Rasputin | HISTORY Rasputin Birthplace: Siberia, Russia Gregory Efimovich Rasputin came from solid peasant stock, but drunkenness, stealing and womanising were activities particularly enjoyed by the dissolute young man. Rasputin became fascinated by a renegade sect within the Russian Orthodox faith, who believed that the only way to reach God was through sinful actions. Soon, he adopted the robes of a monk, and travelled the country, sinning to his heart's content. In 1903, the infant heir to the Russian throne, Alexis, was diagnosed with haemophilia. Tsarina Alexandra became desperate to help him and lost faith in doctors. In St. Petersburg, Rasputin moved in the Russian capital's aristocratic circles, achieving recognition and a small following. Under the recommendation of the Grand Duchess, Rasputin was summoned to appear before Alexandra. Somehow, Rasputin managed to stop Alexis' bleeding, and gained Nicholas and Alexandra's undivided support. As the monk's fortunes rose in St. Petersburg, so did the number of his enemies. Rumours circulated about Alexandra's supposed sexual involvement with the monk.

During his many drunken parties, Rasputin would boast of his exploits with the Tsarina and her daughters, even claiming that the Tsar was his to command. Alexandra grew increasingly dependent on Rasputin and, after 1911, several roles within high government were filled by his appointees, allowing him great influence over matters of state. This perceived weakness of the Tsar and Tsarina helped to destroy the general respect for them. In 1916, a group of aristocrats tried to murder Rasputin. He drank poisoned wine, and ate pastries containing cyanide, but he survived. He was then shot, stabbed repeatedly, and finally drowned in the icy Neva river. However, the regime’s image continued to be tainted by the scandal. Within three months of Rasputin's death, Tsar Nicholas lost his throne, and the imperial family were imprisoned. Revolution had come. Rasputin - The Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution Rasputin Early Life Rasputin was born in Siberia in 1969 to a peasant family. From a young age, his village reported him to have supernatural powers.

He entered the Verkhoture Monastery in Russia in order to become a monk, but left shortly afterwards. He wed Proskovia Fyodyodorovna at age 19, and a few years later traveled to Greece, the Middle East and the Holy Land. They had three children together. Rasputin had a strongly sensual temperment which demanded exciting experiences. He loved wine, women, and music. He was fascinated by a sect of the Russian Orthodox faith, which believed that the only way to reach God was through sinful actions. It was defined as "sin to drive out sin" and through this sect, he was able to sin and still become a religious teacher. The Imperial Family Rasputin first visted St. Petersburg in 1903, and during that time impressed many officials with his abilities. During his second trip in 1905, he healed the dog of the Grand Duke Nikolaievich and Grand Duchess Militsa, who was expected to have 2 months to live. Rasputin reportedly knelt by the dog and prayed for a half an hour, after which it looked visibly healthier.

Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra only met Rasputin a few times during 1905 and 1906, and on none of those occasions did he show his healing abilities, but they were fascinated by the man. He had a simplicity that the monarchs craved. In 1905, their first son, the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaievich was born. However, the child was ill, a suffering hemophiliac. Nicholas and Alexandra, fearing that Alexei would be deemed unfit to rule, kept the illness secret. At the Grand Duchess Militsa's recommendation, the Tsarina summoned Rasputin to cure her son. Somehow, he was able to relieve Alexei's pain, and that won him an incredible amount of support from Nicholas and Alexandra. Impact on Russia The Russian people, most especially the nobles, despised Rasputin. He was accused of many misdeeds--like raping a nun, for example--and his belief that sin was necessary for redemption didn't help. The more time he spent in St. Petersburg, the more people hated him.

During the many parties he attended, drunk, he would speak of the exploits he had with the Tsarina and her daughters, causing rumors to circulate about his sexual involvement with Alexandra. Rasputin even claimed that he had been with the Tsar himself. When Nicholas took command of the Russian army during WWI and left St. Petersburg, Alexandra followed Rasputin's advice and dismissed ministers who were suspicious of and disliked the "mad monk." Several important government positions were also filled by those he appointed, giving the impression that the Tsar and Tsarina were weak. His huge influence over the Russian government was both insulting and infuriating to the people. On December 29, 1916, several nobles took action. A group of conspirators, including cousins of Nicholas, invited Rasputin to a party, where they fed him wine and cakes laced with cynanide. According to legend, the poison had no effect. The group proceded to shoot and beat him, and then bound his body and wrapped him in a carpet. They threw an unconscious Rasputin into the Neva River, where he then drowned. Rasputin's influence lived on after his death.

The entire image of the monarchy had been tainted, which was a major factor in the beginning of the February Revolution. Even now, people are still interested in Rasputin. Several movies have been based on his life, and the group Boney M wrote a song about him healing Alexei. Rasputin was, undoubtedly, one of the most interesting historical figures of the last century. Grigori Rasputin - History in an HourHistory in an Hour by History In An Hour When Prince Felix Yusupov offered his guest, Grigori Rasputin, refreshments at his palace in St Petersburg on the evening of 29 December 1916, the glass of red wine and his favourite cakes were laced with enough poison to kill five men. Rasputin, however, seemed totally unaffected as he gulped back the wine and wolfed down the cakes. Despairing, Yusupov shot Rasputin in the back and then, satisfied, left to join his fellow conspirators. Returning a little later to check on the body, Rasputin sat up and lunged at the prince. The prince’s friends came to his rescue, shooting the ‘mad monk’ a further three times, once in the forehead.

But still refusing to die, Rasputin’s attackers resorted to clubbing him senseless then wrapping his body in a blue rug and throwing him in the icy waters of the River Neva. The subsequent autopsy found that Rasputin had died by drowning, implying he had survived the huge dose of poison, four bullets, and the severe clubbing. Prince Yusupov and his pro-monarchist friends believed they were acting in the best interests of the monarchy. At least, this is the story that has filtered down through the decades. The Russian people will be cursed Rasputin had a sense of his coming demise, warning the tsar, Nicholas II , weeks before his death: ‘I shall depart this life before January first. If one of your relatives causes my death, then none of your children will remain alive for more than two years. And if they do, they will beg for death as they will see the defeat of Russia, see the Antichrist coming, plague, poverty, destroyed churches, and desecrated sanctuaries where everyone is dead.

The Russian tsar, you will be killed by the Russian people and the people will be cursed and will serve as the devil’s weapon killing each other everywhere.’ One of Prince Yusupov’s conspirators, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, was indeed a cousin of the tsar, and the tsar and his family would be murdered by the Bolsheviks within 18 months of Rasputin’s murder. I have killed the Antichrist Two years earlier, on 28 June 1914 (the very day that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo), Rasputin had survived another assassination attempt. Visiting his family in Siberia, Rasputin was almost killed by a woman named Khionia Guseva. Guseva, who lacked a nose, may have been urged on by a former friend of Rasputin’s, an anti-Semitic monk called Iliodor. Waiting for him outside a church, Guseva stabbed Rasputin in the stomach and cried out, ‘I have killed the Antichrist!’ Rasputin recovered but became dependent on frequent doses of opium to relieve his pain. Declared insane, Guseva was later committed to an asylum.

Born Grigori Yefimovich Novik in a remote Siberian village on 22 January 1869, Rasputin’s adopted name is Russian for ‘debauched one’, a nickname he earned by his reputed womanizing and drunkenness, which he defended by claiming he was driving out sin with sin. As a boy, he was known for his psychic powers leading some to believe he was possessed by the Devil. As a young man Rasputin began his pilgrimages, going as far as Greece and Jerusalem, sometimes walking days on end without food or water and wearing shackles to amplify the pain. He reputably practised flagellation as a further means of purification. Rasputin and the Tsarevic In 1903, Rasputin arrived in St Petersburg, his reputation as a holy man preceding him. Summoned by the Royal Family, Rasputin was able to stem the bleeding of the tsar’s youngest child and only son, the heir to the throne, the haemophiliac Alexei. Only Rasputin, it seemed, could treat the poor boy. Thus, he formed a bond with the royal couple and enjoyed their patronage.

The tsar dismissed reports of Rasputin’s drunkenness and promiscuity as gossip and found the mystic’s presence calming, stating that he felt at peace whenever Rasputin spoke with him of God. Rasputin was certainly victim of malicious rumourmongers – newspaper cartoons portrayed him as devilish and the nobility sought every opportunity to discredit him. The scandals relating to his debauched behaviour would have been passed off as nothing unusual had Rasputin been an aristocrat. His sympathy for Russia’s Jews riled the anti-Semitic nobility. Russian nobility certainly felt that Rasputin had too much influence on royal affairs, especially during the Great War with Nicholas away at the front. The tsarina hired and fired ministers on a disconcertingly regular basis, based entirely on Rasputin’s recommendations. But Rasputin’s influence only went so far – he had tried to persuade the tsar not to go to war and to halt the regular pogroms initiated against the Jews – all to no avail. Did the British kill Rasputin? The above story on how Rasputin was killed, accepted as fact for almost a century, has come under increasing scrutiny.

The account relies entirely on Felix Yusupov himself, who was keen to take the glory for having killed Rasputin. (Yusupov was a transvestite, who once appeared a a cabaret singer dressed as a woman.) However, more recent evidence points increasingly to the involvement of a British spy, Oswald Rayner. Rayner and Yusupov had met at Oxford, where the Russian had lived and studied for three years. If British involvement had come to light, it would have severely damaged Anglo-Russians relations – the murder had to be seen as the work of Russians committed in the best interests of Russia. The British were alarmed by reports that Rasputin was trying to persuade the tsarina to use her influence to remove Russian troops from the war. The consequences of this would have allowed Germany to transfer 350,000 troops and equipment from the Eastern Front to the Western Front, greatly bolstering its forces against the Allies – an alarming prospect for the British and the French. Rayner, working for the Secret Intelligence Bureau, was present at Yusupov’s palace on 29 December, where the prince had lured Rasputin with the promise of women and sex.

Rasputin was heavily tortured as his tormentors tried to ascertain what links he had with Germany. His testicles were ‘crushed flat’. Yes, Yusupov did try to poison and shoot Rasputin but it was Rayner, it is now believed, that fired the fatal shot. Of the four bullets found in Rasputin’s body – one was significantly different, having been fired from a revolver that was standard British issue. This bullet, shot from point blank into the centre of Rasputin’s forehead, was the work of a professional killer and would have killed him instantly. The story of is chronicled in a 2010 book by Richard Cullen, Rasputin: The Role of Britain’s Secret Service in his Torture and Murder . Demonic Following his murder in December 1916, the distraught tsarina, Alexandra, had Rasputin buried in the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo, the royal residence, south of Petrograd. In 1917, after the overthrow of the tsar, a number of Petrograd workers removed Rasputin’s corpse and burned it in a nearby forest.

Alarmingly for the workers, Rasputin’s body sat up in the flames causing them to flee in panic. The men had failed to cut the tendons thereby as the corpse heated, the tendons contracted, making his limbs twist and the torso bend at the waist. The episode may have had a logical reason but of course the workmen were not to know and it cemented Grigori Rasputin’s demonic reputation. During Stalin’s rule, the autopsy report into Rasputin’s death vanished and Stalin ensured that all those associated with it vanished as well. Rupert Colley See also articles on Vindicating Rasputin , the February Revolution and the July Days demonstration , and profiles on Leon Trotsky , Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin . Rupert Colley’s novel, The Black Maria , a chilling tale set in Stalinist Moscow, is now available. DEATH of the Mad Monk Who Wouldn't Die - Grigori Rasputin, RUSSIA - SCG Faces of DEATH SCG Faces of DEATH Wikipedia Born in a small village in Siberia in 1869, Grigori Rasputin first came to the attention of the Russian aristocracy in 1903 when he arrived in the imperial capital St.

Petersburg and set himself up as a holy man who claimed to be blessed with supernatural healing powers. When the Tsarina, Alexandra, became desperate to find a cure for her haemophiliac son Alexei she turned to Rasputin. In the years that followed, the heavily bearded monk won her confidence and that of her husband Tsar Nicholas II. His alleged success at easing Alexei’s suffering led the royal couple to give him an official position at court and he became an influential adviser. Though he professed to be deeply religious, he was famously promiscuous and a big drinker. His Early Life Not much is known about his childhood and what is known was most likely passed down through his family members. He had two known siblings, a sister called Maria and an older brother named Dmitri. His sister Maria, said to have been epileptic, drowned in a river. One day, when Rasputin was playing with his brother, Dmitri fell into a pond and Rasputin jumped in to save him. They were both pulled out of the water by a passer-by but Dmitri eventually died of pneumonia. Both fatalities affected Rasputin and he subsequently named two of his children Maria and Dmitri.

The myths surrounding Rasputin portray him as showing indications of supernatural powers throughout his childhood. One ostensible example of these reputed powers was when Efim Rasputin, Grigori’s father, had one of his horses stolen and it was claimed that Rasputin was able to identify the man who had committed the theft. When he was around the age of eighteen, Rasputin spent three months in the Verkhoturye Monastery, possibly as a penance for theft. His experience there, combined with a reported vision of the Virgin Mary on his return, turned him towards the life of a religious mystic and wanderer. It also appears that he came into contact with the banned Christian sect known as the khlysty (flagellants) whose impassioned services, ending in physical exhaustion, led to rumors that religious and sexual ecstasy were combined in these rituals. Suspicions (which have not generally been accepted by historians) that Rasputin was one of the Khlysts threatened his reputation right to the end of his life. Shortly after leaving the monastery, Rasputin visited a holy man named Makariy whose hut was nearby.

Makariy had an enormous influence on Rasputin, and he modelled himself after Makariy. Rasputin and his three children, Matryona, Varvara et Dimitri. Source Rasputin married Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina in 1889 and they had three children: Dmitri, Varvara and Matryona. Rasputin also had another child with another woman. In 1901, he left his home in Pokrovskoye as a strannik (or pilgrim) and, during the time of his journeying, travelled to Greece and Jerusalem. In 1903 he arrived in Saint Petersburg where he gradually gained a reputation as a starets (or holy man) with healing and prophetic powers. Attempted Murder and Eventual Death A previous attempt on Rasputin’s life had failed: Rasputin was visiting his wife and children in Pokrovskoye, his hometown along the Tura River in Siberia.

On June 29, 1914, after either just receiving a telegram or exiting church, he was attacked suddenly by Khionia Guseva, a former prostitute who had become a disciple of the monk Iliodor. Iliodor, who once was a friend of Rasputin but had grown disgusted with his behaviour and disrespectful talk about the royal family, had appealed to women who had been harmed by Rasputin to form a mutual support group. Guseva thrust a knife into Rasputin’s abdomen, and his entrails hung out of what seemed like a mortal wound. Convinced of her success, Guseva supposedly screamed, “I have killed the antichrist!” After intensive surgery, however, Rasputin recovered. It was said of his survival that “the soul of this cursed muzhik was sewn on his body.” His daughter, Maria, observed in her memoirs that he was never the same man after that: he seemed to tire more easily and frequently took opium for pain relief.

On December 16, 1916, having decided that Rasputin’s influence over the Tsaritsa had made him a threat to the empire, a group of nobles led him down to the cellar, where they served him cakes and red wine laced with a massive amount of cyanide. According to legend, Rasputin was unaffected, although Vasily Maklakov had supplied enough poison to kill five men. Conversely, Maria’s account asserts that, if her father did eat or drink poison, it was not in the cakes or wine, because after the attack by Guseva he suffered from hyperacidity and avoided anything with sugar. In fact, she expresses doubt that he was poisoned at all. It has been suggested, on the other hand, that Rasputin had developed an immunity to poison due to mithridatism . Rasputin with his wife and daughter Maria in 1914. Matryona Rasputina (1898–1977) emigrated to France after the October Revolution, and performed as a dancer. She later moved to the United States, where she worked as a tiger-trainer in a circus.

In her four memoirs – it is hard to find out which one is the most reliable – 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. Source Determined to finish the job, Prince Yusupov became anxious about the possibility that Rasputin might live until the morning, leaving the conspirators no time to conceal his body. Yusupov ran upstairs to consult the others and then came back down to shoot Rasputin through the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell, and the company left the palace for a while. Yusupov, who had left without a coat, decided to return to get one, and while at the palace, he went to check on the body. Suddenly, Rasputin opened his eyes and lunged at Yusupov. He grabbed Yusupov and attempted to strangle him. At that moment, however, the other conspirators arrived and fired at Rasputin. After being hit three times in the back, he fell once more. As they neared his body, the party found that, remarkably, he was still alive, struggling to get up.

They clubbed him into submission. Some accounts say that his killers also severed his penis (subsequently resulting in urban legends and claims that certain third parties were in possession of the organ). After binding his body and wrapping him in a carpet, they threw him into the icy Neva River. He broke out of his bonds and the carpet wrapping him, but drowned in the river. Three days later, Rasputin’s body, poisoned, shot four times, badly beaten, and drowned, was recovered from the river. An autopsy established that the cause of death was drowning. It was found that he had indeed been poisoned, and that the poison alone should have been enough to kill him. There is a report that after his body was recovered, water was found in the lungs, supporting the idea that he was still alive before submersion into the partially frozen river Subsequently, the Tsaritsa Alexandra buried Rasputin’s body in the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo, but after the February Revolution, a group of workers from Saint Petersburg uncovered the remains, carried them into the nearby woods, and burned them. As the body was being burned, Rasputin appeared to sit up in the fire.

His apparent attempts to move and get up thoroughly horrified bystanders. Post-mortem photograph of Rasputin showing the bullet wound in his forehead. Source The effect can probably be attributed to improper cremation; since the body was in inexperienced hands, the tendons were probably not cut before burning. Consequently, when the body was heated, the tendons shrank, forcing the legs to bend and the body to bend at the waist, resulting in its appearing to sit up. This final happenstance only further fueled the legends and mysteries surrounding Rasputin, which continue to live on long after his death. The official report of his autopsy disappeared during the Joseph Stalin era, as did several research assistants who had seen it. In a ghoulish and tasteless twist, a museum in St. Petersburg has displayed what it claims to be Rasputin’s severed penis in a glass jar. Experts doubt it is the real thing however. The “mad monk” was 47 when he finally breathed his last breath. Documentary Video Were you there? The skies were sunny at times then cloudy the next but overall it was a great day to check out some classic cars at the 14th annual Downtown Classic Car Show in St. Catharines.

The show,… 34 total views, no views today “WHAT A RACKET” | Embroidery on Rackets And you thought embroidery was mostly on fabric. These unique and wonderful embroidery works of art were done by Cape Town textile artist and photographer Danielle Clough using old tennis and badminton rackets. We wondered how long each would have taken her to finish? All images © Danielle Clough. […] 546 total views, no views today Rio 2016: Giving Horses Wings to Compete How do you get an 1,100-pound horse from its farm in the U.S. all the way to Rio de Janeiro to compete in the 2016 Olympics? WSJ’s Jeff Bush finds out it takes lots of logistical planning…and carrots. Wall Street Journal 338 total views, no views today 338 total views, no views today Grigori Rasputin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Grigori Rasputin This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations ). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed .

(January 2009) "Rasputin" redirects here. For other uses, see Rasputin (disambiguation) . Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin [ O.S. 16 December] 1916) was a Russian mystic who is perceived as having influenced the later days of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II , his wife the Tsaritsa Alexandra , and their only son the Tsarevich Alexei . Rasputin had often been called the "Mad Monk", [1] while others considered him a "strannik" (or religious pilgrim ) and even a starets (ста́рец, "elder", a title usually reserved for monk-confessors), believing him to be a psychic and faith healer . [1] It has been argued[ who? ][ citation needed ] that Rasputin helped to discredit the tsarist government, leading to the fall of the Romanov dynasty, in 1917. Contemporary opinions saw Rasputin variously as a saintly mystic , visionary, healer and prophet and, on the other side of the coin, as a debauched religious charlatan.

There has been much uncertainty over Rasputin's life and influence, for accounts of his life have often been based on dubious memoirs, hearsay, and legend. [1] Contents 12 External links Early life Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye , along the Tura River in the Tobolsk guberniya (now Tyumen Oblast ) in Siberia . [2] The date of his birth remained in doubt for some time and was estimated sometime between 1863 and 1873. [3] Recently, new documents surfaced revealing Rasputin's birth date as 10 January 1869 O.S. (equivalent to 22 January 1869 N.S.) [4] Not much is known about his childhood, and what is known was most likely passed down through his family members. He had two known siblings, a sister called Maria and an older brother named Dmitri. His sister Maria, said to have been epileptic , drowned in a river. [2] One day, when Rasputin was playing with his brother, Dmitri fell into a pond and Rasputin jumped in to save him.

They were both pulled out of the water by a passerby, but Dmitri eventually died of pneumonia . Both fatalities affected Rasputin, so he subsequently named two of his children Maria and Dmitri. The myths surrounding Rasputin portray him as showing indications of supernatural powers throughout his childhood. Efim Rasputin, Grigori's father, raised horses, and one ostensible example of these powers was when he mysteriously identified the man who had stolen one of the horses. [2] When he was around the age of eighteen, he spent three months in the Verkhoturye Monastery, possibly a penance for theft. His experience there, combined with a reported vision of the Mother of God on his return, turned him towards the life of a religious mystic and wanderer. It also appears that he came into contact with the banned Christian sect known as the khlysty ( flagellants ), whose impassioned services, ending in physical exhaustion, led to rumors that religious and sexual ecstasy were combined in these rituals. Suspicions (which have not generally been accepted by historians) that Rasputin was one of the Khlysts threatened his reputation right to the end of his life.

Indeed, Alexander Guchkov charged him with being a member of this illegal and orgiastic sect. The Tsar perceived the very real threat of a scandal and ordered his own investigations, but he did not, in the end, remove Rasputin from his position of influence; quite the contrary, he fired his minister of the interior for a "lack of control over the press" (censorship being a top priority for Nicholas then). He pronounced the affair to be a private one closed to debate. [5] Shortly after leaving the monastery , Rasputin visited a holy man named Makariy, whose hut was nearby. Makariy had an enormous influence on Rasputin, who would model himself after him. Rasputin married Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina in 1889, and they had three children, named Dmitri, Varvara, and Maria . Rasputin also had another child with another woman. In 1901, he left his home in Pokrovskoye as a strannik (or pilgrim ) and, during the time of his journeying, travelled to Greece and Jerusalem .

In 1903, Rasputin arrived in Saint Petersburg , where he gradually gained a reputation as a starets (or holy man) with healing and prophetic powers. Healer to Alexei Rasputin was wandering as a pilgrim in Siberia when he heard reports of Tsarevich Alexei 's illness (it was not publicly known in 1904 that Alexei had haemophilia ). This disease was widespread among European royalty descended from the British Queen Victoria , who was Alexei's great-grandmother. When the young Tsarevich, while vacationing with his family, sustained a bruise after falling off a horse, he suffered internal bleeding for days. The Tsaritsa, looking everywhere for help, asked her best friend, Anna Vyrubova , to secure the help of the charismatic peasant healer Rasputin in 1905. [6] He was said to possess the ability to heal through prayer and was indeed able to give the boy some relief, in spite of the doctors' prediction that he would die.

[6] Skeptics have claimed that he did so by hypnosis — although, during a particularly grave crisis, Rasputin, from his home in Siberia , was believed to have eased the suffering, in Saint Petersburg, of the Tsarevich through prayer. His practical advice (such as "Don't let the doctors bother him too much; let him rest") may also have been of great assistance in allowing Alexei and his worried mother to relax, so that the child's own natural healing process might take place. [7] Others believe he used leeches to stop the boy's bleeding for the moment; however, this is unlikely to have been successful because leech saliva contains hirudin and other natural anticoagulants . Every time the boy had an injury which caused him internal or external bleeding, the Tsaritsa called on Rasputin, and the Tsarevich subsequently got better.[ citation needed ] This made it appear that Rasputin was effectively healing him. Diarmuid Jeffreys has proposed [8] that the medical treatment halted due to Rasputin's intervention included aspirin , then a newly-available (since 1899) " wonder drug " for the treatment of pain.

Since aspirin is an antiaggregant (prevents aggregation of platelets thereby interfering with blood coagulation) — this was discovered only in 1971 — the treatment would have increased the bleeding into the joints, which was causing Alexei's joint swelling and pain. The Tsar referred to Rasputin as "our friend" and a "holy man", a sign of the trust that the family placed in him. Rasputin had a considerable personal and political influence on Alexandra [9] , and the Tsar and Tsaritsa considered him a man of God and a religious prophet . Everyone desirous of an audience with the royal couple had to go through him, a situation which angered certain individuals. Alexandra came to believe that God spoke to her through Rasputin. Of course, this relationship can also be viewed in the context of the very strong, traditional, age-old bond between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian leadership. Another important factor was probably the Tsaritsa's German-Protestant origin: she was definitely highly fascinated by her new Orthodox outlook — the Orthodox religion puts a great deal of faith in the healing powers of prayer.

Controversy Rasputin among admirers, 1914 Rasputin soon became a controversial figure, becoming involved in a paradigm of sharp political struggle involving monarchist, anti-monarchist, revolutionary and other political forces and interests. He was accused by many eminent persons of various misdeeds, ranging from an unrestricted sexual life (including raping a nun ) [10] to undue political domination over the royal family.[ citation needed ] While fascinated by him, the Saint Petersburg elite did not widely accept Rasputin: he did not fit in with the royal family, and he and the Russian Orthodox Church had a very tense relationship. The Holy Synod frequently attacked Rasputin, accusing him of a variety of immoral or evil practices, but such anecdotal evidence on Rasputin's life, however abundant, should be regarded with caution. Because Rasputin was a court official, though, he and his apartment were under 24-hour surveillance, and, accordingly, there exists some credible evidence about his lifestyle in the form of the famous "staircase notes" — reports from police spies which were not given only to the Tsar but also published in newspapers .

According to Rasputin's daughter, Maria, Rasputin did "look into" the Khlysty sect but rejected it. One Khlyst practice was known as "rejoicing" (радение), a ritual which sought to overcome human sexual urges by engaging in group sexual activities so that, in consciously sinning together, the sin's power over the human was nullified. [11] Rasputin is said to have been particularly appalled by the belief that grace is found through self-flagellation . Like many spiritually-minded Russians, Rasputin spoke of salvation as depending less on the clergy and the church than on seeking the spirit of God within. He also maintained that sin and repentance were interdependent and necessary to salvation. Thus, he claimed that yielding to temptation (and, for him personally, this meant sex and alcohol), even for the purposes of humiliation (so as to dispel the sin of vanity ), was needed to proceed to repentance and salvation. Rasputin was deeply opposed to war, both from a moral point of view and as something which was likely to lead to political catastrophe.

During the years of World War I , Rasputin's increasing drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and willingness to accept bribes (in return for helping petitioners who flocked to his apartment), as well as his efforts to have his critics dismissed from their posts, made him appear increasingly cynical. Another way to look at this, is that like most Orthodox Christians Rasputin was brought up with the belief that the body is a sacred gift from God. Attaining divine grace through sin seems to have been one of the central secret doctrines which Rasputin preached to (and practiced with) his inner circle of society ladies. During World War I , Rasputin became the focus of accusations of unpatriotic influence at court; the unpopular Tsaritsa, meanwhile, was of German descent, and she came to be accused of acting as a spy in German employ. When Rasputin expressed an interest in going to the front to bless the troops early in the war, the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nicholas , promised to hang him if he dared to show up there. Rasputin then claimed that he had a revelation that the Russian armies would not be successful until the Tsar personally took command.

With this, the ill-prepared Nicholas proceeded to take personal command of the Russian army, with dire consequences for himself as well as for Russia. While Tsar Nicholas II was away at the front, Rasputin's influence over Tsaritsa Alexandra increased immensely. He soon became her confidant and personal adviser, and also convinced her to fill some governmental offices with his own handpicked candidates. To further the advance of his power, Rasputin cohabitated with upper-class women in exchange for granting political favours. Because of World War I and the ossifying effects of feudalism and a meddling government bureaucracy , Russia's economy was declining at a very rapid rate. Many at the time laid the blame with Alexandra and with Rasputin, because of his influence over her. Here is an example: Vladimir Purishkevich was an outspoken member of the Duma .

On November 19, 1916, Purishkevich made a rousing speech in the Duma, in which he stated, "The tsar's ministers who have been turned into marionettes , marionettes whose threads have been taken firmly in hand by Rasputin and the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna — the evil genius of Russia and the tsaritsa ... who has remained a German on the Russian throne and alien to the country and its people." Felix Yusupov attended the speech and afterwards contacted Purishkevich, who quickly agreed to participate in the murder of Rasputin. [12] Rasputin's influence over the royal family was used against him and the Romanovs by politicians and journalists who wanted to weaken the integrity of the dynasty , force the Tsar to give up his absolute political power and separate the Russian Orthodox Church from the state. Rasputin unintentionally contributed to their propaganda by having public disputes with clergy members, bragging about his ability to influence both the Tsar and Tsaritsa, and also by his dissolute and very public lifestyle.

Nobles in influential positions around the Tsar, as well as some parties of the Duma, clamored for Rasputin's removal from the court. Perhaps inadvertently, Rasputin had added to the Tsar's subjects' diminishing respect for him. Murder This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations ). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (June 2006) The legends recounting the death of Rasputin are perhaps even more bizarre than his strange life. According to Greg King's 1996 book The Man Who Killed Rasputin , a previous attempt on Rasputin's life had been made and had failed: Rasputin was visiting his wife and children in his hometown, Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River , in Siberia .

On June 29, 1914, he had either just received a telegram or was just exiting church, when he was attacked suddenly by Khionia Guseva , a former prostitute who had become a disciple of the monk Iliodor , once a friend of Rasputin's but now absolutely disgusted with his behaviour and disrespectful talk about the royal family. Iliodor had appealed to women who had been harmed by Rasputin, and together they formed a survivors' support group. Guseva thrust a knife into Rasputin's abdomen, and his entrails hung out of what seemed like a mortal wound. Convinced of her success, Guseva supposedly screamed, "I have killed the antichrist !" After intensive surgery , however, Rasputin recovered. It was said of his survival that "the soul of this cursed muzhik was sewn on his body." His daughter, Maria, pointed out in her memoirs that he was never the same man after that: he seemed to tire more easily and frequently took opium for pain.

The Moika Palace , along the Moika River , where Rasputin was supposedly lured and murdered The murder of Rasputin has become legend, some of it invented by the very men who killed him, which is why it becomes difficult to discern exactly what happened. It is, however, generally agreed that, on December 16, 1916, having decided that Rasputin's influence over the Tsaritsa had made him a far-too-dangerous threat to the empire, a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Yusupov and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (one of the few Romanov family members to escape the annihilation of the family during the Red Terror ), apparently lured Rasputin to the Yusupovs' Moika Palace , where they served him cakes and red wine laced with a massive amount of cyanide . According to legend, Rasputin was unaffected, although Vasily Maklakov had supplied enough poison to kill five men.

Conversely, Maria's account asserts that, if her father did eat or drink poison, it was not in the cakes or wine , because, after the attack by Guseva, he had hyperacidity , and avoided anything with sugar . In fact, she expressed doubt that he was poisoned at all. Determined to finish the job, Yusupov became anxious about the possibility that Rasputin might live until the morning, which would leave the conspirators with no time to conceal his body. Yusupov ran upstairs to consult the others and then came back down to shoot Rasputin through the back with a revolver . Rasputin fell, and the company left the palace for a while. Yusupov, who had left without a coat, decided to return to grab one, and, while at the palace, he went to check up on the body. Suddenly, Rasputin opened his eyes and lunged at Prince Yusupov. When he grabbed Prince Yusupov he ominously whispered in Yusupovs ear "you bad boy" and attempted to strangle him. As he made his bid to kill Yusupov, however, the other conspirators arrived and fired at him.

After being hit three times in the back, Rasputin fell once more. As they neared his body, the party found that, remarkably, he was still alive, struggling to get up. They clubbed him into submission and, after wrapping his body in a sheet, threw him into an icy river, and he finally met his end there — as had both his siblings before him. Three days later, the body of Rasputin, poisoned, shot four times and badly beaten, was recovered from the Neva River. An autopsy established that the cause of death was drowning , due to the presence of water in his lungs. His arms were found in an upright position, as if he had tried to claw his way out from under the ice. In the autopsy, it was found that he had indeed been poisoned, and that the poison alone should have been enough to kill him. Yet another report, also supporting the idea that he was still alive after submerging through the ice into the Neva River, is that after his body was pulled from the river, water was found in the lungs, showing that he didn't die until he was submerged.

[13] Subsequently, the Empress Alexandra buried Rasputin's body in the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo , but, after the February Revolution , a group of workers from Saint Petersburg uncovered the remains, carried them into a nearby wood and burnt them. As the body of Rasputin was being burned, he appeared to sit up in the fire. After being poisoned, shot, beaten, drowned, and officially verified as dead, he thoroughly horrified bystanders in his apparent attempts to move and get up. This legend is attributed to improper cremation . Since his body was in inexperienced hands, his tendons were probably not cut before burning. Consequently, when his body was heated, the tendons shrunk, forcing his legs to bend, and his body to bend at the waist, resulting in it appearing to sit up. This final happenstance only poured fuel on the fire of legends and mysteries surrounding Rasputin, which would continue to live on, long after he had truly passed away. Recent evidence The details of the killing given by Felix Yusupov have never stood up to close examination.

There were many versions of his account: the statement which he gave to the Saint Petersburg police on December 16, 1916, the account that he gave 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. No two accounts were entirely identical, and, until recently, no other credible, evidence-based theories have been available. According to the unpublished 1916 autopsy report by Professor Kossorotov, as well as subsequent reviews by Dr. Vladimir Zharov in 1993 and Professor Derrick Pounder in 2004/05, no active poison was found in Rasputin's stomach. A possible explanation why the poison from the eaten cakes was inactive is given by the fact that the cyanide went through high temperatures when the cakes were baked in the oven. Subsequently the cyanide, or a large part of it, would have vaporized. It could not have been said with certainty that he drowned, as the water found in his lungs is a common non-specific autopsy-finding.

All three sources agree that Rasputin had been systematically beaten and attacked with a bladed weapon, but, most importantly, there were discrepancies regarding the number and caliber of handguns used. This discovery may have significantly changed the whole premise and account of Rasputin's death. British intelligence reports, between London and Saint Petersburg in 1916, indicate that the British were 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 intention or whether he was simply concerned about the huge number of casualties (as the Tsaritsa's letters indicated) is in dispute, but it is clear that the British viewed him as a real danger. Professor Pounder tells us that, of the four shots fired into Rasputin's body, the third (which entered his forehead) was instantly fatal. This third shot also provides some intriguing evidence.

In Pounder's view, with which the Firearms Department of London's Imperial War Museum agrees, the third shot was fired by a different gun from those responsible for the other three wounds. The "size and prominence of the abraded margin" suggested a large lead non-jacketed bullet . At the time, the majority of weapons used hard metal jacketed bullets, with Britain virtually alone in using lead unjacketed bullets, for their officers' Webley revolvers . Pounder came to the conclusion that the bullet which caused the fatal shot was a Webley .455 inch unjacketed round, the best fit with the available forensic evidence. Witnesses to the murder stated that the only man present with a Webley revolver was Lieutenant Oswald Rayner , a British officer attached to the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) station in Saint Petersburg. This account was supported further during an audience between the British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan , and Tsar Nicholas, when Nicholas stated that he suspected a young Englishman who had been an old school friend of Yusupov. Rayner certainly had known Yusupov at Oxford .

There was, however, another SIS officer in Saint Petersburg at the time, namely Captain Stephen Alley , who had actually been born in the Yusupov Palace in 1876. Both families had very strong ties, so it is difficult to come to any conclusion about whom to hold responsible. Confirmation that Rayner, along with another officer, Captain John Scale , met up with Yusupov in the weeks leading up to the killing can be found in the diary of their chauffeur , William Compton , who recorded all visits. The last entry was made on the night after the murder. Compton said that "it is a little known fact that Rasputin was shot not by a Russian but by an Englishman" and indicated that the culprit was a lawyer from the same part of the country as Compton himself. There is little doubt that Rayner was born some ten miles from Compton's hometown and, throughout his life, described himself as a barrister-at-law , despite never having practised in that profession. Evidence that the attempt had not gone quite according to plan is hinted at in a letter which Alley wrote to Scale eight days after the murder: "Although matters here have not proceeded entirely to plan, our objective has clearly been achieved. ...

a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement. Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you." On his return to England, Oswald Rayner not only confided to his cousin, Rose Jones, that he had been present at Rasputin's murder but also showed family members a bullet which he claimed to have acquired at the murder scene. Conclusive evidence is unattainable, however, as Rayner burnt all his papers before he died in 1961 and his only son also died four years later. The spirit of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin The neutrality of this article is disputed . Please see the discussion on the talk page . Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (June 2008) After Rasputin's death, his secretary Simonovich realized that Rasputin had moved a lot of money into Maria's account. Indeed, he seemed generally to have set all his affairs in order. Mere weeks before he was assassinated, according to secretary Simonovich, Rasputin wrote the following: "I write and leave behind me this letter at Saint Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1.

I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the Children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no nobles in the country. 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.

I go, and I feel in me the divine command to tell the Russian Tsar how he must live if I have disappeared. You must reflect and act prudently. Think of your safety and tell your relations that I have paid for them with my blood. I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family. -Grigori" Why he wrote this prophetic letter, if it was not made up by Simonovich, is still a mystery. Oddly enough, he predicted that he would not live to see the New Year, which turned out to be true. He was assassinated eight days before. Some speculate that Rasputin had a spiritual vision foreshadowing such an event, and, although he did not explicitly say so, there is certainly a strong suggestion in the letter that that might be so. Others believe that Rasputin was conscious of the fact that he was widely reviled by many of the Russian people at the time and that a number of them wanted him dead — although many of his fellow peasants seem to have supported his success with the royal court.

After the great speech that inspired Yusupov to make his move, rumors were flying about the Duma that something was soon to happen to Rasputin, and he may simply have gotten wind of the rumors without knowing who exactly the conspirators were. Daughter Rasputin's daughter, Maria Rasputin (Matryona Rasputina) (1898–1977), emigrated to France after the October Revolution , and then to the U.S. There she worked as a dancer and then a tiger-trainer in a circus . She left memoirs [14] about her father, wherein she painted an almost saintly picture of him, insisting that most of the negative stories were based on slander and the misinterpretations of facts by his enemies. Name meaning This article may contain original research or unverified claims . Please improve the article by adding references . See the talk page for details. (April 2008) The name Rasputin is not an uncommon surname, and does not have a "disgraceful" meaning, as the contemporary Russian writer Valentin Rasputin would be quick to explain. In Russian, it does not mean " licentious ", which has often been claimed.

There is, however, a very similar Russian adjective, rasputny (распу́тный), which does mean "licentious" — as well as the corresponding noun, "rasputnik". Some even suggest that his name meant "dissolute". [15] There are at least two options for the root-word : one of them is "put", which means "way", "road", and other close nouns are rasputye, a place where the roads diverge or converge, and rasputitsa (распу́тица), "muddy road season". Some historians argue that the name Rasputin may be a place name, since it does roughly signify "a place where two rivers meet", describing the area from which the Rasputin family originates and where his sibling died. Yet another possibility is the just-mentioned "put'" giving rise to the verb "putat", which means to "entangle" or "mix up" — "rasputat' " being its antonym — "disentangle", "untie", "clean up a misunderstanding".

However, the most well-founded explanation is a standard Russian surname derivation from the old Slavic name "Rasputa" ("Rasputko") (recorded as early as in sixteenth century), with the meaning "ill-behaved child", the one whose ways are against traditions or the will of parents. It is said that Rasputin tried to have his name changed to the inconspicuous "Novykh" ( Russian : Новыx) after his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land — "Novykh" (from the Russian Новый, meaning "New") connotes "Novice" — but that is the subject of much dispute. In popular culture Music The music group Boney M (with Frank Farian, Reyam and Fred Jay) released a song about Rasputin, " Rasputin " in 1978. [16] In 2007, Type O Negative featured a photo of Rasputin on the cover of their latest album, Dead Again . The Rasputin Music stores, a chain in California , is named for Rasputin, and its advertising even contains photographic images and other altered images of Rasputin.

The store's logo on its website features the classic image of Rasputin as a DJ mixing the tunes. The band Mastodon makes references to Rasputin throughout their album Crack the Skye . Theatre The final days of Rasputin’s life were portrayed on stage in Rivers of Blood [2] , written by the American poet and playwright Jay Jeff Jones. The play was produced in London in 1983 and was directed by the Irish novelist and poet Dermot Healey. The role of Rasputin was played by Gabriel Connaughton (brother of the novelist and Oscar nominated screenwriter Shane Connaughton [3] ). Cinema Rasputin's story has been fictionalized in a number of films since the 1920s. The first film made about him, Rasputin, the Black Monk , premiered in October 1917, but all copies have been lost. In 1932, Rasputin was portrayed by Lionel Barrymore in Rasputin and the Empress , from MGM studios. The Czarina was portrayed by Ethel Barrymore and Prince Paul Chegodieff by John Barrymore .

In 1938, a French film about his life called La Tragédie impériale (a.k.a. Rasputin), starring Harry Baur was based on a novel by Alfred Neumann and directed by Marcel L'Herbier . In 1996, actor Alan Rickman won both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his portrayal of Rasputin in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny . An extremely fictionalized Rasputin portrayed by Christopher Lloyd and Jim Cummings (providing his singing voice) stars as the primary antagonist in the 1997 animated film Anastasia . Along with a litany of other historical inaccuracies regarding the Romanov Dynasty and Russian Revolution, Rasputin is portrayed as a former confidante to Tzar Nicholas who is banished as a traitor after being revealed as a charlatan. He is also depicted as a lich . In the 2004 film Hellboy , Rasputin, portrayed by Karel Roden , is depicted as having survived his homicide, and is seen working with the Nazis , demonstrating great occult abilities linked with the underworld .

Rasputin is depicted as being nearly immortal; every time he dies, he is resurrected with a part of his god within his body. Television A popular anime program, Blood+ , featured an episode titled "Do you Remember the Promise?", where the main character Saya remembers her time during the 1920s tracking down Rasputin. [17] Circus The Moscow State Circus currently touring the United Kingdom has dedicated it's production to the life of Rasputin and his views and visions on life. The ringmaster portrays Rasputin by wearing a false beard and similar clothing. A narration reminds the audience of the life or Rasputin between certain acts. See also References ^ a b c Rasputin: The Mad Monk [DVD]. USA: A&E Home Video. 2005. ^ a b c Colin Wilson, Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs, Arthur Baker Limited, 1964, p. 23-26. ^ Heinz Liepman, Rasputin and the Fall of Imperial Russia, p. 21. ^ Edvard Radzinsky & Judson Rosengrant (ed.), The Rasputin File, Nan A.

Talese, 2000, p. 25. ^ P.N., no. 5644, September 6, 1936. ^ a b Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, Dell Publishing, 1967, p. 185. ^ Massie, p. 187.

Question: In which river was the Russian monk Rasputin drowned?
Answer: NEVA