Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, is one of the most famous, most written about, and most reviled men in history; but just how did this poor, uneducated, intinerant ‘mad’ monk come to hold sway at the Imperial Court of the Tsar of all the Russias. How was he able to wield such power, was he truly a mystic or a manipulative charlatan, and just why was he murdered.

The Mad Monk

Rasputin was born into a peasant family in the village of Pokrovskoye in Siberia on 22 January, 1869. He was one of three children but he lost both his brother and sister to tragic accidents. This early loss effected him greatly, and it has been suggested that his magical powers derived from these experiences, and he was to name two of his own children after his much lamented siblings. People who knew him from childhood have often said that he displayed signs of having supernatural powers from an early age. One story tells how he was able to identify the man who had stolen a horse from his father simply by pointing him out in a crowd. He was later proved to be right. It was also said that he had saved a child from drowning; but because he had no formal schooling, and no proper job, there is little documented proof of his time in the village, and most of the evidence we have for his life there is anecdotal. At the age of 18, he entered the Monastery of Verkhoturya, perhaps to do penance for a crime he had committed, whilst in the confines of the Monastery he had visions, and a dialogue with God, who told him he must live the life of an intinerant monk, that he was destined to be a religious mystic. It was long after rumoured that he had in fact fallen under the spell of the Khlysty, a Christian sect of flagellants who whipped themselves into an orgiastic frenzy and mixed fervent devotion and physical exhaustion with acute sexual ecstasy. Upon leaving the Monastery he was to marry Praskovia Dubrovina by whom he was to have 2 children, and was to abandon soon after.

Despite his wanderings, however, he was to remain a frequent visitor to his home village and was to often return to his wife. He also enjoyed the company of his children and was fondly remembered by them. In 1901, he travelled abroad, visiting Greece, and going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. By 1903, he was in the Russian capital of St Petersburg. During his travels he had acquired the reputation as a holy man who could heal by prayer and touch alone. His powers had even come to the attention of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Unknown to most, though Rasputin seemed to be aware of it, the young heir to the throne, the Tsarevich Alexei, suffered from haemophilia, a disease he had inherited from his great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s family, where if injured the blood does not clot and the patient can die of internal bleeding. The doctors had no means of treating this and the Imperial Family were at a loss at what to do. In her desparation the Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna turned to a friend , Anna Vyburova, a spiritualist, who told her of a Siberian peasant, a holy man, in St Petersburg who had the power to heal. Rasputin arrived at the Imperial Palace before he was even sent for. His appearance at Court caused quite a furore. The doctors immediately objected to the presence of this supposed mystic, this witch-doctor, and the Tsar was sceptical, but the Tsarina was insistent that he be allowed to treat her son. Rasputin immediately stopped any further administration of drugs and dismissed all the doctors and servants. He then sat at the boys bedside and placed his hand gently on his forehead and spoke to him in hushed tones. The Tsarevich appeared to calm down and his metabolic rate slowed significantly. It has been suggested that Rasputin used the classic techniques of hypnosis to aid the boys recovery. Whatever he did it worked and Alexei made a full recovery. It was a sensation. Who was this man!

The Tsarevich Alexei

By allowing him to heal naturally, Rasputin appeared to be the only man who could successfully treat the Tsarevich and the Imperial Family, in particular Alexandra Fedorovna, became increasingly reliant upon him. He soon became a regular in Court circles, and he was admired and loathed in equal measure. To a devoutly religious Tsarina it appeared that this simple peasant, this Man of God, whom she deemed to be a prophet, had been sent by the Almighty to serve the Imperial Family, and she came to be totally dependant upon him not just in regards to the young Alexei but also domestically, and far more seriously for the future of the Romanov Dynasty, politically.

Rasputin and his Women

To the political establishment, the various Counts, Dukes, Generals and administrative lackeys that made up the Imperial Court, Rasputin was a problem. He was coarse. plain-spoken and lacked deference, and they resented his influence with the Tsar and Tsarina. All to often any solution to a problem would have to receive Rasputin’s agreement before it could be put into effect. All to often were heard the words, “what does Rasputin think?” To many his influence was inexplicable, he was a charlatan, a false prophet, and transparently so. His behaviour scandalised the Court, he was a drunken, licentious lecher. At 6′3 he was a tall and imposing figure, immensely physically strong, loud and gregarious with wildly staring eyes, and his appetites for alcohol, food, and sex were voracious. He was also known for his lack of hygiene, he was never seen to bathe, and rarely changed his clothes. Described as magnetic by some (those less kind said his magnetism derived from the suffocating experience of being too close to him) he would be generous to a fault to those he liked but would dismiss out of hand and ignore those he disdained regardless of their status or station, a trait which was to earn him a great many enemies. As would also his behaviour with the women of the Court. They would flock to be seen and photographed with him, and he had an entourage, a harem, of Countesses and Duchesses, and he tried to seduce every one of them. Rasputin believed that the path to salvation lay within and that yielding to temptation was a form of self-humiliation that served to dispel vanity. He advocated this to his disciples, especially his many rich and pampered female admirers. It seemed to many that he would be the ruin of the Romanov’s, some even thought that he might be the agent of a foreign power, and the police placed him under 24 hour surveillance. Rasputin’s debauched life was well documented.

It was with the outbreak of the First World War that Rasputin went from being a loathed alien presence in the Court of the rich and powerful to an active positive menace. He had gone from being a holy man to maker of policy, and the breaker of careers. When Tsar Nicholas appointed himself commander of the army and left for the front in the Spring of 1915, Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna became effective head of Government, and she was totally under the sway of Rasputin. He had been opposed to the war, he believed in peace between all nations, and had said that the war would be a disaster for Russia. He later suggested that the Russian army could only overcome their enemies if he personally blessed all the troops. Grand Duke Michael, the commander of the army, had told him that if he turned up at the front he would have him hanged. Rasputin didn’t visit the front but he continued to make policy and to appoint and dismiss ministers. It was around this time that rumours spread that he was the lover of the Empress. It probably wasn’t true but her utter devotion to her holy prophet did little to dispel the rumours. Ministers wrote frantically to the Tsar begging him to do something about Rasputin. The Tsar did indeed yield to the demands and exiled him but only briefly, the Empress soon persuaded the Tsar to bring him back. Rasputin was frequently drunk but never when he was in the presence of the Tsarina, and his sexual activities were out of control. He also readily took bribes though bizaarly he often gave the money away. Rasputin always wanted the money to live but never for its own sake. Still, the war for Russia went from bad to worse. The Tsar, as commander of the army, was getting the blame but those at the Court believed it was Rasputin. As long as he remained spitting his poison into the ear of the Tsarina, Russia was ruined. He had to go.

In the Winter of 1916, Rasputin had told his friends that he would not live to see in the new year. Later he had written to the Tsar, ” Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigori has been killed, you must know this. If it was your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in the family, that is to say, none of your children or relations, will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people.” On the evening of 16 December, 1916, Grigori Rasputin, the spiritual healer, the holy prophet, and the rumoured lover of the Russian Queen, was murdered, not by a mob or a lone assassin, but by a group of feckless aristocrats.

Rasputin was lured to the palatial home of one of these aristocrats, the homosexual transvestite Prince Felix Yusopov whose own advances to the unwashed, enigmatic, Rasputin had earlier been spurned. Yusopov, who had briefly attended cadet school and bought himself a commission in the army so he could parade around the streets and drawing rooms of St Petersburg in his uniform, but refused to fight or join an army unit, had taken it upon himself to rid Russia of the man it was believed was bringing Mother Russia to wrack and ruin. He had told Rasputin that a wild party was due to be held and that he must attend. It would be fun.

Rasputin was picked up and driven to the party by Yusopov but thought it strange upon his arrival that there was only himself, Yusopov, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavluvich and a certain Dr Lazavert present, but he was told that the other guests would be arriving shortly. In the meantime, he was plied with wine and cakes laced with cyanide. The others made their excuses and removed themselves from his presence expecting to return later to find him dead. The poisoned cakes, however, had no effect, Rasputin was alive and well. According to Prince Yusopov, he now returned to the room armed with a revolver and seeing Rasputin admiring the pretty ornaments in a cabinet, said to him, ” Grigori Yefimovich, you would do better to look upon the crucifix and pray to it.” He then shot him in the chest. Hearing the shot the others now entered the room to check the body – Rasputin was dead! They left Rasputin’s corpse to raise a glass to their success. Some hours later, however, Yusupov’s curiosity got the better of him and he returned to check that the old anti-Christ was indeed dead. As he leaned over his body he saw Rasputin’s eyes open, in an instant he had leapt to his feet and had his hands around Yusupov’s throat. Yusopov, screaming in terror managed to struggle free and fled to the others shrieking and in a state of some hysteria – he’s alive, he’s alive! It took some time to calm Yusopov down and to gather their thoughts about what to do. Eventually, they returned to the room only to find Rasputin gone. He had managed to crawl out of the palace and into the courtyard, in a panic they chased after him. Fumbling around in the dark, desparate to find him before someone else did, they finally found him on all fours slowly crawling towards the gates. They descended upon him like a pack of wolves, beating, strangling, and tearing at him, before Pavluvich shot him once more. Then wrapping his body in a rug they broke the ice on the Neva River and threw him in. Rasputin’s body was recovered the following day, he had either drowned or frozen to death.

On hearing of the news the Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna, was thrown into a paroxysm of grief which soon turned to fury. She demanded that the Tsar put the culprits on trial and have them executed. The Tsar, who was always less enamoured of Rasputin than his wife, though angry, would not hear of such a thing.

Prince Yusopov and the others claimed that the murder had been a patriotic act. Rasputin had been a defeatist, pro-German and had been undermining the Government and the Romanov Dynasty. Indeed, in the days leading up to the murder, Yusopov had attended the Duma (Russian Parliament) where he had heard a speech by the radical member Vladimir Puriskevich, in which he had stated that, ” the Tsar’s Mininisters were little more than marionettes whose strings were being pulled by the evil genius Rasputin and his Queen, who was a German on the throne of Russia.” He claimed that it was after hearing this speech that he felt obliged to do his patriotic duty. There is little doubt that the Tsar’s absence from St Petersburg during the war had caused a vacuum of power that had allowed Rasputin to wield unparalleled influence in the affairs of state through his surrogate Queen, Alexandra Fedorovna. This influence was in the most part negative, in practical policy making it was a disaster, and his outrageous behaviour provided grist to the mill of rumour mongers,  the revolutionary opposition, and scandalised the Romanov’s. For all his coarse demeanour, his catastrophic meddling in things he didn’t understand, and his image as a lecherous dolt, he never lost his reputation as a holy man and a healer. He continued to be the only man who could treat the young Tsarevich Alexei, succeeding where modern medicine failed so abysmally, and he continued to be sought out by those who desired spiritual advice, and his life remains as controversial today, his reputation both as blighted and undimmed, as it was in his own time.