Rasputin

Rasputin was a Russian mystic and holy man who lived from 1869 to 1916. He's best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia. He gained considerable influence in the final years of the Russian Empire.
This episode talks about Rasputin’s life, and explores how he became so influential to the Russian Imperial Family, and gets into the rumors - and truth - about his death.

Transcript

Rasputin

Hello everyone! I’m going to be talking about Rasputin today. As you might expect, there’s a lot of Russian words to pronounce in this episode. I do not speak Russian. As usual, I promise that I will do my best with my pronunciation. Please know that any mistakes I make aren’t due to a lack of effect or respect on my part. That being said, there’s a lot to this story, so I’m going to get right to it.

His full name is Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, but he’s known to history as Rasputin, and that’s how I’ll be referring to him from here on. He was born December 30, 1869 to a family of peasants in Siberia, Russia.

Rasputin’s early life is murky. His father was a farmer and church elder who married Rasputin's mother in 1863. He also worked as a government courier, ferrying people and goods between towns. The couple had seven other children, all of whom died in infancy and early childhood. There’s talk that there may have been a ninth child, but according to Wikipedia, quote ‘the records that have survived do not permit us to say more than that’ unquote.

Likee I said, Rasputin’s early life is murky, but historians do agree that like most Siberian peasants, he wasn’t formally educated and was illiterate into adulthood. Local records in the archives suggest that he had an unruly youth, possibly involving drinking, small thefts, and disrespect for local authorities. But as on-brand as this sounds for Rasputin, this is all speculation.

In 1886, Rasputin met a peasant girl named Praskovya Dubrovina. They got married in February 1887. Praskovya remained in Siberia throughout Rasputin's later travels and rise to prominence, and remained devoted to him until his death. The couple would have seven children, though only three survived to adulthood: Dmitry who was born in 1895, Maria who was born in 1898, and Varvara who was born in 1900.

In 1897, Rasputin developed a renewed interest in religion and left Siberia to go on a pilgrimage. His reasons for this are unclear. There are stories though: some say he left to escape punishment for horse theft. Others say that he had a vision of the Virgin Mary or of St. Simeon of Verkhoturye.

Whatever reason he had for leaving, Rasputin left his life. He was 28 years old, had been married for ten years, had an infant son and another child on the way. He left all of that behind.

This wasn’t the first time Rasputin had gone on pilgrimage. He’d gone on shorter pilgrimages to other monasteries before, but this time he went to the St. Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye, and it changed him.

There, he met and was quote ‘profoundly humbled’ unquote by a starets, which means elder, known as Makary.

Rasputin is said to have spent several months at this monastery, and it’s thought that this is where he learned to read and write.

However, Rasputin later criticized life there, saying monastic life as too coercive. He returned to Siberia a changed man, looking disheveled and behaving differently. He became vegetarian, swore off alcohol, and prayed and sang a lot more than he had in the past.

Rasputin spent the years that followed as a strannik, which is a holy wanderer or pilgrim. He would leave Siberia for months or even years at a time and wander the country, visiting different holy sites.

By the early 1900s, Rasputin had developed a small circle of followers, mostly family members and other local peasants. They prayed with him on Sundays and other holy days when he was in Siberia.

Rasputin, his wife, and children were living at his father’s house. Rasputin built a chapel in the root cellar, and the group held secret prayer meetings there. The village priest and other villagers didn’t like this at all, it made them suspicious. It didn’t help that there were all kinds of rumors about what was going on: that female followers were ceremonially washing Rasputin before each meeting, that the group sang strange songs, and even that Rasputin had joined the Khlysty, a religious sect with ecstatic rituals that were said to include things like self-flagellation. But investigations failed to establish that Rasputin was ever of member of this sect. Like most things said about Rasputin, the rumors that he was a Khlyst appear to have been unfounded.

Word of Rasputin's activities and his charisma began to spread during the early 1900s. At some point during 1904 or 1905, he traveled to the city of Kazan, where he acquired a reputation as a wise starets who could help people resolve their spiritual crisis and anxieties. Despite rumors that Rasputin was sleeping with his female followers, he made a favorable impression on several local religious leaders. Among these were Archimandrite Andrei (an archimandrite is the head of a large monastery or group of monasteries in the Orthodox Church) and Bishop Chrysthanos, who gave Rasputin a letter of recommendation to Bishop Sergei, the rector of the theological seminary at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, and arranged for him to travel to Saint Petersburg, the capital of Russia.

Ok … so Rasputin is about to go to Saint Petersburg, so this is a great stopping point. I’m going to leave Rasputin on his travels for a moment, and talk about what was going on in Saint Petersberg at this time, so that we’re all on the same page when Rasputin gets there.

At this time in history, Russia was a Monarchy. It was ruled by the Romanov dynasty, who had been ruling Russia for almost 3 centuries. The Romanovs were a really big deal, and at this time, the Russian Imperial family was the most wealthy of royal families. Russians called their king ‘tsar’, and the Tsar that was ruling Russia at this time was named Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, or Nikolai II. From now on, I’m just going to call him Nikolai. Nikolai was married to Alexandra Feodorovna, and they had 5 children. Four daughters and a son: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and their youngest, son Alexei. Nikolai and Alexandra were one of those rare royal marriages in that they seemed to be a true love match, which I love that for them. They were also very close to their children, and were happy as a family, especially when Alexei was born, as they now had a male heir. I love all of that for them, too! I’m telling you all of this, because while the Romanovs were happy, their people, the people of Russia, were not. This is very over-simplified, but the Russian people wanted social change, and Nikolai did not. And it seemed that the more the Russian people wanted change, the more stubborn Nikolai became about keeping things the same, and in fact, kind of rolled back some of the positive changes that *had* been enacted, which just angered the Russian people. The Russian people also didn’t really like their Tsarina Alexandra. She was from Hesse, which was a grand duchy of the German Empire, and the Russian people were suspicious of her because of that, they felt that her loyalty was with Germany, not Russia.

So the Romanovs were happy, but very isolated from their people at this time. This was partly by design of the system, which makes sense, but there was also extra separation between the Russian people and their Tsar and Tsarina because … well, their people didn’t like them very much. I don’t know if ‘insulated’ is the correct word to use here, but it’s the one that comes to mind. I feel like it’s appropriate. The Imperial family was kept separate from their people more than normal.

So that’s what was the situation in Saint Petersburg was when Rasputin got there. Once there, he was introduced to church leaders, including Archimandrite Theofan, who was the inspector of the theological seminary. He was well-connected in Saint Petersburg society, and later served as confessor to the imperial family. Theofan was so impressed with Rasputin that he invited him to stay in his home. He would go on to become one of Rasputin's most important friends in Saint Petersburg, and even helped him get into many of the influential salons. This is where the local aristocracy gathered for religious discussions. It was through these meetings that Rasputin got some of his early and influential followers.

During this time, alternative religious movements like spiritualism and theosophy had become popular among Russia’s aristocracy. Many of them were very curious about the occult and the supernatural. Rasputin's ideas and quote ‘strange manners’ unquote made him the subject of intense curiosity among the elite of Saint Petersburg.

Rasputin formed friendships with several members of the aristocracy, including the wives of cousins of Nikolai, named Militsa and Anastasia of Montenegro, who were known as the ‘Black Princesses’. Militsa and Anastasia were instrumental in introducing Rasputin to the tsar and his family.

Rasputin first met Nikolai on November 1, 1905 at the Peterhof Palace. Nikolai recorded this event in his diary, writing that he and Alexandra had ‘made the acquaintance of a man of God – Grigory, from Tobolsk province’.

Rasputin returned to Siberia shortly after this meeting, and didn’t return to Saint Petersburg until the next year. When he did return, he sent Nikolai a telegram asking to present him with an icon of St. Simeon of Verkhoturye. He met with Nikolai and Alexandra on July 18, and again in October, which is when Rasputin met their children.

Something that I haven’t mentioned yet was that Nikolai and Alexandra’s son, the Tsesarevich Alexei, had the blood condition hemophilia. This is a problem with the blood, where it doesn’t clot properly. This condition is fairly treatable now, but at this time it was very serious. Normal bumps and bruises could be life-threatening, the person could bleed out. Because of this condition, doctors told Nikolai and Alexandra that Alexei wasn’t expected to live to adulthood. Because of the weirdness of everything going on at the Russian Imperial court that I talked about earlier, Nikolai and Alexandra decided to keep Alexei’s condition a secret from almost everyone.

This is all important, because at some point, Nikolai and Alexandra became convinced that Rasputin possessed miraculous powers to heal Alexei, especially Alexandra. Much of the influence Rasputin had with the imperial family came from their belief that he had on several occasions eased Alexei's pain and stopped his bleeding.

According to historians, Alexandra was especially attached to Rasputin, believing he could heal her son's affliction, and Rasputin would become quote ‘an indispensable member of the royal entourage’ unquote.

It’s unclear when Rasputin first learned of Alexei's hemophilia, or when he first acted as a healer for him. It’s thought that he may have known as early as October of 1906. Rasputin was summoned by Alexandra to pray for Alexei when he had an internal hemorrhage in the spring of 1907. Alexei recovered the next morning. Shortly after this, Alexandra's friend Anna Vyrubova became convinced that Rasputin had miraculous powers and became one of his most influential advocates.

If this was all there was to Rasputin, we probably wouldn’t still be talking about him today. But alongside this ‘healing’, Rasputin exhibited odd behavior. In November 1906, Rasputin suddenly paid a visit to the Baratynsky family who lived in Kazan and told them he could read people's minds. At the very beginning of dinner, some soup was about to be served, when Rasputin pulled out a comb, and began to run it through his oily hair. The soup was cleared away, and they waited for him to finish combing his hair.

The imperial family's belief in Rasputin's healing powers brought him a lot of status and power at court. Nikolai appointed Rasputin as his lamplighter. He was responsible for keeping the lamps lit before religious icons in the palace. This gained him regular access to the palace and imperial family.

By November 1906, Rasputin had become close enough to ask a special favor of the tsar: that he be permitted to change his last name to Rasputin-Noviy, which means ‘Rasputin-New’. Nikolai granted his request and the name change was put through. This suggests that Rasputin already had Nikolai’s favor. Rasputin would use his position to full effect, accepting bribes and favors from admirers and working to expand his influence.

Alexei and his sisters were also taught to view Rasputin as "our friend", and to confide in him. In the autumn of 1907, their aunt was escorted to the nursery by Nikolai to meet Rasputin. ‘All the children seemed to like him,’ she recalled. ‘They were completely at ease with him.’

Opposition to Rasputin's influence grew within the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1907, the local clergy in Siberia denounced Rasputin as a heretic, and the Bishop of Tobolsk launched an inquest into his activities, accusing him of ‘spreading false doctrines’. In Saint Petersburg, Rasputin faced opposition from even the Prime Minister, and the tsar's secret police. The Prime Minister confronted Nickolai about Rasputin’s behavior, but was unsuccessful in reining in Rasputin's influence or having him exiled from Saint Petersburg.

Rasputin's friendship with the Imperial children was evident in the messages he sent to them. ‘My Dear Pearl M!’ Rasputin wrote to nine-year-old Maria in one telegram in 1908. ‘Tell me how you talked with the sea, with nature! I miss your simple soul. We will see each other soon! A big kiss.’ In a second telegram, Rasputin told her, ‘My Dear M! My Little Friend! May the Lord help you to carry your cross with wisdom and joy in Christ. This world is like the day, look it's already evening. So it is with the cares of the world.’

These seem like kind, almost even wholesome messages to the royal children. But outside of the Imperial court, Rasputin engaged in wild behavior. He preached that physical contact between him and others purified them, he engaged in drunken exploits, and had extramarital affairs with a wide range of women from all levels of society. The word debauchery comes to mind. Rumors spread about Rasputin’s inappropriate behavior. He was even accused of assault, and his good friend Theofan became convinced that Rasputin was a danger to the monarchy.

In February 1909, Rasputin was still sending kind, wholesome sounding messages to the Imperial children. He sent all of them a telegram, advising them to, ‘Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework.’

In 1910, one of the girls' governesses, Sofia, was horrified when Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery while the four girls were in their nightgowns. This was highly inappropriate for princesses, and Sofia wanted Rasputin barred from the nurseries. In response to her complaints, Nikolai asked Rasputin to end his nursery visits. Alexandra eventually had Sofia fired.

During the summer of 1912, Alexei was jolted in a carriage, and got a hemorrhage in his thigh. Alexei was in severe pain, and delirious with fever, and seemed close to death. Alexandra was desperate, and had a telegram sent to Rasputin in Siberia, asking him to pray for Alexei. Rasputin wrote back quickly, telling Alexandra: ‘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.’ The next morning, Alexei's condition was unchanged, but Alexandra was encouraged by the message from Rasputin, and was hopeful that he would survive. Alexei’s bleeding stopped the next day. One of the doctors who attended Alexei, admitted that quote ‘the recovery was wholly inexplicable from a medical point of view.’ Sidenote: Far be it from me to poor cold water on a good story, but … that’s what I’m about to do here. There are many theories as to how or why this happened, but in my opinion, the most likely explanation is this: Aspirin had just been invented, and was used heavily by a lot of doctors of the time, even though they didn’t really fully understand it yet. Aspirin, something that thins blood, would be the exact wrong thing to give someone with hemophilia who’s bleeding, as it would just make the bleeding worse. Doctors didn’t know this at the time. I don’t believe Rasputin knew this either. By following Rasputin’s advice to quote ‘not let the doctors bother Alexi too much’, this meant that Alexi wasn’t given Aspirin. This allowed Alexi to stop bleeding naturally, and made Alexi’s parents think Rasputin had performed a miracle.

Later, one of Alexi’s doctors would say ‘Rasputin would come in, walk up to the patient, look at him, and spit. The bleeding would stop in no time … How could the empress not trust Rasputin after that?’ I mean … that’s really gross, but when it’s put it like that, how can you argue, right?

Another of the nursery governesses, Maria, claimed in the spring of 1910 that she was sexually assaulted by Rasputin. Maria had at first been a follower of Rasputin, but later was disillusioned by him. Alexandra refused to believe her, and said that quote ‘everything Rasputin does is holy’ unquote. Maria was dismissed from her job in 1913.

The talk around Rasputin got even more dark than it had already been. It was whispered that Rasputin had seduced not only Alexandra but also the four princesses. Pornographic cartoons also circulated that depicted Rasputin with Alexandra. Nikolai had enough, and ordered Rasputin to leave Saint Petersburg for the time being. This really upset Alexandra. Rasputin went on a pilgrimage.

Then World War I broke out. Nikolai took personal command of his forces and went to the troops on the front, leaving Alexandra in charge of Russia's internal affairs. Rasputin served as her personal advisor, which I don’t think was a good idea. Rasputin’s influence was all-encompassing, ranging from the appointment of church officials, to even the selection of cabinet ministers. Rasputin even occasionally intervened in military matters. To quote one of my sources: ‘Though supporting no particular political group, Rasputin was a strong opponent of anyone opposing the autocracy or himself.’ Russia’s economy declined, and most people blamed Alexandra and Rasputin.

On July 12, 1914, a peasant woman attempted to assassinate Rasputin by stabbing him in the stomach outside his home in Siberia. Rasputin was seriously wounded. He almost died, but survived. The woman who stabbed Rasputin was a follower of a rival priest. Rasputin and the Russian police believed that this rival priest was behind this assassination attempt.

Then, in December of 1916, a group of Russian nobles led by Vladimir Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Prince Felix Yusupov decided that Rasputin's influence over Alexandra threatened the Russian Empire. They came up with a plan to kill Rasputin.

Early in the morning of December 30, 1916, Rasputin was killed at the home of Prince Yusupov. He is said to have died of three gunshot wounds, one of which was a close-range shot to his forehead.

Little is certain about his death beyond this, and the circumstances of his death have been the subject of wide speculation. But, the story that Yusupov later recounted in his memoirs has become the most frequently told version of events, and this is the one I’m going to tell you.

According to Yusupov's account, Rasputin was invited to his palace shortly after midnight, and ushered into the basement. Yusupov offered Rasputin tea and cakes which had been laced with cyanide. After initially refusing the cakes, Rasputin began to eat them, and to Yusupov's surprise, appeared unaffected by the poison. Rasputin then asked for some wine and drank three glasses. This wine had also been poisoned, but Rasputin still showed no sign of distress. At around 2:30 am, Yusupov excused himself to go upstairs, where his fellow conspirators were waiting. He took a revolver from Pavlovich, then returned to the basement and told Rasputin that he'd quote ‘better look at the crucifix and say a prayer’, then shot him once in the chest. The conspirators then drove to Rasputin's apartment, with one of them wearing Rasputin's coat and hat in an attempt to make it look as though Rasputin had returned home that night.

Upon returning to his palace, Yusupov went back to the basement to ensure that Rasputin was dead. Suddenly, Rasputin jumped up and attacked Yusupov, who managed to free himself, and fled upstairs. Rasputin followed Yusupov into the palace's court, where he was shot. Rasputin collapsed into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped his body in cloth, drove it to the Petrovsky Bridge and dropped it into the Little Nevka river.

News of Rasputin's murder spread quickly, even before his body was found. One of the conspirators, Vladimir, spoke openly about the murder to two soldiers and to a policeman who was investigating reports of shots shortly after the event, but urged them not to tell anyone else. An investigation was launched the next morning. The Stock Exchange Gazette ran a report of Rasputin's death quote ‘after a party in one of the most aristocratic homes in the center of the city’ unquote on the afternoon of December 30, 1916.

After two workmen discovered blood on the railing of the Petrovsky Bridge and a boot on the ice below, police began searching the area. Rasputin's body was found under the river ice on January 1. Dmitry Kosorotov, the city's senior autopsy surgeon, examined the body. His report was lost, but he later stated that Rasputin's body had shown signs of severe trauma, including three gunshot wounds (one at close range to the forehead), a slice wound to his left side and other injuries, many of which Kosorotov felt had been sustained post-mortem. Kosorotov found a single bullet in Rasputin's body but stated that it was too badly deformed and of a type too widely used to trace. He found no evidence that Rasputin had been poisoned. Kosorotov found no water in Rasputin's lungs, which means that reports that Rasputin had been thrown into the water alive were incorrect.

In a modern analysis of Rasputin's death, published on the 100th anniversary of the event, Dr Carolyn Harris of the University of Toronto notes that the actual circumstances were apparently less dramatic than Yusupov's account. Rasputin's daughter recorded that her father disliked sweet food, and would not have eaten the supposedly poisoned cakes. An autopsy account by the official surgeon involved has no record of poisoning or drowning but records death by a single bullet fired into the head at close range

The Imperial family was upset by Rasputin’s death. It was reported that the four grand duchesses appeared quote "cold and visibly terribly upset" unquote by Rasputin's death and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news.

Rasputin was buried on January 2 at a small church. The funeral was attended only by the imperial family and a few of their close friends. He was buried with an icon signed on its reverse side by the grand duchesses and their mother. Rasputin's wife, mistress, and children were not invited, although his daughters met with the imperial family later that day. The imperial family planned to build a church over Rasputin's grave site. However, Rasputin’s body was exhumed and burned by some soldiers on the orders of Alexander Kerensky shortly after Nikolai abdicated the throne in March of 1917, so that his grave would not become a rallying point for supporters of the old regime. (That’s a story for another time, friends.)

And that’s the story of Rasputin, who’s gone down in history as ‘The Mad Monk’. I think most of the stories about him exaggerate how wild he was. But I do think there’s some truth to it all, and it’s a good example of how someone can have a bit of a cult of personality built around them during stressful times.

In my opinion, Rasputin wasn’t really a healer, but I don’t think he was really a boogeyman either. I think he was just someone that the Imperial family clung to hoping he’d be able to save their sick son. Did he take advantage of this faith they had in him? Yeah, I think he did. This is another one of those ‘if I had a time machine, I’d go back and just observe, so I could see what really happened’ situations. I think the facts of Rasputin’s life are interesting enough even without the embellishment and exaggeration of rumors and myths.

Here are some of the sources I used for this episode:

PBS.org / Britannica / Smithsonianmag.com / Wikipedia