumping his body
in the Malaya Nevka river. But far from stabilizing
the monarchy’s authority, Rasputin’s death enraged the peasantry. Just as Rasputin prophesied, his murder was swiftly followed
by that of the royal family. Whether the downfall
of the Russian monarchy was a product of the monk’s curse, or the result of political tensions
decades in the making, well, we may never know.
