Rasputin: remembering Russia’s ‘mad monk’
‘Others have Casanova or Dracula, we have the miracle worker’
‘IN HIS single, remarkable life, he represents not only the two sides of Russia’s history, half compassionate and long-suffering, half savage and pagan, but the constant struggle in every soul between good and evil” was the explanation given by the American historian Robert K Massie of Russia’s Orthodox monk, Grigori Rasputin. He supposedly possessed extraordinary spiritual powers, though for his villainous escapades and being filth-encrusted he became known as the “mad monk”. A century after his death in December 1916, on the eve of the Russian Revolution, his legacy endures.
Rasputin was born in 1869 in Pokrovskoye in western Siberia to a peasant family. As a boy he drank and womanised. At 20 he married a peasant girl, had three children and supported them by farming. While ploughing he saw a vision bidding to become a pilgrim. He left his family to become a self-proclaimed holy man.
He preached and wandered the length and breadth of Russia, and received the nickname of Rasputin, meaning “dissolute”.
By 1905 the situation in tsarist Russia turned dire. Poverty, food shortages and the disastrous war with Japan brought much humiliation.
Moreover, the Tsar of All the Russia, Nicholas II, and the Empress, Alexandra, appeared weak as leaders with little understanding of the hardships of the masses. The ruthless suppression of demonstrators on “Bloody Sunday” in 1905 would light the spark for revolution.
It was against this backdrop that the legend of Rasputin and his relationship with the Romanovs played off. Alexis, the only son and heir to the throne of Tsar Nicholas, was diagnosed with a severe bleeding sickness, haemophilia.
Upon a visit to a royal residence at Spala in Poland the child got terribly sick when their carriage, bouncing over sandy roads, caused excruciating pain and left him unconscious.
Doctors were called to examine the boy, but the bleeding seemed incessant and painkillers were ineffective. For Alexandra it was a nightmare.
Day and night screams of the dying boy filled the corridors. Special prayers were called for and preparations were made to announce the boy’s imminent death.
Then, when all hope seemed gone, Alexandra called on Rasputin. A telegraph message came immediately from Siberia which read: “God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The little one will not die.” The next day Alexis’s bleeding stopped; he was alive. Alexandra perceived it as a miracle and became unshakably convinced her child’s life lay in Rasputin’s hands.
She depended on him. Thereafter Rasputin became the centre of attention while his wardrobe became more lavish. In his new trappings, he boasted of his power and offered intimate personal advice. There were even rumours he and Alexandra were having an affair.
With the outbreak of World War 1, the tsar left for the front. As the war stirred more internal discontent the blame fell on the rule of Alexandra and especially Rasputin, branded as the “Holy Devil”, who supposedly ruled Russia.
Critics from the nobility gradually attempted to kill Rasputin. As he himself realised the growing threat to his life, he directed a famous prophetic letter to the tsar. The most notorious clause in the letter read: “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 of your family, that is to say, that none of your children or relations, will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people… Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”
His prediction proved correct, as a murder plot was already being planned by nobles, led by Prince Felix Yusupov, who used his beautiful wife Irina as bait to attract Rasputin to a tea party where he was given cakes and wine laced with potassium cyanide. He allegedly gobbled two cakes and drank the wine. Yusupov could not believe his eyes when Rasputin’s “corpse” was sitting, nodding the words “…with God in thought, but mankind in flesh” while grinning with pleasure. Yusupov could stand it no longer and called Rasputin to the cellar where he told him he had “better look at the crucifix and say a prayer”.
He shot Rasputin. When he tried to fight back he was shot twice more and was taken to the Neva River. On the crimson snow his body was rolled up in a blue curtain and pushed through a hole in the frozen river. Three days later his body was found. The autopsy showed his bloodstream was filled with poison and his body punctured by bullets, but he died by drowning. News of his murder was met with relief by the population, but for the Tsarist family it was a sad occasion.
On January 3, 1917, he was buried in a corner of the Imperial Park.
During his funeral Alexandra carried some white flowers and distributed them among the royals to scatter over Rasputin’s coffin. Alexandra ordered an icon signed by the family to be placed inside it, as well as a letter of personal gratitude.
On reflection, Massie came to the conclusion the Siberian “miracle worker” and “his presence near the throne – his influence on the Empress and, through her, on the government of Russia – brought about or at least helped to speed the fall of the dynasty”.
Astonishingly, his predictions became true, as within a few months the entire Romanov family was killed in the Russian Revolution.
A hundred years on, the legacy of Rasputin remains alive. In his town of birth a memorial museum has been created for him. Its curator, Maria Smirnova, pointing to the worldwide interest in him said: “We do not have so much to attract tourists. Others have Casanova or Dracula, we have Rasputin.”