Why was Rasputin hated?
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was born on January 21, 1869 in the Tobolsk province (now the Tyumen region). He turned to religion in his youth, going on many pilgrimages and meeting some influential priests. The peasant was sent to St. Petersburg by Bishop Sergius, rector of the theological academy. He was invited to St. Petersburg, and gradually a peculiar popularity began to form among the native of the common people. Rasputin, a middle-aged man, introduced himself as an “old man” and a “man of God”. In addition, it somewhat alleviated the condition of Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia, a blood clotting disorder with regular bleeding in the joints and muscles.
Gradually, he gained great influence over the “elderly” Empress Alexandra – rumors spread about his secret love affairs, but there is no evidence of this. However, it was reported that Rasputin periodically petitioned him even for the appointment and dismissal of ministers, which he did throughout his life to Emperor Alexander II. It is known that he influenced the opinion of Nicholas.
This was superimposed on the real, not legendary, image of Rasputin – a walking drunkard, a guest at social parties and a lost adulterer. Tatyana Grigorova-Rudykovskaya, the daughter of an officer of the imperial guard, described the behavior of the “holy elder” as follows:
“He sat arrogantly at the table, addressed everyone by name and “you”, spoke catchily, sometimes rudely and vulgarly, called out to her, made her sit on his knees, felt, caressed, caressed her soft places, and all those who said “happy” were jubilant with pleasure ! It was disgusting and offensive to watch women being humiliated, losing both their feminine dignity and family honor. <…> “Mashenka,” said a voice, “do you want some jam?” Come to me.” Mashenka jumps up hurriedly and hurries to the place where she will be called. Rasputin crosses his legs, takes a spoonful of jam and taps it on the toe of his boot. “Lick it,” comes a commanding voice. He kneels down and, bowing his head, licks the jam.
The elite could not stand the fact that such a person was the de facto advisor of the royal family, and as a result, the first attempt was made on Rasputin on July 12, 1914. It is believed that behind him were Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (future Commander-in-Chief at the initial stage of the First World War) and Chairman of the State Duma Mikhail Rodzianko. The artist was the bourgeois Khionia Guseva, at the instigation of the disgraced monk Iliodor. The woman followed Rasputin down the street and stabbed him in the stomach, but Rasputin managed to fight off his attacker and survive.
Assassination attempt: Prince Felix Yusupov’s version
The situation surrounding Rasputin worsened during the First World War, when Emperor Nicholas appointed him commander-in-chief and left Petrograd for Headquarters. Queen Alexandra had unlimited faith in the “Siberian Elder” and did not make a single important decision without his participation and advice. The Empress even suggested that Rasputin visit the Headquarters. In response, the chief of staff, General Mikhail Alekseev, promised to resign immediately if he actually got himself there.
As a result, several people independently decided to eliminate Rasputin by any means, including murder. The leader of the conspirators was the young Prince Felix Yusupov, who provided his house on the Moika as a platform for the assassination attempt. A Black Hundred politician helped him (“The Black Hundreds” are a radical right-wing movement in Russia. Its members opposed democratic reforms in favor of autocracy and isolationist foreign policy.) Working on the ambulance train arranged by Purishkevich were Vladimir Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich (the Tsar’s cousin), army lieutenant Sergei Sukhotin and doctor Sergei Lazovert.
In the following years, Prince Felix Yusupov spoke most about the circumstances of the murder. On the night of December 17, 1916, he invited Rasputin to his house for tea, and the audience was to be seated in his basement. In a bare-walled basement, furniture was placed and a table was set so that the “old man” would not be ashamed of drinking tea. Finally, Yusupov gave Lazovert a can of potassium cyanide and, in his presence, heavily sprinkled the poison on the filling of the cakes. Some of the cyanide was also placed in the wine glass.
The young prince and the doctor called Rasputin after midnight, and Yusupov pulled his hat over his eyes so that strangers would not recognize him – a very strange disguise, considering that Rasputin’s servant was aware of the planned visit. When Rasputin was brought to the basement, they offered to leave Petrograd, but he refused. Then they brought him tea and poisoned cakes – these had no effect on the “old man”, and neither did the poisoned wine offered at that time. After that, Yusupov decided to switch to simpler methods. He went up from the basement, took a pistol from Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, went downstairs, aimed at the heart and pulled the trigger.
They were already planning to take the body to Petrovsky Bridge to throw it into the river, but then Rasputin “came to life” and attacked the prince.
“It looked scary. He was foaming at the mouth. He screamed in an evil voice, waved his arms and ran towards me. His fingers went into my shoulders and tried to reach my throat. Eyes popped out of their sockets, blood flowed from the mouth. Rasputin repeated my name in a quiet and hoarse voice.” Wrote Yusupov in his memoirs.
The Siberian man with a bullet wound in his heart managed to get out of the basement and run into the garden, but Yusupov and Purishkevich caught him and shot him. The body was wrapped in tarpaulin and thrown from the bridge into Malaya Nevka.
The case remained unsolved
There are many inconsistencies in the story told by Prince Felik Yusupov. For example, the autopsy showed that Rasputin had three wounds, all at close range: in the liver, in the kidney from behind and in the middle of the forehead – clearly the last blow. He wasn’t shot in the heart, but perhaps the prince was nervous and confused. Rasputin’s immunity to poison seems even more incredible: there are people in the population with unique resistance to toxins or physical effects, but it is impossible for a large amount of potassium cyanide not to cause even dizziness. Some researchers suggested that the poison was neutralized by heat treatment, but in any case, forensic experts did not find traces of cyanide in the dead man’s stomach.
The poisoner Lazovert himself later Wrote Yusupov received a letter of apology in which he said that the Hippocratic Oath prohibited killing and that he had substituted some “harmless substance” for cyanide. However, the prince writes that the doctor placed the poison in front of his eyes from a box brought by Yusupov. Making a visible change requires the skill of a magician, not a doctor.
Presents a completely different version of events In an interview with The New Times (editor-in-chief Evgenia Albats is known in the Russian Federation as a foreign agent) contemporary British documentarian Richard Cullen.
According to him, all public stories about Rasputin’s murder are completely fabricated, and in reality the assassination attempt was organized by British intelligence. Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich acted solely as artists.
Based on the size of the hole in Rasputin’s head, Cullen concluded that the shot was fired from a .455 Webley, the standard British army pistol of World War I. Held in the possession of an MI6 resident (British Foreign Intelligence Service) Oswald Reiner, whom Yusupov knew from his studies at Oxford, is in Petrograd.
Great Britain had good reasons to eliminate Rasputin. First, many agents and ambassadors reported to London that Russia was crumbling in the rear, and Western members of the Entente were concerned that their allies would not survive to the end of the war. Secondly, Rasputin was known for his pro-German sympathies, opposed the war and was able to persuade the empress to conclude a separate peace. The thesis that Rasputin should be eliminated appears many times in the correspondence of British employees in Russia.
According to Cullen, the prince did not specifically mention Rainer’s presence to avoid creating an international scandal. Dramatic tales of poison, blood struggles, and escape were invented for the same purpose; to confuse the investigation and divert attention from the British. Finally, his driver’s logbook supports Reiner’s presence at the time of the murder: He took the intelligence officer to the Yusupovs’ house twice, a week before the assassination attempt and on the same day.
It is impossible to paint a full picture of what happened on the night of December 17, 1916. Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich did not tell anyone about this, Oswald Reiner destroyed all his documents before his death, and after the February Revolution of 1917, Provisional Government Minister of Justice Alexander Kerensky ordered the investigation to be stopped. Moreover, General Lavr ordered Kornilov to exhume and destroy Rasputin’s body, and the body was burned in the furnace of a steam boiler. This deprived his descendants of the chance to find the truth using modern laboratory methods.
According to the conspirators, assassination attempts were generally unsuccessful. Rasputin’s death was welcomed with joy, especially by the army. Queen Alexandra demanded that the murderers be shot, but Emperor Nicholas acted differently so as not to provoke public anger. The Tsar exiled Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich to the Persian front and ordered Felix Yusupov to be placed under secret house arrest in his estate near Kursk.