On January 21, 1869, Grigory Rasputin was born - one of the most mysterious personalities in Russian history. The Siberian peasant, who became especially close to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, had a reputation as a seer and healer. Historians have not yet come to a consensus about his role in the fate of the royal family. We decided to talk about five predictors, to which the Russian emperors listened.
Grigory Rasputin
Rasputin was born in the village of Pokrovskoye in the Tyumen region. Fragmentary and inaccurate information has been preserved about his life at home. It is known that in his youth Rasputin was ill a lot, after which he made several pilgrimages to various holy places in Russia, Greece and Jerusalem. After that, the fame began to spread about Rasputin as having received the miraculous gift of bringing healing.
In 1904 he came to St. Petersburg, where rumors about the "Siberian elder", "the man of God" reached the royal family. In 1907 he was invited to the imperial court - just in the midst of one of the attacks of the Tsarevich's illness. Over time, Rasputin began to enjoy a certain influence on the Romanov family and, above all, on the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Thanks to this, he acquires many acquaintances in the upper strata of St. Petersburg society. Despite rumors of his drunken pogroms and immoral behavior, the empress believed that it was thanks to Rasputin that the hereditary illness of Tsarevich Alexei was receding.
In the last years of the reign of Nicholas II, many rumors circulated in the Petersburg world about Rasputin and his influence on power. Some historians are sure: the tsarina significantly influenced the tsar, and the tsarina - Rasputin. On the advice of Rasputin, even the highest state and church officials were appointed and dismissed, he carried out financial "combinations" that were profitable for himself, provided "patronage" for bribes. Rasputin was assassinated: for example, in June 2014, Cheonia Guseva attacked Rasputin with a knife in his native village of Pokrovskoye and seriously wounded him. Gusev in July 1915 was declared mentally ill and released from criminal liability, placed in a psychiatric hospital in Tomsk. Rasputin was killed on the night of December 17, 1916 in the Yusupov palace.
The information about the murder is very contradictory. It is known that the initiators or perpetrators of the conspiracy were Prince Felix Yusupov, the husband of the imperial niece, Vladimir Purishkevich, a deputy of the IV State Duma, known for his ultra-conservative views, and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, a cousin of Emperor Nicholas. They all got confused in their testimonies during the investigation and changed them several times. In 2004, the BBC broadcaster aired the documentary Who Killed Rasputin ?, drawing new attention to the murder investigation.
According to the version shown in the film, Rasputin was killed by the British intelligence service Mi-6: Great Britain feared Rasputin's influence on the Russian empress and the threat of a separate peace with Germany. A year after the death of Rasputin, a revolution took place in Russia, which entailed the death of the monarchy and the royal family. The famous prophecy of Rasputin about the death of the imperial house came true: "as long as I live, the dynasty will live."
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Papus
Papus or Gerard Anaclet Vincent Encausse was a famous occultist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became famous, among other things, as the author of over 400 articles and 25 books on magic, Kabbalah, invented the famous Tarot card system. He was considered a prominent figure in various occult organizations and Parisian spiritualist and literary circles. Papus' activity was extensive, and in our time he is the most famous and published magician and occultist.
He also conducted Martinist Initiations in Russia, which he attended in 1901, 1905 and 1906 with lectures on the occult. Papus founded the Martinist Lodge in Tsarskoe Selo, headed by Nicholas II, and consecrated the tsar to Martinism. The magician advised the emperor in making state decisions, and also warned against the advice and influence of Grigory Rasputin.
By a strange coincidence, Papus was introduced to the emperor in the same year as Rasputin, and he also predicted a quick death to the emperor. Papus promised the king to delay the fulfillment of the prophecy, at least as long as he was alive. Nicholas II was overthrown 141 days after the death of the magician.
Monk Abel
The monk, nicknamed "Prophetic", allegedly predicted many historical events of the second half of the 18th and subsequent centuries, including the dates and circumstances of the death of the Russian autocrats, social upheavals and wars. There are no official documents about the life of the monk Abel.
It is believed that he was born in 1757, was seriously ill in his youth, after which he went to a monastery, where, after a mysterious vision, he received the gift of prophecy and set out to wander and "preach the mysteries of God." Because of the first prediction about the death of Catherine II, Abel ends up in the Shlisselburg fortress, from where he is released after the death of the empress. After the fulfilled prophecy about the violent death of the new emperor Paul I, the monk was sent to the Solovetsky monastery, which he was forbidden to leave.
In the monastery, the monk wrote a new book in which he predicted the burning of Moscow by the French. After the prediction came true, Alexander I frees Abel, and he goes on pilgrimages to Athos, Constantinople, Jerusalem. The monk died on November 29, 1841, having managed to predict the death of Catherine II, Paul I and the Romanov family, the First and Second World Wars, the Civil War in Russia and the fire in Moscow in 1812.
Maria Lenormand
The famous French soothsayer and fortune-teller was born with congenital physical defects, due to which the parents, also frightened by their daughter's strange abilities, sent the child to an orphanage at a nunnery, where she studied books on numerology, magic, esotericism and other secret knowledge until the age of sixteen. In the monastery, she predicted the imminent rise, wealth and a long journey to the Mother Superior. Two months later, the abbess headed one of the richest abbeys, which was under the patronage of the queen.
After the monastery, Maria goes to Paris, where she opens a fortune-telling salon. Very soon, in Paris, a line of people wishing to tell fortunes began to line up to her. Gioacchino Rossini, Louis-Philippe, Honore de Balzac - the most outstanding people of that time came to her to find out their future. All her predictions came true with frightening accuracy, for which she received the nickname "Black Mary".
Lenormand predicted the guillotine to Queen Marie-Antoinette, the violent death of the leaders of the Great French Revolution Marat, Robespierre and Saint-Just, the defeat of Napoleon's troops in Russia, the hanging of Pavel Pestel and Sergei Muravyov-Apostle, who only laughed, assuring the fortuneteller in Russia that they were not using the mortal execution to the nobles.
After the uprising of the Decembrists, Pavel Pestel and Sergei Muravyov-Apostol were sentenced to death by hanging. Black Mary predicted the death of the Russian emperor Adexander I, if he did not renounce the throne. Alexander I presented Mary with a diamond ring for the prediction. Seven years later, in November 1825, according to the official version, he died of typhoid fever in Taganrog. According to the unofficial, he renounced the throne and became an elder. The fortune-teller predicted her own death: in June 1843, an unknown young man strangled her.
Alexandra Kirchhoff
The famous fortune-teller who appeared in St. Petersburg in 1810. The German woman Charlotte, who took the name Alexandra Filippovna in Russia, quickly gained popularity by fortune telling and fortune telling. At the beginning of 1812, Emperor Alexander I himself decided to turn to the soothsayer because of fears of the inevitability of a war with Napoleon.
The soothsayer predicted a brilliant future for the tsar after overcoming a great misfortune: after the war with Napoleon, Alexander I triumphantly enters Paris at the head of the Russian army on a white horse. The German fortune teller became famous for the fact that she predicted to Pushkin all the most significant stages of his life, as well as the death of the poet.