The Legend of Rasputin

Podcast Transcript

In the early 20th century, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, welcomed a homeless monk into their home.

As this scruff, unkempt-looking man became closer to the royal family, he seemingly performed miracles, predicted the future, and cured illnesses.

He starts to gain influence over the Imperial Family…a bit too much influence for some.

So, a group of nobles decided that he needed to be eliminated. However, that proved to be much easier said than done.

Learn about Rasputin, the magical man who wouldn’t die, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Rasputin was one of the most infamous figures in all of Russian History. The fact that I can mention his last name and you probably have heard of him over 100 years after his death is a testament to his influence.

Rasputin was born Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin in the Siberian village of Pokroskoye in January 1869.

His parents were poor peasants, so Rasputin never received a formal education and was illiterate until adulthood.

Records suggest that Rasputin was troublesome in his youth, with local archives indicating that he was disrespectful to authority and was involved in drinking and petty theft.

Other than this, very little is known about his early life.

We do know that in February 1887, Rasputin married a woman named Praskovya Dubrovina, and the couple had seven children together.

His wife is usually overlooked in Rasputin’s story, but she was devoted to her husband both during and after his rise to notoriety.

In 1897, Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to the St. Nicholas Monastery in the Russian town of Verkhoturye.

The visit supposedly “transformed” him.

He spent multiple months at the Monastery, and when he went back home to his village, Rasputin was a changed man.

He was now behaving differently. Looking more disheveled, he would no longer eat meat or drink alcohol, and started to pray and sing with more passion.

Rasputin would now often leave his home and family for months or years at a time, becoming a strannik, which is Russian for a pilgrim.

His travels led him to gain a cult-like following

He would often hold secret prayer meetings with other peasants in his home village.

These meetings were considered suspicious by other villagers and the village priest. This was because of rumors involving his relationship with the women of the group and their potentially scandalous rituals.

Rasputin’s popularity grew throughout Siberia in the early 1900s and he gained a reputation for helping people solve their spiritual crises.

However, this reputation was still tainted by rumors involving sexual conduct with the women in his sect.

Nonetheless, despite the rumors surrounding him, local Siberian religious leaders recommended that Rasputin travel to Saint Petersburg and join the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

Upon arrival in Saint Petersburg, Rasputin quickly made connections with the local aristocracy. His natural charisma during religious discussions led many of the upper-class Russians becoming early followers.

At the time, many nobles were curious about supernatural practices.

Rasputin, having connections to the occult and practicing spiritual beliefs, was fascinating to these people.

Tsar Nicholas II and Rasputin met in November 1905. This meeting was clearly important to Nicholas as he took the time to log this interaction in his personal diary.

Later, in July and October 1906, the Tsar and Rasputin met again. During the July meeting, Rasputin met Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra. In the October meeting he was introduced to the couple’s children.

The reason the couple were interested in Rasputin was because of his reputation as a healer.

They believed Rasputin could perform miracles and as their son, Prince Alexei, had haemophilia, they were desperate to find a cure.

Haemophilia is a disorder where a person’s blood doesn’t clot correctly, which was common amongst royal families in Europe.

This was a particularly dangerous disease, as if someone received something as simple as a cut or a bruise, there is a potential that they could bleed to death.

Tsarina Alexandra grew especially close to Rasputin.

This likely first began in 1907 when Rasputin prayed over Alexei while he was suffering from an internal hemorrhage. It is said that the next morning, the prince had recovered.

Then, in 1912, Alexei developed a hemorrhage in his thigh. The boy was close to death, and Alexendra sent a telegram to Rasputin to pray to save her son.

Rasputin assured her that her son would not die, and his bleeding stopped.

Doctors in Saint Petersburg were shocked by the boy’s recovery, stating that there was no medical reason that the boy should’ve survived.

They considered it….. a miracle.

Historians are unsure of how or why Alexei recovered. There are a few theories, but regardless of what actually happened, it only increased the legend of Rasputin.

Because of his supposed healing powers, Rasputin began to gain more status and power within Russia.

Tsar Nicholas appointed Rasputin to the position of lampadnik or royal lamplighter. The position required him to keep the flames lit before the religious icons in the royal palace.

The job doesn’t sound the most impressive on the surface, but the position gave Rasputin near constant access to the imperial family.

His presence in the royal palace allowed him to expand his influence.

He began to use his position to promote his personal followers in the Russian court.

Additionally, Alexandra grew even closer to Rasputin and sought his guidance on spiritual and political matters.

This influence over the Tsar and his family was deemed dangerous, as less-than-qualified individuals would be placed into positions over qualified candidates, and these decisions led to negative consequences for the royal family.

His influence over the Imperial Family, along with his other controversial activities with his followers, led to Rasputin earning enemies.

Before I get into his enemies, I should list some of Rasputin’s Controversies, and trust me, there were a lot.

To start, his political enemies accused him of religious heresy or defying the fundamental beliefs of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The clergy back in his home village began to call him a heretic and claimed he spread false doctrines.

His most famous controversial exploits revolve around his sexual relationships and his participation in drunken revels.

They accused him of rape, both of his female followers and the Tsar’s daughters.

Rasputin was also accused of having an affair with Tsarina Alexandra. There has been no evidence to support this, but this was the rumor at court.

There is evidence that shows that Rasputin would frequently visit brothels.

Rasputin would preach that physical contact with him would purify those who participated. Therefore, he would engage in many extramarital affairs with prostitutes and high-society ladies.

Another major controversy surrounding Rasputin occurred during World War I.

The First World War, along with a few other confounding variables, caused the Russian Economy to tank.

However, much of this blame fell on Alexandra, whom Nicholas had left in charge of the country while he was off with the army, and by association, Rasputin.

Alexandra was a German Princess before she married Nicholas, and was placed in charge of Russia, which was fighting Germany. This immediately made her look suspicious. What made it worse was that a haggard, drunken wizard was influencing her.

Rasputin was painted as a puppet master, controlling the ministers and the Imperial family. He was accused of working with the Germans, committing treason, and even starting a cholera outbreak.

It should come as no surprise, given all the rumors swirling around him and his proximity to the royal family, that many influential Russians wanted him gone.

The first assassination attempt against him occurred in July 1914. A peasant woman, Khioniya Guseva, stabbed Rasputin in the stomach in his home village.

Rasputin recovered from the wound after undergoing surgery.

Guseva claimed that she had stabbed Rasputin after reading about him in the papers. She claimed she saw him as the anti-Christ and a false prophet.

She was found not responsible for the crime due to insanity, but it is believed that an enemy of Rasputin, a priest named Iliodor, ordered the hit.

However, Ilioder fled the country before being questioned.

This first failed assassination attempt didn’t stop the forces in Russia who wanted Rasputin dead.

A group of three nobles, a politician named Vladimer Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Prince Felix Yusupov, next came up with an assassination plot.

The trio planned on killing Rasputin on December 30, 1916.

The murder was set to take place in the basement of Moika Palace, which was the home of Prince Yusupov.

The hope was that by killing Rasputin, the Russian Monarchy would restore its reputation by bringing the Tsar back to St Petersburg and governing the country.

Rasputin was lured to the palace under the guise of meeting Yusupov’s wife.

When he arrived, Rasputin was served cakes. These cakes were laced with potassium cyanide.

Let me emphasize, these cakes were laced with enough of the poison to have killed an entire monastery of monks. It easily should’ve killed Rasputin.

Yet he lived.

Shocked, the Prince poured wine and mixed potassium cyanide into a glass. This should’ve made him unconscious almost instantly.

Instead, Rasputin sipped the beverage.

He drank a second glass.

Than a third.

The assassins were shocked. He drank all the cyanide and was fine.

What were the assassins to do?

Well, the next answer was to shoot him.

The Prince used a revolver and shot Rasputin three times.

One shot was said to have hit near his heart.

Surely, this plus the poison would be enough to kill him.

Well, no.

Rasputin stood up and attacked Yusupov.

It is said that Yusupov ran off, and Rasputin still had the energy to chase him.

Eventually, the group entered the courtyard, and Rasputin was shot four more times.

Finally, he collapsed.

The assassins wrapped his body in a piece of linen and threw it into the frozen river.

According to the legend surrounding the story, Rasputin was killed not by poison or gunshot, but by drowning.

While this story added to the legend of Rasputin, much of the narrative is likely fabricated.

When you look at forensic evidence, Rasputin has a gunshot wound in his forehead.

This likely means he was dead before being dropped in the river, despite claims that he died by drowning.

The photograph also shows that Rasputin was shot at closer range, not in a courtyard.

His daughter also claimed that he disliked sweet foods, so he might never have eaten the cake.

That, coupled with no traces of poison being found in his system, leaves forensic experts to believe that the poisoning claims were false as well.

It is far more likely that there was a much simpler story. Rasputin was invited to the palace and was simply shot on arrival.

All the other events that evening have likely been embellished.

Though the details of his murder were likely fabricated, the news of his death spread quickly to the public.

The aristocrats who murdered Rasputin did not receive the praise they expected. While the elite applauded the trio’s actions, the Tsar and peasants were not all pleased.

Tsar Nicholas banished the trio from the court.

The Peasants mourned Rasputin, with many seeing his murder as an example of the oppression of the nobility by murdering a member of the working class.

Additionally, the assassin’s plans failed to reinstate the power and prestige of the monarchy.

Three months after the murder, the Tsar abdicated in March 1917 during the Communist Revolution. The Romanov rule ended, and eventually, the entire family was wiped out.

In many ways, Rasputin, through the weakening of the royal family, paved the way for the Russian Revolution.

While much of what people know about Rasputin is likely myth, his influence on the royal family most certainly was not. By taking advantage of the Tsarina’s concern for her son, Rasputin managed to worm his way into a position of influence which ultimately shaped the history of Russia.