There is uncertainty over much of Rasputin’s life and the degree of influence that he exerted over the weak-willed Tsar and the strong-willed Tsarina.^[3] Accounts are often based on dubious memoirs, hearsay, and legend.^{[note 1]} While his influence and position may have been exaggerated — Rasputin became synonymous with power, debauchery and lust — his presence played a significant role in the increasing unpopularity of the Imperial couple.^[7] Rasputin was murdered by monarchists who hoped to save Tsarism by ending his sway over the royal family.

Early life

Grigori Rasputin was born the son of a well-to-do peasant and postal coachdriver (yamshchik) in the small village of Pokrovskoe, in the Tobolsk Governorate (now Yarkovsky District in the Tyumen Oblast) in the immense West Siberian Plain. The parish register contains the following entry for 9 January 1869 [O.S.]^{[note 2]}: “In the village of Pokrovskoe, in the family of the peasant Yefim Yakovlevich Rasputin and his wife,^{[note 3]} both Orthodox, was born a son, Grigory.”^[10][11][12] The next day, he was baptized and named after St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose feast day is on 10 January.^[13]

 

Grigori was the fifth of nine children. Only two survived, Grigori and Feodosiya.^[14][15] He never attended school, as there was not one in the area.^[16] (The first Russian Empire Census in 1897, registered 87.5 per cent of the Siberian population as illiterate.^[17]) In Pokrovskoe, a village with 200dwellings and roughly thousand inhabitants, Grigori was regarded as an outsider, but one endowed with mysterious gifts. In those days Rasputin acquired a reputation as a brawler. Having a rude attitude towards the district head, he was locked up in jail for two nights. This seems to be the only mention of Rasputin’s criminal past.^[18]

On 2 February 1887, Rasputin married Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina (1865/6–1936) and they had three children: Dmitri, Matryonaand Varvara. Two earlier sons and a daughter died young.^{[note 4]} In an unknown year^[19] Rasputin left his village, his wife, children and parents and spent several months in a monastery in Verkhoturye.^[20] Alexander Spiridovich suggested after the death of a child.^[21] May be Rasputin was curious as the monastery was enlarged to receive more pilgrims.^[22] Outside the monastery lived starets Makary, ahermit, whose influence led him to give up tobacco, alcohol and meat. When he returned to the village, he had become a fervent and inspired convert.^[23][24][25] His children dreaded the long hours of enforced prayer and fasting “for which everything, anniversaries or penitence, served as an excuse.”^[26]

Turn to religious life

Rasputin’s claimed vision of Our Lady of Kazan turned him towards the life of a religious mystic. Around 1897 he travelled to Mount Athos (St. Panteleimon Monastery), but left shocked and profoundly disillusioned, confronted with sodomy as he told Makary.^[27][28] By 1900, Rasputin was identified as a strannik,^[29] a religious wanderer, visiting holy places on foot and exchanging teaching for hospitality. However, he usually went home to help his family for sowing and the harvest. He is sometimes considered a yurodiviy (“holy fool”),^[30] and a starets (“elder”), but he did not consider himself a starets,^[20] as these lived in seclusion and silence. To label him as a yurodiviy is problematic, as Rasputin was often described as rather intelligent.

Spiridovich thinks that Rasputin arrived in St Petersburg in the middle of 1904 and according toSukhomlinov he met with the tsarina when she was still pregnant.^[37] Rasputin went to Alexander Nevsky Lavra to seek sustenance and lodgings. Theophanes of Poltava was amazed by his tenacious memory and psychological perspicacity, and he offered to allow Rasputin to live in his apartment. Either he or Countess Sophia Ignatieva introduced Rasputin to Milica of Montenegro and her sister Anastasia, who were interested in Persian mysticism,^[38] spiritism, and occultism. On 1 November 1905, Milica presented Rasputin to Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra who had moved to Peterhof Palace because of all the unrest in the capital.^[39]

Prior to his meeting with Rasputin, the Tsar had to deal with the Russo-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday, the Revolution of 1905, bombs, and a ten-day general strike in October. In a city without light, street cars and railway connections, the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias was willing to sign the October Manifesto, to agree with a constitution and the establishment of the Imperial Duma. He gave up part of his unlimited autocracy and for the next six months, Sergei Witte was the first Russian Prime Minister. By the end of the year the real ruler of the country was Dmitri Trepov because of continuing bloody fighting against police and soldiers in the streets.^[40] In April 1906, when Witte, a reformist, was succeeded by the conservative Ivan Goremykin and the Russian Constitution of 1906 was introduced, the Tsar, regretting his ‘moment of weakness’, retained the title of autocrat and maintained his unique dominating position in relation to the Russian Church.^[41]

Healer to Alexei

On 13 October 1906 Rasputin paid a visit to the Imperial family and presented an icon. On request of the Tsar he visited the next prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin. A few weeks before, 29 people had been killed on Aptekarsky Island in a bomb attack by the Maximalists and two of Stolypin’s children were wounded. Rasputin was invited to pray.At the end of the year he was in Kazan, waiting for his  train connection. He unexpectedly announced himself to the Baratynsky family and claimed to be able to read minds. The whole company was impressed by this ability. At the very beginning of dinner, when the housekeeper Nastya was about to put down a plate of soup for Rasputin, he took out a comb, and began to run it through his greasy hair. The plate was quickly taken away, and Nastya waited with contempt for him to finish. Rasputin emptied his glass of wine in one go.[Olga Ilyin (2004) Visits to the Imperial Court, chapter IV] Her father arranged a hotel, and when he tried to visited the next morning, the door remained closed.[THE KAZAN PERIOD IN THE FATE OF GRIGORY RASPUTIN Vladimir URETSKY Vladimir GARANIN Подробнее] The description by the 12-year-old Olga of Rasputin’s behavior is a small but undoubtedly valuable contribution to history.[D. Smith (2016) Rasputin, pp. 113-114]

According to Edward Radzinsky Alexandra was upset about his unpleasant sounding last name,^{[note 5]} and Rasputin was asked to write a permission for a name change.^[43] In December 1906 “Grigori explained that six families in Pokrovskoe bore the surname Rasputin, and this was producing “every sort of confusion” and “to end this … by permitting me and my descendants to take the name Rasputin-Novyi (Новый)”, which means “Rasputin-New” or the “New Rasputin”.^[44][45][46]

On 6 April 1907, Rasputin was invited to Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, this time to see Tsesarevich Alexei, the heir. The boy had suffered an injury which caused him painful bleeding. By then it was not known that Alexei had a severe form of hemophilia B,^[47] a disorder that was widespread among European royalty.^{[48][note 6]} The doctors could not supply a cure, and the desperate Tsarina invited Rasputin.^[49] He was able to calm the parents and their son, standing at the foot of the bed and praying. From that moment Alexandra believed Rasputin was Alexei’s savior.

Pierre Gilliard,^[50] the French historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse,^[51] and journalist Diarmuid Jeffreys speculated that Rasputin’s healing practice included halting the administration of aspirin, a pain-relieving analgesic available since 1899.^[52][53] Aspirin is an antiaggregant and has blood-thinning properties; the mechanism of action of aspirin is that it prevents clotting and promotesbleeding, which could have caused the hemarthrosis at the root of Alexei’s joints swelling and pain.^[54][55]

In September 1912 the Romanovs were visiting their hunting retreat in the Białowieża Forest; on 5 September the careless Tsesarevich jumped into a rowboat and hit one of the oarlocks. A large bruise appeared within minutes. Within a week the hematoma reduced in size.^[56] In mid September the family moved to Spała (then in Russian Poland). On 2 October, after a drive in the woods, the “juddering of the carriage had caused still healing hematoma in his upper thigh to rupture and start bleeding again.”^[57] Alexei had to be carried out in an almost unconscious state. His temperature rose and his heartbeat dropped, caused by a swelling in the left groin; Alexandra barely left his bedside. A constant record was kept of the boy’s temperature. On 10 October, a medical bulletin appeared in the newspapers,^[58] and Alexei received the last sacrament. His condition improved at once, according the Tsar. According to Nelipa Robert K. Massie was correct to recommend that psychological factors do play a part.^[59] The positive trend continued throughout the next day.^[60]

It is not exactly clear on which day, either 9,^[61] 10 or 11 October the Tsarina turned to her lady-in-waiting and best friend, Anna Vyrubova,^[62][63] to secure the help of the peasant healer, who at that time was out of favor. According to his daughter Rasputin received the telegram on 12 October.^[64] If Rasputin’s daughter was right about the day the telegram was sent “the longstanding claim that Rasputin had somehow alleviated Alexei’s condition is simply fictitious.”^[65]The next day he seems to have responded, with a short telegram, including the prophecy: “The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors [c.q. Eugene Botkin and Vladimir Derevenko] to bother him too much.”^[66] On 19 October Alexei’s condition was considerably better and the hematoma disappeared, but he had to undergo orthopedic therapy to straighten his left leg.^[67]

The court physician, Botkin, believed that Rasputin was a charlatan and his apparent healing powers arose from his use of hypnosis, but Rasputin was not interested in this practice before 1913 and his teacher Gerasim Papnadato was expelled from St. Petersburg in 1914.^[68][69][70] Felix Yusupov, one of Rasputin’s enemies, suggested that he secretly drugged Alexei^[71] with Tibetan herbs which he had obtained from a “quack doctor“, Peter Badmayev, but his three envelopes with powder were politely rejected by the court.^[72][73] For Fuhrmann, these ideas on hypnosis^[74] and drugs flourished because the imperial family lived such isolated lives.^[75] (Since theRevolution of 1905 they lived almost as much apart from Russian society as if they were settlers in Canada.^[75][76]) For Moynahan, “There is no evidence that Rasputin ever summoned up spirits, or felt the need to; he won his admirers through force of personality, not by tricks.”^[77] For Maria Rasputin and Vladimir Sukhomlinov, it was magnetism. For Shelley, the secret of his power lay in the sense of calm, gentle strength, and shining warmth of conviction.^[78]

Controversy

Even before Rasputin’s arrival, the upper class of St Petersburg had been widely influenced by mysticism. Individual aristocrats were obsessed with anything occult.^[79][80] In those days Imperial Russia was confronted with a religious renaissance, a widespread interest in spiritual-ethical literature and non-conformist moral-spiritual movements, an upsurge in pilgrimage and other devotions to sacred spaces and objects. The “God-Seeking” were shaping their own ritual and spiritual lives (e.g. Helena Blavatsky, George Gurdjieff and Pyotr Ouspensky).

 

Alexandra worried a lot about herself, her son and his condition; she had invited her physician 42 times within two months.^[81] Earlier Papus had visited Russia three times, in 1901, 1905, and 1906, serving the Tsar and Tsarina both as physician and occult consultant.^[82] After the healer Nizier Anthelme Philippe died, Rasputin came into the picture.

In his religious views Rasputin was close to the so-called Khlysts, an obscure Christian sect with strong Siberian roots, who affirmed “the existence of a perpetual warfare between flesh and spirit”^[83]and called themselves “Men of God”. In September 1907 the ‘Spiritual Consistory’ of Tobolsk accused Rasputin of spreading false doctrines: kissing and bathing with women.^[84][85] (Rasputin usually welcomed his female followers with a kiss, even if he saw them for the first time.^[86]) During the inquiry Rasputin disappeared (it seems) and “the effort of local priests to discipline their most troublesome parishioner failed.”^[87] According to Oleg Platonov: “The case was fabricated so clumsily that it ‘works’ only against its own authors. No wonder the documents were never published. Nothing but allusions were made to its existence.”^[8] In 1908 Theofan traveled to Siberia and examined all the documents from the Tobolsk inquiry, but failed to find anything of interest.^[88]

While fascinated by Rasputin in the beginning, the ruling class of St Petersburg began to turn against him as he had privileges no one else had, an easy access to the Imperial Family. On 8 December 1908 Rasputin brought his wife to Tsarkoe Selo.^[49] In 1909, within four months, Rasputin had visited the Romanovs six times.^[89] It seems Rasputin “knew how to amuse and enliven the little boy”.^[90]Alexandra was in conflict with her mother- and sister-in-law about her continuing patronage of Rasputin. In 1910 the press started a campaign against Rasputin. Nikolai Pavlovich Sablin andCharles Sydney Gibbes were sent to Rasputin to find out more.^[91] Theofan lost his interest and Stolypin wanted to ban him from the capital.^{[note 7]} When Rasputin arrived in St Petersburg, he returned within three weeks to his home village, according to Spiridovich.^[92]

 

Early 1911 the Tsar instructed Rasputin to join a group of pilgrims.^[93] Rasputin first visited thePochayiv Lavra in the Ukraine. From Odessa the pilgrims sailed to Constantinople, Smyrna,Ephesus, Patmos, Rhodes, Cyprus, Beirut, Tripoli, and Jaffa. Around Lent 1911 Rasputin arrived in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.^[94] On his way back he visited his right-wing friend Iliodor who gathered huge crowds in Tsaritsyn. When Vladimir Kokovtsov became prime minister he asked the Tsar permission to authorize Rasputin’s exile to Tobolsk, but Nicholas refused. “I know Rasputin too well to believe all the tittle-tattle about him.”^[95]

In 1912, Hermogen, who told Rasputin to stay away from the palace, repeated the rumours that Rasputin had joined the Khlysty. Iliodor, hinting that Rasputin was Alexandra’s paramour, showedMakarov a satchel of letters, one written by the Tsarina and four by her daughters in 1909 and 1910.^[96] The given^[97] or stolen^[98] letters were handed by Kokovtsov to the Tsar.^[99][100] Using a hectograph the content was spread through the capital. Kokovtsov offered Rasputin 200,000 rubles, equaling $100,000, to leave the capital. He also ordered the newspapers not to mention Rasputin’s name in connection with the Empress. Alexandra became sick and refused to meet with Rasputin for a period of time. Rasputin had become one of the most hated people in Russia.^[101]

In September 1907 Rasputin had to appear for theEcclesiastical court of Tobolsk, accused of being a Khlyst. No evidence was found.^[102]

There is little or no proof that Rasputin was a member of the Khlysty,^[103] but he does appear to have been influenced by their practices,^[104] accepting some of their beliefs, for example those regarding sin as a necessary part of redemption.^[105][106] Suspicions that Rasputin, a good dancer,^[107][108] was one of the Khlysty tarnished his reputation right until the end of his life.^{[109][110][note 8]} The Holy Synod frequently attacked Rasputin, accusing him of a variety of immoral or evil practices. Finally Nicholas II accepted investigations on Rasputin. The new bishop in Tobolsk, Alexey V. Molchanov, started to investigate the case on 1 September 1912. Two months later the bishop concluded Rasputin was an “orthodox Christian … who sought the truth”^[114] and the investigations were stopped.^{[71][75][115]} After the Spała incident Rasputin regained influence at court and also in church affairs.^[116]

On 21 February 1913 Rodzianko ejected Rasputin from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan shortly before the celebration of 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia. He had established himself in front of the seats which Rodzianko, after great difficulty, had secured for the Duma.^[117] Rasputin’s behaviour was discussed in the Fourth Duma,^[118] and in March 1913 the Octobrists, led by Alexander Guchkov, commissioned an investigation,^[119][120] but “anyone bold enough to criticize Rasputin found only condemnation from the Tsarina.”^[121] The emperor and his wife referred to Rasputin as Grigori, our “Friend” or “holy man”, avoiding his last name. Worried about the threat of a scandal, the Tsar asked Rasputin to leave for Siberia; but a few days later, at the demand of the Empress, the order was cancelled. Nicholas criticized the politicians.^[122] The Tsar dismissed Kokovtsov on 29 January 1914.^[123] He was replaced by the decrepit and absent-minded Ivan Goremykin, and Pyotr Bark as Minister of Finance. According to Pavel Milyukov, in May 1914 Rasputin had become an influential factor in Russian politics.^[124]

Assassination attempt

On 27/28 June, Rasputin arrived from the capital in Pokrovskoe.^[125] Around 3:00 pm^[126][127] onSunday 12 July [O.S. 29 June] 1914,^[84] Rasputin went out from the house in reply to a telegram he had received from the Tsarina on the threat of war.^{[128][129][130][131][132]} At that moment he was suddenly approached by what looked like a beggar. When Rasputin was checking his pockets for money this woman, the 33-years old Khionia Guseva who had her face concealed with a blackkerchief, pulled out a dagger.^[133] She stabbed Rasputin in the stomach, just above the navel. Rasputin asserted that he ran down the street with his hands on his belly. Guseva claimed that she chased him, but Rasputin grabbed a stick from the ground and hit her.^[126] Covered with blood, Rasputin was brought into his house. A doctor from a neighboring village gave first aid. The next day Alexandr Vladimirov arrived from Tyumen, and assessed the mesentery was scraped.^[134]

 

On Thursday Rasputin was transported by steamboat to Tyumen, accompanied by his wife and daughter. The Tsarina^[135] sent her own physician, Roman Vreden^[136] and after a laparotomy and more than six weeks in the hospital, where he had to walk around in a gown, unable to wear ordinary clothes, Rasputin recovered. On 17 August he left the hospital;^[137] by mid-September he was back in Petrograd. His daughter Maria records that Rasputin believed that Iliodor and Vladimir Dzhunkovskyhad organized the attack.^[138][139] According to her he was never the same man afterwards. He started to drink (sweet or semi-sweet Georgian or Crimean^[140]) dessert wines.^{[141] [142]} (N.B. Since the beginning of the war, the manufacture and sale of vodka was forbidden.)

After the attack, Iliodor, dressed as a woman, fled all the way around the Gulf of Bothnia toChristiania.^{[note 9]} Guseva, a fanatically religious woman who had been his adherent in earlier years, “denied Iliodor’s participation, declaring that she attempted to kill Rasputin because he was spreading temptation among the innocent.”^[143] On 12 October 1914 the investigator declared that Iliodor was guilty of inciting the murder, but the local procurator decided to suspend any action against him for undisclosed reasons.^[144] Guseva was locked in a madhouse in Tomsk and a trial was avoided.^[145]

Most of Rasputin’s enemies had by now disappeared. Stolypin was killed, Count Kokovtsov had fallen from power, Theofan was exiled, Hermogen illegally banished and Iliodor in hiding.^[146] The Tsar ordered to take measures to protect Rasputin’s life.

Yar restaurant incident

From October 1914 Stepan Petrovich Beletsky, head of the police, exercised 24-hour surveillance of Rasputin and his apartment.^[147] Two sets of detectives were attached to his person;^[148] one was to act undercover.^[149] From 1 January 1915 modified reports from Okhrana spies — the “staircase notes” — had to provide evidence about Rasputin’s lifestyle.^[150] They were given to the Tsar in an attempt to convince him to break with Rasputin.^[151] In reading it, the Tsar observed that on the day and hour at which one of the acts mentioned in the document was alleged to have taken place, Rasputin had actually been in Tsarskoe Selo.^[152][153]

 

On 25 March 1915 Rasputin left for Moscow by nighttrain. On the next day he was followed by eight Okhrana policemen. On the evening he is said, while inebriated, to have opened his trousers and waved his “reproductive organ” in front of a group of female gypsy singers in the Yar restaurant.^[154][155] In the original police report there is “not one word about Rasputin being drunk, about any insulted Gypsy chorus girls, about indecent language, public exhibitionism, and most critically, about any arrest.”^[156] According to Smith they were celebrating a business deal, and had invited two journalists.^[157][158] A few days later a waiter assessed the story as bunkum when talking to Gerard Shelley.^[159] An unreliable report was presented in June; the police did not interview any singer or witness in the restaurant. Also for Bernard Pares, it was taken that the police were the enemies of Rasputin, and that the many stories which reached the public were simply their fabrications.^[160] The footballer and secret agent R. H. Bruce Lockhart mentioned he saw everything with his own eyes;^[161] Smith proves he lied. The incident did not happen in Summer, and in April Lockhart stayed in Kiev.^[162]

World War I

After the First Balkan War, the Balkan allies planned the partition of the European territory of the Ottoman Empire among them. During the Second Balkan War the Tsar tried to stop the conflict, since Russia did not wish to lose either of its Slavic allies. Rasputin warned the Tsar not to become involved and promoted a peaceful policy in the “Petersburg Gazette”.^[166][167] Rasputin became the enemy of Grand Duke Nicholas, a panslavist, his brother Peter and their wives Milica and Anastasia of Montenegro, eager to go to war and push the Austrians out of the Balkans.^[168][169]

On 25 July 1914 (N.S.), during the July Crisis, the Council of Ministers decreed war preparations starting on the next day, and partial mobilisation as a precaution against the Austro-Hungarian Empire to support the Kingdom of Serbia.^[170] On the 26th Rasputin spoke out against Russia going to war; he begged the Tsar to do everything in his power to avoid it.^[171] On the 27th Vyrubova asked Rasputin to change his mind on the war, but he stuck to his position.^[167] On the 28th Austria declared war on Serbia, leading to a partial mobilization of Russia. But, in the morning of 29 July [O.S. 16 July] 1914 the wavering Tsar signed both a partial against Austria and a general mobilization with Austria and Germany. From the hospital Rasputin sent several telegrams to the court through Anna Vyrubova, expressing his fears for the future of the country. “If Russia goes to war, it will be the end of the monarchy, of the Romanovs and of Russian institutions.”^[172] “Such was his worry that his wound opened up and began to bleed again.”

A flurry of telegrams between the Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Tsar^[173] led to the cancellation of Russian general mobilization; the Tsar chose a partial mobilization in the evening.^[174] Then Nicholas II met with protests from Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov. According to Samuel Hoare: “I believe myself that, had he not insisted upon general mobilisation on July 30th, the Emperor would have continued to hesitate, and Russian mobilisation … would never have been possible”.^[175] On the 31st Germany demanded that Russia stopped general mobilisation. The Tsar expected Germany would never attack Russia, France and England combined, but all “muddled” into World War I.^{[note 10][note 11]} The Duma “met on August 8 for three hours to pass emergency war credits, it was not asked to remain in session because it would only be in the way.”^[181]

Russia hoped that the war would last until Christmas, but after a year the situation on the Eastern front had become disastrous. In the big cities there was a shortage of food and high prices and the Russian people blamed all on “dark forces” or spies for and collaborators with Germany. On 26 May 1915 shops in Moscow, owned by foreigners, were attacked.^[182] The crowd called for the Empress, who had German roots, to be locked up in a convent.^[183] In June under pressure of public opinionSukhomlinov left on charges of abuse of power, inactivity and high treason. On August 9, 1915, Sazonov, foreign minister, announced: “The government hangs in mid-air, having support neither from above nor from below.”^[184] Lenin wrote an article for the Zimmerwald Conference calling for the defeat of the Russian government.^[185] He rejected both the defense of Russia and the cry for peace; instead he promoted a civil war. When the German army occupied Warsaw in August 1915 the situation looked extremely grave, because of a shortage in weapons and ammunition.^{[note 12]} Nobody had expected according to Sukhomlinov the war would take so long. The situation was so serious that there were rumours of revolution and talk of a separate peace with Germany.^[187]

On 23 August 1915 the Tsar Nicholas took supreme command of the Russian armies, and replaced not only Grand Duke Nicholas, but also Nikolai Yanushkevich, hoping this would lift morale. He was undoubtedly led to this fateful decision by the insistence of the Tsarina and of Rasputin^[188][189] who, according to Maklakov, were the only ones who supported the Tsar in his decision. “Having one man in charge of the situation would consolidate all decision making.”^[190] According to Sukhomlinov the Tsar was unusually certain about his decision ^[191] as he felt ‘the heavy burden of political leadership slipping from his shoulders with immense relief’.^[192] However, his frequent absences from the Russian capital, proved to be dire consequences for himself as well as for Russia.

Government

For the Octobrists and the Kadets, the liberals in the parliament, Rasputin and Alexandra, who believed in Tsarist autocracy^[204] were the main obstacles. (In April 1915 Rasputin had advised not to convene the Duma.) On 19 August 1915, after an unsuccessful attempt to discredit Rasputin and the Tsarina in a newspaper, Prince Vladimir Orlov^[71] and Vladimir Dzhunkovsky were discharged from their posts. The Tsar then pronounced the relationship between Rasputin and his wife to be a private one, closed to debate.^{[205][206][207][208]}

While seldom meeting with Alexandra personally after the debate in the Third Duma, Rasputin had become her personal adviser through daily telephone calls or weekly meetings with Vyrubova. Rasputin’s personal influence over the Tsarina had become so great that it was he who ordered the destinies of Imperial Russia, while she compelled her weak husband to fulfill them.^[209] According to Pierre Gilliard “her desires were interpreted by Rasputin, they seemed in her eyes to have the sanction and authority of a revelation.”^[210]

“The Tsar had resisted the influence of Rasputin for a long time. At the beginning he had tolerated him because he dare not weaken the Tsarina’s faith in him – a faith which kept her alive. He did not like to send him away for, if Alexei Nicolaievich had died, in the eyes of the mother he would have been the murderer of his own son.”^[153]

According to Nicholas V. Riasanovsky:

“Thus a narrow-minded, reactionary, hysterical woman and an ignorant, weird peasant – who apparently made decisions simply in terms of his personal interest, and whose exalted position depended on the empress’s belief that he could protect her son from hemophilia and that he had been sent by God to guide her, her husband, and Russia – had the destinies of an empire in their hands.^[211]

In late 1915 there was a shortage of coal in the big cities; Alexander Trepov was appointed as the new Minister of Transport. Alexandra and Rasputin advised the Tsar in military strategies around Riga where the Germans were stopped.^[212] In November Rasputin told the old Goremykin it was not right not to convene the Duma as all were trying to cooperate; one must show them a little confidence.^[213]

On 6 December Rasputin was invited to see Alexei when the boy had returned from Stavka (in Mogilev) because of a cold, and nosebleeds.^[214] According to Gaillard “The Imperatritsa once again attributed the improvement in the Tsesarevich’s health to Rasputin’s prayers, she remained convinced that the child had been saved thanks to his help.”^[215]

In January 1916 Rasputin was opposed to the plan to send the old Goremykin away.^[216] At the end of the month Boris Stürmer was appointed as Prime Minister being a master of political compromise. (Then he “visited Rasputin secretly within twenty-four hours of his appointment, promising to be loyal and to carry out his requests.”^[217]) According to Harold Williams Stürmer was ‘a more corrupt, cynical, incompetent and lying functionary it would be difficult to find in the Russian Empire’, but he was not opposed to the convening of the Duma, as Goremykin had been, and he would launch a more liberal and conciliatory politic. The Duma gathered on 9 February, but the deputies were disappointed when Stürmer made his speech. For the first time in his life the Tsar made a visit to the Taurida Palace, suggesting he was willing to work with the legislature.

At the request of France, the Russian army started the Lake Naroch Offensive, which was an utter failure. Rasputin met on Lake Ladoga with Gerard Shelley, whom he told he planned to go to the front,^[232] though General Mikhail Alekseev refused to see him. In the middle of June Rasputin went to Siberia and came back to the capital late July. Early July Aleksandr Khvostov, Alexei’s uncle, not in good health, was appointed as Minister of the Interior, and Alexander Alexandrovich Makarov as Minister of Justice. Also the Foreign Minister Sazonov, who had pleaded for an independent and autonomous Russian Poland, was demoted and replaced. On 8 August Rasputin told Alexandra the Russian army should not cross the Carpathians;^[233] the losses would be too great. On the 18th the Tsar asked his wife not to tell Rasputin about his plans concerning the Brusilov Offensive as troops were sent from Riga to the south.^[212] On 20 September the offense was stopped by the Tsar, because of the enormous losses in four months’ time. The Russian Army in Romania was both demoralized and nearly out of supplies.

Around 14 September Alexander Protopopov, pro-peace like Alexandra, Stürmer, and Rasputin, had been invited as Minister of the Interior. Placing the vice-president of the Duma in a key post might improve the relations between the Duma and the throne,^[234] but his contacts on peace and credit in Stockholm (without being authorized) became a scandal.^{[note 13]} When Protopopov raised the question of transferring the food supply from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of the Interior, a majority of the zemstvo leaders announced that they would not work with his ministry. His food plan was universally condemned by the Council of Ministers.^[216]

On 24 October (O.S) the Kingdom of Poland was established by its occupiers Germany and Austria. On 12 October Sukhumlinov had been released from prison on instigation of Alexandra, Rasputin and Protopopov, and he became her advisor on the 26th. According to Figes the public was outraged^[242] and the opposition parties decided to attack Stürmer, his government and the “Dark forces”.^[243] A strongly prevailing opinion that Rasputin was the actual ruler of the country was of great psychological importance.^[244] For Paléologue Alexandra Feodorovna was too impulsive, wrong-headed and unbalanced to imagine a political system and carry it out logically.

Imperial Duma

On 1 November the government, under the pro peace Boris Stürmer,^[246] was attacked by Pavel Milyukov in the Imperial Duma. In his speech “Rasputin and Rasputuiza” he spoke of “treachery and betrayal, about the dark forces, fighting in favor of Germany”.^[247] He highlighted numerous governmental failures, concluding that Stürmer’s policies placed in jeopardy the Triple Entente. After each accusation – many times without basis and lying intentionally – he asked “Is this stupidity or is it treason?” and the listeners answered “stupidity!”, “treason!”, or “both!”. His speech was spread in flyers (by Puriskevich’ hospital train) on the front and at the Hinterland.^[248] Stürmer and Protopopov asked in vain for the dissolution of the Duma.^[249] Ivan Grigorovich and Dmitry Shuvayev declared in the Duma that they had confidence in the Russian people, the navy and the army; the war could be won. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, his older brother George and his younger brother Nikolaiall requested the Tsar to fire Stürmer (and Aleksei Bobrinsky, the minister of agriculture and a spokesperson for landed interest).^[250] Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich wrote a candid letter to his brother warning him that the political situation was tense:

The public hatred for certain people who allegedly are close to you and who are forming part of the present government has, to my amazement, brought together the right, the left and the moderate; and this hatred, along with the demands for changes are already openly expressed.^[251]

Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, probably one of the key players,^[252][253] prince Lvov and general Mikhail Alekseyev, who believed secret strategic information had gone through the hands of Alexandra and Rasputin, attempted to persuade Nicholas to send the Empress away either to the Livadia Palace in Yalta or to England.^[254]

On 19 November the popular Vladimir Purishkevich held a two-hour speech in the Duma, accusing the government of “Germanophilism” and stifling “public initiative.”^[255] The monarchy – because of what he called the “ministerial leapfrog” – had become “fully descredited”.^[256][257] The trouble was that the different ministries did not cooperate. (Actually the ministers were not allowed to cooperate directly, without contacting and approval of the Tsar.^[258]) Purishkevich, a buffoon character, stated that Rasputin’s murky influence over the Tsarina had made him a threat to the empire: “While Rasputin is alive, we cannot win”.^[259]

Prince Felix Yusupov was impressed by the remarkable anti-Rasputin speech.^[260] The next day he visited Purishkevich, who quickly agreed to participate in the murder of Rasputin. Yusupov then approached the lawyer Vasily Maklakov, who agreed to advise him.^[261] Also Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich received Yusupov’s suggestion with alacrity, and his alliance was welcomed as indicating that the murder would not be a demonstration against the [Romanov] dynasty.^[262] Yusupov then approached a young officer Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin (1887–1926), a friend of his mother. Sukhotin served the Life Guards Infantry Regiment,^[263] but recuperating from injuries in Hotel Astoria, changed into a hospital for wounded officers.^[264]

At the beginning of November the Progressive Bloc decided to stress the demand for a responsible government.^[265] According to Figes there was practically no one … who did not see the need for a fundamental change in the structure of the government.^[245] Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, Dmitri’s father, tried to persuade Nicholas on his nameday (6 December) to change his policy^[266] and accept a new constitution in order to save the monarchy.^{[note 14] [note 15]} Also Rodzianko told Nicholas the truth, after being urged by the Tsar’s mother and sisters. To him it was clear Alexandra should not be allowed to interfere in state affairs until the end of the war; she treated her husband as if he were a little boy, quite incapable of taking care of himself.^[216]

Alexander Guchkov, an Old Believer, “who had come to the painful conclusion the situation could only improve when the Tsar was sent away”,^[269] reported that five members of the Progressive Bloc, including Kerensky, Konovalov, Nekrasov and Tereschenko would consider a coup d’etat, but did not undertake any action. “Prince Lvov and General Alekseev made up their minds that the Tsarina’s hold on the Tsar must be broken in order to end the pressure being exerted on him, through her, by the Rasputin clique.”^[270] Alexandra suggested to her husband to expel Guchkov, Milyukov, Polivanov and Prince Lvov to Siberia.^[271][272] Then the Duma would lose and Rasputin would gain influence.

The campaign of the party of the Empress and Rasputin was waged steadily against the eight ministers who “had resisted the removal of the commander in chief (Grand Duke Nikolai), and one after the other they were discharged.”^[273] According to Giles Milton:

British intelligence reports, sent between London and Petrograd in 1916, indicate that the British were not only extremely concerned about Rasputin’s displacement of pro-British ministers in the Russian government but, even more importantly, his apparent insistence on withdrawing Russian troops from World War I. This withdrawal would have allowed the Germans to transfer their Eastern Front troops to the Western Front, leading to a massive outnumbering of the Allies and threatening their defeat. Whether this was actually Rasputin’s intent or whether he was simply concerned about the huge number of Russian casualties (as the Tsarina’s letters indicate) is in dispute, but it is clear that the British perceived him as a real threat to the war effort.^[274]

Trepov and Protopopov

On 10 November the bellicose Alexander Trepov had been appointed as the new prime minister by promoting a parliamentary system, but he made the dismissal of the exceedingly nervous Alexander Protopopov, who never had “any effective proposal for the solution of any of the grave and critical problems”,^[275] an indispensable condition of his accepting the presidency of the Council. The Tsarina tried to keep Protopopov appointed on his influential position as minister of the Interior. Both Alexandra and Protopopov traveled to Stavka. Rasputin and Vyrubova would sent five telegrams to support her.^[276][277] Trepov was furious and threatened to resign.

On 17 November Nikolai Pokrovsky was appointed as foreign minister. On 31 November Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg tried to initiate a peace-making process^[278] and to end the war on base of hisSeptemberprogramm (1914). On 2 December^[279] Trepov ascended the tribune in the Duma to read the government programme. The deputies shouted “down with the Ministers! Down with Protopopov!” Pokrovsky said that Russia would never sign a peace treaty with the Central Powers, which caused a storm of applause in the Tauride Palace. Puriskevich, avoiding the name of Rasputin, stated “an illiterate moujik shall govern Russia no longer!”^[280]

The ‘peace offensive’ was bound to fail;^[281] the terms too vague to be taken seriously.^{[281][282][283]} The allies refused an intermediation by president W. Wilson on 18 December [O.S. 5 December] 1916.^[284] On the same day Harold Williams or John Hanbury-Williamswrote to Lloyd George:

No one has the faintest idea what the Emperor will do. He has been at Tsarskoe Selo for some days, but the only thing that has been done is to appoint a Minister for Foreign Affairs, mainly I suppose because there had to be a minister to reply to the German peace proposals. The new Minister [Pokrovsky] is a very honest and hard working man, though he is not a diplomat. He will certainly not take any part in separate peace talk, and altogether I think that for the moment the idea of a separate peace is knocked on the head. But if Milyukov and the other Duma speakers had not smashed Stürmer God only knows what might have happened. On the whole the general feeling is cheerful. The country is united and absolutely determined. The gang is cornered, its intrigues are exposed, and it seems impossible that the fate of such a huge Empire should remain much longer at the mercy of the plotting of a hysterical woman with a depraved peasant.^[285][286]

On 6 December Kerensky began secretly recruiting members for a new government.^[287] On 7 December the cabinet demanded that Protopopov should go to the Emperor and resign, he then asked the Tsar for a temporarily sick leave. At the request of the Tsar, his wife, Anna Vyrubova and Rasputin combined Protopopov stayed on as Minister. Trepov, having failed to eliminate Protopopov, tried to bribe Rasputin in the next days.^[288][289] With the help of general A.A. Mosolov,^[290] his brother-in-law, Trepov offered a substantial amount of money, a bodyguard and a house to Rasputin, if he would leave politics.^{[291][292][293]} Rasputin refused and apparently feared that he would die before the end of the year.^[294][295] On 12 December Trepov went to Stavka. The next day Rasputin warned against the influence of Trepov,^[212] who had threatened to shut the troublesome Duma either completely or for six weeks in her attempt to control the Tsar.^[296] Through Alexandra Rasputin told the Tsar not always to give in to Trepov. He hardly left his house, except visiting Vyrubova. His death might be expected at any time and it seems he accepted his destiny.^[297]

On Friday afternoon, 16 December, Rasputin returned from the “banya” at 3 p.m. Around 8 p.m. he told Anna Vyrubova, who presented him a small icon, signed and dated at the back by the Tsarina and her daughters,^[298] of a proposed midnight visit to Yusupov in his palace. Protopopov, a late visitor who only stayed ten minutes, begged him not to go out that night.^[299][300]

Ergorov bathhouse ca. 1910 in St PetersburgNelipa thinks what happened next was intentionally timed; both Grand Duke Dmitry and Purishkevich, assisting at the front, had arrived in the city. Rasputin was murdered on the night after the Duma went into Christmas recess for one month; according to Nelipa “the forthcoming recess would eliminate the otherwise predictable uproar from any of the delegates at the Tauride Palace, had the murder been arranged a few days earlier.”^[301]

Murder

There are very few facts between the night Rasputin disappeared (Saturday 17 December) and the following Monday when his corpse was dredged up from the river. “As far as the Yusupov Palace is concerned, the Police had no right to make inquiries unless invited to do so. The Director of Police was unable to ask the simplest of questions such as who was present at the palace on the night,” and “nothing other than a cursory search was allowed inside.”^[302] So the murder of Rasputin has become something of a legend, some of it invented, perhaps embellished or simply misremembered.

Assassination

Yusupov, who had met Rasputin in the past six weeks for treatment, invited Rasputin to the Moika Palace, intimating his wife, Princess Irina, would be back from Koreiz and Rasputin could meet her after a housewarming party. (She later denied she was involved and sued MGM).^[303] After midnight Prince Felix went with Dr Stanislaus de Lazovert to Rasputin’s apartment. Yusupov did not use the regular stairs at this unseemly hour, but a stairwell for servants in the courtyard; he knocked at the kitchen door. After half an hour they returned to the recently refurbished palace, where a sound-proof room, part of the wine cellar, had been specially prepared for the crime with carpets, stain-glass lamps, and furnuture. Four bottles, containing different kinds of sweet wine, were placed either in a window, a side-board or on a table. Waiting in his drawing room on another floor were the fellow conspirators: Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Purishkevich, his assistant Lazovert and Sukhotin. Perhaps some women were invited but Yusupov did not mention their names; Radzinsky suggested Dimitri’s step-sister Marianne Pistohlkors and film star Vera Karalli.^[304] Smith came up with Princess Olga Paley and Anna von Drenteln.^[305] Somewhere in the building were a major-domo and a valet, waiting for orders.^[306]

 

According to both Yusupov and Purishkevich a gramophone in the study played interminably theYankee Doodle, when Rasputin came in.^[307] Yusupov mentions in his unreliable memoirs, he first offered Rasputin tea and petit fours laced with a large amount of potassium cyanide. According to the diplomat Maurice Paléologue, who in later years rewrote his diary, they discussed spirituality and occultism;^[308] the antique dealer Albert Stopford wrote that politics was the issue.^[309] Purishkevich, a teetotaler, mentions he could hear bottles were opened. Felix played his guitar and sang some gypsy ballads. After an hour or so, Rasputin was fairly drunk.^{[note 16]} Yusupov went upstairs and came back with a revolver. Rasputin was shot at close quarters by Felix sitting left of him. The bullet entered the chest, penetrating the stomach and the liver; it left the body on the right side.^[311] Then Rasputin fell onto a white bearskin. According to Maria Rasputin it went all very quick; no sweets, no guitar nor record playing. Rasputin would have become suspicious as Yusupov’s wife never showed up.^[312]According to Yusupov’s protégé, Victor Contreras, Lazavert who was assigned to poison the wine and cakes for Rasputin, couldn’t do it. After the murder Lazavert seems to have written a letter to Yusupov, where he reported that he, the doctor, who gave the oath of Hippocrates, found no strength to add the poison.^[313] According to Douglas Smith no one would have survived exposure to potassium cyanide as described in Yusupov’s story.^[314]

 

However, Yusupov did not succeed in killing Rasputin. According to Maria Rasputin the bullet wounds were slight. After a while “Rasputin opened his eyes and became aware of his predicament.”^[317] He struggled up the stairs to reach the first landing, opening an unlocked door to the courtyard, which had been—not long before—used by the conspirators. Alarmed by the noise, Purishkevich went down and fired at Rasputin four times, missing three times. Only one bullet penetrated the right kidney and lodged into the spine.^[318] Rasputin never reached the gate,^[319] but fell into the snow, just outside the door. According to Nelipa both shots were fatal; he would have died within 10–20 minutes, but when the body made a sudden movement, one of them placed his revolver on the forehead and pulled the trigger.^{[note 17]} Then the body was carried back inside. A nervous Yusupov severely hit his victim in his right eye with his shoe.^[323]

The conspirators had planned to burn Rasputin’s possessions; Sukhotin put on Rasputin’s fur coat, hisgaloshes, and gloves. He left together with Dmitri Pavlovich and Dr. Lazovert in Purishkevich’s car,^[324] to suggest that Rasputin had left the palace alive.^[325] Because Purishkevich’s wife refused to burn the fur coat and the rubber^[326] galoshes^[327] in her small fireplace in Purishkevich’s ambulance train, the conspirators went back from the Warsaw station to the Moika palace with these large items.^[328]

Two city policemen on duty, who heard a “rapid fire” of gunshot sequence,^[319] had also seen cars coming and leaving. They discussed the issue on the Pochtamtsky Bridge. One of them questioned Yusupov’s butler for details, but was sent away.^[329] Twenty minutes later he was re-invited to the palace. Purishkevich boasted he had shot Rasputin, and asked the policeman, aware of his mistake, to keep it quiet for the sake of the Tsar.^{[330][331][332][333][334][335][336]} However, this policeman told his superiors everything he had heard and seen.^[324]

After the body was wrapped in a broadcloth, Dimitri and his fellow conspirators drove in the direction of Petrovsky island.^[337] The sentry on the Petrovsky bridge was asleep which allowed the murderers to draw up quite close to the railing and throw the corpse into a hole in the ice of the Malaya Nevka River. They forgot to attach weights to the feet to make the body sink. They drove back, without noticing that one of Rasputin’s galoshes was stuck between the pylons of the bridge.

Days following

On the Empress’ orders, a police investigation commenced and traces of blood were discovered on the steps to the backdoor of the Yusupov Palace. When interrogated, Felix explained the blood with a story that by accident one of his sporting dogs was shot by Grand Duke Dmitri. In the early afternoon traces of blood were detected on the parapet of the  Petrovsky bridge and one of Rasputin’s galoshes was found under the bridge.^[342] Maria and her sister affirmed it belonged to their father. With twilight approaching the search had to be abandoned until the following morning.

The next day it was sunny, but the temperature dropped to -14 C. The river was frozen. The police concentrated upon the vicinity of the Petrovsky bridge. Then the Neva shores were explored by divers, but the ice seriously hampered their work which produced no result.^[343]

Felix and Dmitri both tried to gain access to the empress. The Tsarina refused to meet the two, but said they could explain to her what had happened in a letter. Purishkevich assisted them writing and left the city at ten on Sunday evening, heading to the front. Yusupov who also tried to leave the capital was stopped at the train station. Felix and Dmitri were placed under house arrest in the Sergei Palace. When an Uhlenhuth test showed the blood was of human origin they refused to tell where the body was.

On Monday morning 19 December,^[344] Rasputin’s beaver-fur coat and the body were discovered close to the river bank, 140 meters west of the bridge.^[345] The police and government officials arrived within 15 minutes. In the late afternoon it was decided the frozen corpse had to be taken to the desolate Chesmensky Almshouse. On the next day Makarov was fired, hindering a police investigation, as he had given Felix permission to leave for the Crimea. In the evening an autopsy on the thawed corpse by Kosorotov, a forensic expert, in a poorly lit mortuary room^[338][346] established that the cause of his instant death was the third bullet in his frontal lobe. (Kosorotov’s official report is still missing.^[347][348])

On 21 December Rasputin’s body was taken in a zinc coffin from the Chesmensky Almshouse^[350] to be buried in a corner on the property of Vyrubova ^[71] and adjacent to the palace.^[351] The burial at 8.45 in the morning was attended by the Imperial couple with their daughters, Vyrubova, her maid, and a few of Rasputin’s friends, such as Lili Dehn, Protopopov and Colonel Loman. It is not clear whether Rasputin’s two daughters were present, although Maria Rasputin claimed she was there.^[352][353] On the 22nd Irina’s father Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich wrote his brother to close the case. After a week and without an interrogation or a trial the Tsar sent Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, and Yusupov into exile.^[354][355] He ensured that Rasputin’s murder would never become a matter for the court to judge.^[356] On Saturday 24 December Dmitri left at two in the morning forQazvin in Persia, Felix for Rakitnoe, his estate near Belgorod; during the trip they were forbidden to talk, and also to send and receive telegrams. The police were ordered to stop their inquest.^[357][358]Neither Puriskevich, nor Sukhotin, nor Lazavert were punished at all. On Sunday, 25 December the Imperial family gathered with Rasputin’s widow and children at Anna Vyrubova.^[359]

Towards the February Revolution

On 27 December a hesitating Nikolai Golitsyn became the successor of Trepov, who was dismissed. Also Pavel Ignatieff, Alexander Makarov and Dmitry Shuvayev were replaced.

“In the seventeen months of the `Tsarina’s rule’, from September 1915 to February 1917, Russia had four Prime Ministers, five Ministers of the Interior, three Foreign Ministers, three War Ministers, two Ministers of Transport and four Ministers of Agriculture. This “ministerial leapfrog”, as it came to be known, not only removed competent men from power, but also disorganized the work of government since no one remained long enough in office to master their responsibilities.”^[256]

 

Authors do not agree what happened on the night of 10/11 March after the truck drove on its way north in the direction of Piskarevka in the Vyborgsky District.^[366] According to some authors, the truck broke down or the snow forced them to stop and the corpse was burned in a field.^{[367][368][369]}It is more likely the corpse was incinerated (between 3 and 7 in the morning) in the cauldrons of in the nearby boiler shop^{[370][371][372]} of the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, including the coffin, without leaving a single trace.^[373] Anything that had to do with Rasputin disappeared permanently.

Contemporary evidence

The official police report, with details gathered in two days, and stopped with the idea the murder was solved, is unconvincing. “Unfortunately, after the Soviets came to power, many of the documents that formed part of the official secret investigation have either been destroyed, or have disappeared.”^[374] What is left are the biased accounts of 19-year-old Maria Rasputin and the murderers, the 29-year-old Felix Yusupov and 47-year-old Vladimir Purishkevich, and others. The theatrical details of the murder given by Felix have never stood up to scrutiny. He changed his account several times; the statement given to the Petrograd police, the accounts given whilst in exile in the Crimea in 1917, his 1927 book, and finally the accounts given under oath to libel juries in 1934 and 1965 all differ to some extent.

“When asked [in 1965] by his attorney as to his motive killing Rasputin, he announced that he was motivated by his ‘distaste for Rasputin’s debaucheries.’ This represented a major shift from his argument since 1917 that emphasized that he was motivated solely by patriotism for Russia.”^[375]

Yusupov’s role in the murder has been called into question, being consumed by the thought that “not a single important event at the front was decided [during the war] without a preliminary conference” between Alexandra and Rasputin.^[376]

Concerning the details of the murder, not even the murderers could give consistent accounts. Differing opinions ranged from the colour of his ‘fantasia style’ shirt he wore, ^[139][377] how many times Yusupov went up the stairs, to whose weapon or car was used^[378] or even where he was finally wounded. Neither Purishkevich nor Yusupov mention the close quarter shot to the forehead.^[379] Purishkevich said he fired at Rasputin from behind at a distance of twenty paces and hit Rasputin in the back of the head. However, there is no photo of the rear of Rasputin’s head.^[380]

The caliber of the weapon that was used cannot be measured.^[381] “The hypothesis that the gunshot to the head was caused by an unjacketed bullet (of British origin) is not supported by the forensic findings or police forensic photographs.”^[382] Nelipa thinks it is not very likely a Webley .455 inchand an unjacketed bullet was used, because its impact would have been different.

According to the 1916 autopsy report by Dmitri Kosorotov, two bullets had passed through the body, so it was impossible to tell how many people were shooting and to determine whether only one kind of revolver was used. “Kosorotov never stated that different caliber weapons were responsible.”^[383]

British Secret Intelligence Service

There were two officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in Petrograd at the time. Lieutenant Oswald Rayner and Captain Stephen Alley, born in a Arkhangelskoye Palace near Moscow in 1876, where his father was one of the prince’s tutors. Rayner knew Yusupov since they had met at University of Oxford.^[384]

According to Sir Samuel Hoare, head of the British Intelligence Service in Russia: “If MI6 had a part in the killing of Rasputin, I would have expected to have found some trace of that”.^[385] “Hoare later came to the realization that in the days after the murder, Russian “rightists” had been trying to frame the British for the crime, and him in particular.^[386] Hoare, Rayner, and presumably the rest of the mission, knew of the plot …^[387] The archives of the British intelligence service (MI6) do not hold a single document linking Rayner, Hoare, or any other British agent or diplomat to the murder.”^[388]

Perception

Rasputin was more multifaceted and more significant than the myths that grew up around him: Rasputin was neither a monk nor a saint; he never belonged to any order or religious sect,^[393]He was a strannik, who impressed many people with his knowledge and ability to explain the Bible in an uncomplicated way.^[394] According to Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, he was a “starets in making.”^[152]

• According to Lili Dehn, Rasputin spoke an almost incomprehensible Siberian dialect.^[71]According to Andrei Amalrik, Rasputin “never produced a clear and understandable sentence. Always something was missing: the subject, the predicate or both.”^[395] According to Gerard Shelley he had a voice that once heard could never be forgotten.
• It was widely believed that Rasputin had a gift for curing bodily ailments. “In the mind of the Tsarina, Rasputin was closely associated with the health of her son, and the welfare of the monarchy.”^[121] According to G. Shelley he fitted in with their creed and plan for the regeneration and salvation of Russia.^[396]
• Brian Moynahan describes him as “a complex figure, intelligent, ambitious, idle, generous to a fault, spiritual, and – utterly – amoral.” He was an unusual mix, a muzhik, prophet and [at the end of his life] a party-goer.^[397] Many Russian cities have a strip club called Rasputin.^[398]
• “At first sight Rasputin looks like a symbol of decadence and obscurantism, of the complete corruption of the imperial court in which he was able to float to the top. And so he has usually been treated in the history books. The temptation to wallow in the rhetoric of the lower depths in describing him is almost irresistible. And yet the truth is somewhat simpler: Rasputin was only able to play the part he did because of the dispersal of authority which very much deepened after Stolypin‘s death, and because of the bewildered and unhappy isolation in which the royal couple found themselves.”^[399]
• “To the nobles and Nicholas’s family members, Rasputin was a dual character who could go straight from praying for the royal family to the brothel [bathhouse] down the street.”^[400]“Rasputin actually attributed half the propaganda against him to Grand Duke Nicholas.”^[401]The myth about his dirty fingernails was just part of the campaign of the aristocracy against him.^[74][402]
• For Victor Chernov Rasputin was an unwitting agent; people around Rasputin were interested in strategic information. The cases around Rubinstein and Manuilov were fabricated to harm Rasputin,^[403] who never cared much about money and gave it away as soon he had received it.^[404][405] He had built up a reputation of being at once a generous and a disinterested man. Besides alms Rasputin spent large sums in restaurants, cafes, music halls and in the streets …^[112]
• In Summer 1916 Anna Vyrubova, Lili Dehn and Rasputin went to Tobolsk, Verkhoturye and his home village. Most of the villagers were strongly against Rasputin’s returning to Petrograd. This he refused to do. Even the Tsarina was wondering why Rasputin came back to the capital.^[71]
• The conspirators, who did not accept a peasant being so close to the Imperial couple, had hoped that Rasputin’s removal would cause the Tsarina to retreat from political activities. They also believed that Rasputin was an agent of Germany, but he was more of a pacifist, and opposed to all wars.^{[246][406][407]} The troubles of the country were attributed to him and the Tsarina.
• Rasputin showed an interest in going to the front to bless the troops, but Grand Duke Nicholas, threatened to hang him if he dared to show up. It is possible the story got mixed up: GeneralMikhail Alekseev, the successor of Grand Duke Nicholas refused to meet him in Spring 1916.
• Rasputin came to be seen on both the left and the right as the root cause of Russia’s despair.^[408] On the left he was despised as an enemy of democracy, while for many on the right he was damaging the monarchy. His eventual murderers were nobles who believed his disappearance would strengthen the throne.^[409]
• According to Shelley in Britain most were convinced that Rasputin was a dangerous person and that it would help the cause of the Allies if he was forcibly removed.^[410]
• For the Russian Morning “The murder of Rasputin would change nothing, for he was never the reason for Russia’s problems, only one of the symptoms. The reason lay in Russia’s eternal “darkness born of irresponsibility and political arbitrariness.”^[411]
• In August 1917 the Russian poet Alexander Blok started to work for the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry for the Investigation of Illegal Acts by Ministers and Other Responsible Persons of the Czarist Regime,^[412] established on 4 March 1917, to transcribe the interrogations of those who knew Grigori Rasputin.^[413] Between 1924-1927 the report, “The fall of the Tsarist regime”, was published.^[414] In 1995 a missing part, the XIII section, a 500-page document, was on sale. It was bought by Mstislav Rostropovich on an auction and investigated by Edvard Radzinsky and ^[415] suggest that [some] accusations about Rasputin’s sexual dissoluteness were false.^[416]
• In March, 1918, the new Bolshevik government took the highly controversial decision to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, which enabled the new Communist state to take Russia out of the War, to the evident alarm of Britain and her allies.^[417]
• “The damage inflicted by Rasputin was enormous, but he tried to work for the benefit of Russia and the dynasty,” Gurko assessed “and not to harm them.”
• In Russia, Rasputin is seen by many ordinary people and clerics, among them the late Elder Nikolay Guryanov, as a righteous man.^[418] However, Alexy II of Moscow said that any attempt to make a saint of Rasputin, Josef Stalin and Ivan the Terrible would be “madness.”^[419][420]
• In 1920 Maria Rasputin and her husband Boris Soloviev fled to Vladivostok and they settled in France. In 1935 she moved to the United States, where she worked as a tiger-trainer in the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. In her three memoirs – it is hard to find out which one is the most reliable,^[421] probably the first one, certainly not the last one^[422] – she painted an almost saintly picture of her father, insisting that most of the negative stories were based on slander and the misinterpretation of facts by his enemies.

Persistent errors

• The date of Rasputin’s death is sometimes recorded as being 16 December 1916 (Old Style) or 13 days later on 29 December 1916 using New Style,^{[note 18]} but the murderers left after midnight for Rasputin’s apartment, when his guards were gone. The initial attempts to kill Rasputin began on the 17th and it is supposed he died within between 3:00 and 4:00 am.^[423]
• There was alcohol in his body, but no water found in his lungs^[424][425] and no cyanide in his stomach according to Kosorotov.^{[426][427][428]} Maria Rasputin asserts that her father did not like sweet things and avoided pastry;^[429] after the attack by Guseva, he suffered from hyperacidity and avoided anything with sugar.^[430] She and Simanovitch, doubted he was poisoned at all.^{[110][431][432]}
• Also the “drowning story” became a fixed part of the legend, but Rasputin was already dead when thrown into the water.^[433]“There is no evidence that Rasputin swallowed water after being pushed into the Neva or that he had freed his arm to make the sign of the cross.”^[434]
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated on Sunday, 28 June 1914 (N.S.); Rasputin was attacked in his home village two weeks later on Sunday, 12 July (N.S.) or 29 June 1914 (O.S.), so it is not “one of the great coincidences of history”.^[435]

In popular culture

 

After his death the memoirs of those who knew Rasputin became a mini-industry. The basement where he died is a tourist attraction. Numerous film and stage productions have been based on his life. He has appeared as a fictionalized version of himself in numerous other media, as well as having several beverages named after him. More than 150 items on Rasputin like bands, comics and other products bear his name.

• In a lost silent film, The Fall of the Romanovs (1917), Iliodor played himself.
• Rasputin and the Empress is a 1932 film about Imperial Russia. The film’s inaccurate portrayal of Prince Felix and Irina Yusupov as Prince Chegodieff and Princess Natasha caused a major lawsuit against MGM.
• Rasputin’s End (1958) is an opera in three acts; (libretto by Stephen Spender, music by Nicolas Nabokov).
• Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966) is a horror film with Christopher Lee as Rasputin.
• I Killed Rasputin (1967) a biographical film directed by Robert Hossein. Gert Fröbe stars as the main subject, Grigori Rasputin.
• Tom Baker turned in a chilling yet sympathetic performance as Rasputin in the 1971 filmNicholas and Alexandra.
• In 1975 Elem Klimov finished a film about Rasputin called Agony. The road to screening took him nine years and many rewrites, still the script has most of the myths and legends. The final edit was not released in the USSR until 1985, due to suppressive measures partly because of itsorgy scenes and partly because of its relatively nuanced portrait of Tsar Nicholas II.^[436]
• The disco single “Rasputin” (1978) by the German-based pop and disco group Boney Mreferences Rasputin’s alleged affair with Alexandra Fyodorovna. The tune is based on the Turkish song “Kâtibim“. This song was later covered by the band Turisas.
• Rasputin, an opera, was written by Jay Reise on his own libretto on request of New York City Opera and was devoted to Beverly Sills. The world premiere took place on the 17th September 1988.
• Rasputin was portrayed by Alan Rickman in the 1996 HBO biographical television film “Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny“.
• Rasputin was depicted as the vengeful antagonist in the 1997 American animated filmAnastasia, in which his speaking voice was performed by Christopher Lloyd and his singing voice by Jim Cummings.
• In 2003, Einojuhani Rautavaara composed Rasputin, an opera in three acts.
• In 2011 Josée Dayan directed a French-Russian produced a film on Rasputin for television called Raspoutine starring Gérard Depardieu in the role of Rasputin and Vladimir Mashkov as Nicholas II
• Rasputin was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives, first aired on 1 January 2013.^[437]
• Rasputin is the subject of a musical theatre production, Ripples to Revolution, by Peter Karrie^[438]
• With the aim of casting Leonardo DiCaprio as Rasputin, Warner Bros. have bought the rights to a screenplay by Jason Hall.^[439]
• The Russian series Grigorii R, directed by Andrey Malyukov, began on Russian TV on 27 October 2014 with Vladimir Mashkov as Rasputin and Andrey Smolyakov as the investigator Smitten.^[440][441]

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

• Short and correct biography in Saint Petersburg Encyclopaedia
• WARTS AND ALL by Robert K. Massie, published: April 18, 1982 in the New York Times.
• Rasputin: Between Virtue & Sin. Short documentary by Russian TV
• Photographs and films about Grigorii Yefimovich Rasputin
• The Alexander Palace Time Machine Bios-Rasputin – bio of Rasputin
• The Murder of Rasputin
• BBC’s Rasputin murder reconstruction
• In Summer 1915 Grigori Efimovich Rasputin published My Ideas and Thoughts
• Documentary: Last of the Tsars (II) – The shadow of Rasputin
• Rare pictures on Getty Images
• Omolenko
• Douglas Smith on Rasputin and his role in Russian History