Grigori Rasputin
  Grigori Rasputin    (mystic, éminence grise) | |
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| Born | 21 January 1869 Tobolsk, Siberia, Russian Empire |
| Died | 30 December 1916 (Age 47) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
Cause of death | assassination |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Interest of | Francis Cromie |
Russian mystic with great influence on the last Czar and Czarina of Russian. Murdered by British agents in 1916. | |
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and healer. He was the confidant of Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Nicholas II, which allowed him to exercise a strong influence within the Russian imperial court. He was assassinated by British agents in 1916.
Originally from the Western Siberia, he presents himself as a strannik, a wandering mystical pilgrim, and claimed to be starets and prophet. While no ecclesiastical source attests to his membership of any religious order, he asserts his loyalty to the Russian Orthodox Church but is suspected of belonging to the sect of the Khlysts. The most generally accepted hypothesis is that he is above all was an adventurer, presenting himself as an itinerant pilgrim, and endowed with a great power of seduction.
In 1907, renowned as a healer, he was invited for the first time by the imperial couple to the bedside of his son, Alexis, heir to the throne suffering from hemophilia. Rasputin gained steadily more influence, especially during World War 1. The Czarina and his family considered him a healer, a mystic, even a prophet. His enemies describe him as a debauched charlatan, driven by an inordinate sexual appetite and even as a spy. He thus participates in the discrediting the imperial family and constitutes one of the elements of the fall of the Romanovs. He was assassinated following a plot fomented by members of the aristocracy.
Some gray areas remain about his life and influence, his biography being mostly based on biased testimonies, in part fueled by anti-monarchist propaganda, rumors and legends. After his death, his myth inspired many writers and artists. Long demonized, he subsequently enjoyed a less unfavorable opinion in Russia than during his lifetime.
Contents
With the imperial family
The Czarina, long worried about not giving a male heir to the crown, had become accustomed to attracting around her many mystics and healers.
Through the Grand Duchess Militza and her sister, Grand Duchess Anastasia , the "starets" is presented to the imperial family in corpore in the Alexander Palace, on November 1, 1905. Tsarevich Alexis suffering from hemophilia, Rasputin asked to be taken to the bedside of the young patient who was bedridden after a fall, which caused a huge hematoma in the knee. He lays his hands on him, tells him several Siberian tales and thus manages, it seems, to stem the crisis and relieve him after a few days. According to some, this could be explained by the simple fact that the medicine of the time ignored the properties of the aspirin which was given to the young patient. This drug is an antiplatelet agent, including an aggravating factor in hemophilia. The simple fact of sweeping the table and throwing away the "remedies" given to the patient - including aspirin - can only improve his condition. Rasputin later explained to a friend that his healing powers were based on his gifts of hypnosis and the use of traditional Siberian medicines.
The parents are seduced by the healing gifts of this humble "muzhik" who also seems to have that of prophecy. Alexandra convinced herself that Rasputin was a messenger from God, that he represented the union of the Tsar, the Church and the people and that he had the capacity to help her son with his healing gifts and his prayer.
His reputation allows Rasputin to make himself indispensable; it very quickly takes a considerable ascendancy over the imperial couple. Invited to many social gatherings, he got to know many wealthy women. Rasputin worries and fascinates: his piercing gaze is difficult to support for his admirers, many give in to his hypnotic charm and take him for lover and healer.
One of them, Olga Lokhtina , wife of an influential but credulous general, becomes his mistress, lodges him with her and introduces him to other women of influence, such as Anna Vyroubova, friend and confidante of the Tsarina, and Mounia Golovina, her niece. Thanks to skilful staging, he performed exorcism and prayer sessions in St. Petersburg or at the Imperial Palace of Tsarskoie Selo, the Tsar's main residence. Stories of debauchery, alleged or proven, began to multiply and cause scandal.
In 1907, the Tsarevich, following bruises, suffered internal bleeding that the doctors could not control and which made him suffer greatly. Called in desperation, Rasputin, after having blessed the imperial family, starts to pray. After ten minutes, exhausted, he got up saying: “Open your eyes, my son." The Tsarevich wakes up smiling, and from that moment his condition is improving rapidly.
From then on, he became familiar with Tsarskoie Selo : he was responsible for watching over the health of the imperial family, which gave him permanent entrances to the Palace. He was officially received at Court. However, despite the full confidence of the Tsar, he quickly made himself very unpopular with the Court and the people, he was quickly considered their "bad angel". He is thus all at the same time loved, hated and feared. He is suspected of getting rich, which in no way seems to be the case, his only luxury being to wear a silk shirt made by Alexandra and a magnificent cross he wears around his neck, also offered by the Tsarina.
On the other hand, he continued to lead a dissolute life of drinking and debauchery, retaining greasy hair and tangled beard[1]. He throws parties in his apartment, where sex dominates - up to ten sexual relations a day[2] - and alcohol. He preaches his doctrine of redemption through sin among the ladies, eager to go to bed with him to practice his teaching, what they see as an honor.
Rasputin, Major-General Mikhail Poutiatine and Colonel Dmitri Loman. Photo by Karl Bulla , circa 1904-1905.
After the revolution of 1905, Rasputin came up against the President of the Council Piotr Stolypin. Appointed in mJuly 1906, energetic reformer, this energetic reformer wants to modernize the Russian Empire, by allowing the peasants to acquire land, by organizing a better distribution of the tax and by granting to the Duma, the Russian parliament, more powers. Through fierce repression, it stemmed the waves of attacks, improved the rail system and increased the production of coal and iron. Stolypin does not understand the influence of this mystical muzhik on the imperial couple, while Rasputin reproaches the Prime Minister for his arrogance, characteristic of the class of large landowners from which he comes.
During the Balkan affair in 1909, Rasputin sided with the peace party alongside the Czarina and Anna Vyroubova against the rest of the Romanov clan. He believes that the Imperial Army, emerging weakened from the 1905 defeat against Japan, is not ready to launch into a new conflict. He cannot stop the events, but when France and the United Kingdom intervene against Russia, he succeeds in convincing Nicolas II not to extend the conflict to all of Europe.
Stolypin has Rasputin watched by the Okhrana, the secret police. The Rasputin scandal broke out in 1910 during a press campaign orchestrated by deputies of the Duma and religious leaders, who denounced the debauched nature of Rasputin, indirectly targeting the Tsar. In 1911, Rasputin was removed from the Court and exiled to Kiev, but, during a trance, he predicted the imminent death of the minister: "Death follows in his footsteps, death rides on his back". He then decides to set off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land , but returns to Court at the end of the summer.
Tsarevich Alexis in his mother's arms. 1910s.
On September 14, 1911, while Stolypin has just authorized the peasants to leave the mir, thus allowing them to access individual ownership of the land, and this reform is acclaimed throughout Russia, the Prime Minister is assassinated by the young anarchist Dmitri Bogrov, in the presence of the imperial family, ministers, members of the Duma and Rasputin. This assassination marks the end of the reforms, while the international situation becomes unstable.
On October 2 , 1912, Tsarevich Alexis, traveling in Poland, was the victim, following an accident, of a new internal bleeding, which could have lead to his death. Immediately informed, Rasputin goes into ecstasy before the icon of the Virgin of Kazan, and when he gets up, exhausted, he sends the message to the Palace: “Have no fear. God has seen your tears and heard your prayers, Mamka. Do not worry anymore. The Little One will not die. Don't allow the doctors to bother him too much”. Upon receipt of the telegram, Tsarevich Alexis' state of health stabilized and, the next day, began to improve: the swelling in his leg subsided, and the internal bleeding stopped. Doctors soon declare him out of danger, and even the most hostile to the "starets" must agree that there has been an almost miraculous event of distant healing. Savior, he returned triumphantly to Saint Petersburg.
The Great War
Behind the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the question of the Balkans set up the conditions for a general war. Rasputin and his peace allies seek, unsuccessfully, to slow down Russia's march towards war. The British intelligence service believes that it is in fact in contact with the banker Serge Rubinstein and his German networks[3]. On June 29 , Rasputin is stabbed by a beggar, Khionia Gousseva, a former prostitute, on leaving the church in his Siberian village. The investigation shows that the order came from the monk Iliodorus (real name Sergei Mikhailovich Troufanov).
Rasputin around 1914, probably after the assassination attempt perpetrated by Khionia Gousseva.
After this attack and his recovery, the importance of Rasputin becomes paramount and his influence is exercised in all areas: he intervenes in the careers of generals, in that of metropolitans (priests) and even in the appointment of ministers. He begins to drink more alcohol, to participate in even more evenings of debauchery and orgies in Gypsy cabarets. He is no longer the ascetic "starets" everyone respected. However, despite his debauched character and his less and less attractive appearance, his female conquests are more and more numerous in high society.
On the 1 st August 1914, war is officially declared between Russia and Germany. The Russian patriotism is exalted - mainly because of the first military successes - and Rasputin sees his favor decline. Quickly, however, the military situation deteriorated: harsh winter, lack of armaments, supply problems, indecisive command, reckless risk-taking by supreme commander Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. After the Great Retreat of 1915, Nicolas II, despite the unfavorable opinion of his ministers, decided to take command of the armies and moved to the front, leaving the regency to his wife and her private adviser Rasputin.
The latter then gets more and more enemies, in particular among politicians, the military and the Orthodox clergy who, at the beginning, however welcomed him, but is revolted by his misconduct. The worst calumnies are spread about him as the war turns into disaster. In 1916, in the Duma, the Tsarina, who was of German origin, and Rasputin were openly accused of playing the enemy's game.
Assassination of Rasputin
Prince Felix Yusupov in 1914.
The historian Edvard Radzinsky was able to give the details of this assassination thanks to the archives of the Extraordinary Commission of 1917 and the secret file of the Russian police.
The Yusupov family, worried about the influence of Rasputin on the imperial family, shocked by its scandalous reputation, its debauchery, in which the names of women of the high nobility are mixed, opposes more and more openly to the "starets" . Moreover, in the midst of the world war, it was rumored that he was spying for Germany. Several plots are brewing against him.
A conspiracy leads to his assassination on the night of 16 to December 17, 1916 while he is the guest of Prince Felix Yusupov, husband of the Grand Duchess Irina, niece of the Tsar. Among the main conspirators are the Grand Duke Divich, cousin of Nicolas II and lover of Prince Felix, the far-right deputy Vladimir Pourishkevich, the officer Sukhotin, doctor Stanislas Lazovert as well as the British secret agent Oswald Rayner.
The corpse was found on December 19, 1916 in the early morning. Frozen and covered with a thick layer of ice surrounding the beaver mantle, the corpse rose to the surface of the Neva river at the Petrovsky Bridge. The police photo album on display at the Museum of Russian Political History in St. Petersburg reveals Rasputin's face smashed by blows and his body pierced by three bullets fired at point blank range.
A first version indicates that the autopsy, made the same day of the discovery of the body at the Military Academy by Professor Kossorotov, reveals that Rasputin did not die of poison, nor of bullets, nor of concussions and beating, but from water in his lungs, which would prove he was still breathing when he was thrown into river. But a second version, which seems to be the official version, indicates that the "starets" was not poisoned, and would have died from the bullet fired point blank at the forehead. In reality, there was no presence of water in the lungs during the autopsy, and Doctor Lazovert would later confess to Prince Felix Yusupov and to Dimitri Pavlovich that he never really supplied them with cyanide, but a simple harmless product. Thus, the famous horror story of the night of 16 to December 17, 1916, giving Rasputin the appearance of a demon is certainly pure invention. This did not prevent the famous healer from experiencing an atrocious death caused by the intense jealousy from high aristocratic circles.
At the request of the Empress, Rasputin was buried on December 22, 1916 (January 4, 1917 in the Gregorian calendar) in a chapel under construction near the palace of Tsarskoye Selo. A commemorative monument was erected there in the 1990s.
In the evening of March 22, 1917, on the orders of the new Provisional Revolutionary Government, Rasputin's body is exhumed. To make it disappear, the body and its coffin are brought back to Saint Petersburg and cremated in a boiler at the Polytechnic Institute, then its ashes are scattered in the surrounding forests. But, according to legend, only the coffin burned, Rasputin's body remaining intact in the flames.
Legend
As early as 1917, the image of Rasputin was widely used by Bolshevik propaganda to symbolize the moral downfall of the old regime. It was taken up, distorted, amplified, by literature from 1917, then, from 1928, by cinema and television, which made it an exploitation bordering on the fantastic and the erotic.
Cartoon by N. Ivanov showing the imperial couple under the thumb of a demonized Rasputin. Around 1916.
Journalists and politicians hostile to the Romanov House spread the rumor that Rasputin was the Tsarina's lover[2]. The historian Edvard Radzinsky, according to the secret Russian police file acquired at Sotheby's, relativizes the erotomania and sexual debauchery of Rasputin: the defloration of nuns or the rape of ladies of the upper aristocracy are essentially rumors spread by people worried about his influence on the Court or hostile to the monarchical regime[4].
Over the years, Rasputin, largely "demonized", has finally become a myth, serving as a pretext for many Russian and European political leaders to exonerate themselves from their own responsibilities in the tragic events in Russia.
Rating
References
- ↑ Revière, Perez et Grossmann, « Les Secrets de la mort de Raspoutine », Io - Martange, série « L'Ombre d'un doute, 13 », 28e min 50 s.
- ↑ a b Vladimir Fédorovski, Le Roman de Raspoutine, Éditions du Rocher, 2011, 220 p.
- ↑ Monique Lachère, Raspoutine , The Age of Man, 1990.
- ↑ http://radzinski.ru/doc/books/rasputin
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