Grigory Rasputin is one of the most amazing people born on Russian soil. Not a single tsar, commander, scientist, statesman in Russia had such popularity, fame and influence that this semi-literate man from the Urals gained. His talent as a diviner and his mysterious death are still the subject of controversy for historians. Some considered him vicious, others saw him as a saint. Who was Rasputin really? …
Speaking surname
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin really fell to live at the crossroads of historical roads and was destined to become a witness and participant in the tragic choice that was made at that time.
Grigory Rasputin was born on January 9 (according to the new style - 21) January 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province. The ancestors of Grigory Efimovich came to Siberia among the first pioneers. For a long time they bore the surname Izosimov after the name of the very Izosim who moved from the Vologda land beyond the Urals. The two sons of Nason Izosimov - and, accordingly, their descendants - began to be called Rasputins.
Here is how the researcher A. Varlamov writes about the family of Grigory Rasputin: “The children of Anna and Efim Rasputin died one after another. First, in 1863, after living for several months, the daughter of Evdokia died, a year later another girl, also named Evdokia.
The third daughter was named Glyceria, but she lived only a few months. On August 17, 1867, son Andrei was born, who, like his sisters, was not a tenant. Finally, in 1869, the fifth child was born - Gregory. The name was given according to the calendar in honor of St. Gregory of Nyssa, famous for his sermons against fornication."
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With a dream of God
Rasputin is often depicted as almost a giant, a monster with iron health and the ability to eat glass and nails. In fact, Gregory grew up as a weak and sickly child.
Later, he wrote about his childhood in an autobiographical composition, which he called The Life of an Experienced Wanderer: “My whole life was a disease. Medicine didn't help me. I didn’t sleep for forty nights every spring. The dream seemed to be like a forgetfulness, and spent all the time."
At the same time, already in childhood, Gregory's thoughts differed from the train of thoughts of a common man in the street. Grigory Efimovich himself writes about this as follows: “At the age of 15 in my village, when the sun was warm and the birds were singing paradise songs, I walked along the path and did not dare to walk in the middle of it … I dreamed of God … My soul was torn into the distance … once, dreaming like that, I cried and did not know where the tears came from and why they were. I believed in good, kindness and I often sat with old people, listening to their stories about the lives of the saints, great deeds, great deeds."
The power of prayer
Gregory early realized the power of his prayer, manifested in relation to both animals and people. Here is how his daughter Matryona writes about it: “From my grandfather, I know about the extraordinary ability of my father to handle pets. Standing next to a restive horse, he could, putting his hand on his neck, quietly say a few words, and the animal immediately calmed down. And when he watched the milking, the cow became completely meek.
One day at dinner, my grandfather said that the horse was limping. Hearing this, the father silently got up from the table and went to the stable. The grandfather followed and saw how the son stood beside the horse for several seconds in concentration, then went to the hind leg and put his hand on the hamstring. He stood with his head slightly thrown back, then, as if deciding that the healing had taken place, took a step back, stroked the horse and said: "Now you are better."
After that incident, the father became like a miracle-working veterinarian. Then he began to treat people as well. "God helped."
Guilty without guilt
As for the dissolute and sinful youth of Gregory, accompanied by horse stealing and orgies, this is nothing more than the latest fabrications of the newspapermen. Matryona Rasputin in her book claims that her father from a young age was so perspicacious that several times he “saw” other people's theft and therefore ruled out the possibility of theft for himself personally: it seemed to him that others “see” it as well as he …
I looked through all the testimony about Rasputin that was given during the investigation in the Tobolsk consistory. Not a single witness, even the most hostile to Rasputin (and there were many of them), accused him of theft or horse-stealing.
Nevertheless, Gregory still experienced injustice and human cruelty. Once he was unjustly accused of stealing horses and severely beaten, but soon the investigation found the perpetrators, who were deported to Eastern Siberia. All charges against Gregory were dropped.
Family life
No matter how many amorous stories were attributed to Rasputin, nevertheless, as Varlamov rightly notes, he had a beloved wife: “Everyone who knew her spoke well of this woman. Rasputin married at the age of eighteen. His wife was three years older than him, hard-working, patient. She gave birth to seven children, of whom the first three died."
Grigory Efimovich met his betrothed at the dances that he loved so much. Here is how his daughter Matryona writes about it: “Mom was tall and stately, she loved to dance no less than he did. Her name was Praskovya Fedorovna Dubrovina, Parasha …
Rasputin with children (from left to right): Matryona, Varya, Mitya.
The beginning of their family life was happy. But then trouble came - the firstborn lived only a few months. The boy's death had an even stronger effect on his father than on his mother. He took the loss of his son as a sign he was waiting for, but he could not even imagine that this sign would be so terrible.
One thought haunted him: the death of a child is a punishment for the fact that he thought so little about God. The father prayed. And prayers soothed the pain. A year later, the second son, Dmitry, was born, then - with an interval of two years - the daughters of Matryona and Varya. My father started the construction of a new house - two-story, the largest in Pokrovskoye … “
The family laughed at him. He did not eat meat and sweets, heard different voices, walked from Siberia to St. Petersburg and back, ate alms. In the spring, he had exacerbations - he did not sleep for many days in a row, sang songs, shook his fists at Satan and ran through the frost in one shirt.
His prophecies consisted of appeals to repentance "until the trouble came." Sometimes, by pure coincidence, misfortunes happened the very next day (huts were burning, cattle were sick, people were dying) - and the peasants began to believe that the blessed peasant had the gift of foresight. He had followers … and followers.
This went on for about ten years. Rasputin learned about the whips (sectarians who beat themselves with whips and suppressed lust through group sex), as well as eunuchs (preachers of castration) who separated from them. It is assumed that he adopted a part of their teachings and more than once personally "delivered" the pilgrims from sin in the bathhouse.
At the "divine" age of 33, Gregory begins to storm Petersburg. Having enlisted the recommendations of provincial priests, he settled with the rector of the Theological Academy, Bishop Sergius, the future Stalinist patriarch. The one impressed by the exotic character imagine
Rasputin with his fans (mostly - female fans).
The first loud prophecy of Rasputin was the prediction of the death of our ships at Tsushima. Perhaps he took it from the newspaper news, which reported that a squadron of old ships went out to meet the modern Japanese fleet without observing secrecy measures.
Ave, Caesar
The last ruler of the House of Romanov was distinguished by lack of will and superstition: he considered himself Job, doomed to trials, and kept meaningless diaries, where he shed virtual tears, looking at how his country was going downhill.
The queen also lived in isolation from the real world and believed in the supernatural power of the “people's elders”. Knowing this, her friend, the Montenegrin princess Milica, took outright scoundrels to the palace. The monarchs listened to the ravings of crooks and schizophrenics with childish delight. The war with Japan, the revolution and the tsarevich's illness finally unbalanced the pendulum of the weak tsarist psyche. Everything was ready for Rasputin's appearance.
For a long time, only daughters were born in the Romanov family. To conceive a son, the queen resorted to the help of the French magician Philippe. It was he, and not Rasputin, who was the first to take advantage of the spiritual naivete of the royal family. The scale of the chaos that reigned in the heads of the last Russian monarchs (some of the most educated people of that time) can be judged at least by the fact that the queen felt safe thanks to the magic icon with a bell, which allegedly rang when evil people approached.
The first meeting of the tsar and tsarina with Rasputin took place on November 1, 1905 at the palace over tea. He dissuaded the weak-willed monarchs from fleeing to England (they say they were already packing up their things), which, most likely, would have saved them from death and would have directed the history of Russia in a different direction.
The next time he gave the Romanovs a miraculous icon (found after the execution), then he allegedly healed Tsarevich Alexei, who was sick with hemophilia, and relieved the pain of Stolypin's daughter, wounded by terrorists. The shaggy man forever took possession of the hearts and minds of the august couple.
The emperor personally arranges for Gregory to change the dissonant surname to “Novykh” (which, however, did not take root). Soon Rasputin-Novykh acquired another lever of influence at the court - the young maid of honor, Anna Vyrubova, who adored the "elder" (a close friend of the tsarina - according to rumors, even too close, who slept with her in the same bed). He becomes the confessor of the Romanovs and comes to the Tsar at any time without making an appointment.
At court, Gregory was always "in character", but outside the political scene he was completely transformed. Having bought himself a new house in Pokrovskoe, he took there notable St. Petersburg fans. There, the "elder" put on expensive clothes, became self-satisfied, gossiped about the king and the nobles. Every day he demonstrated miracles to the queen (whom he called "mother"): predicting the weather or the exact time of the king's return home. It was then that Rasputin made his most famous prediction: "As long as I live, the dynasty will also live."
The growing power of Rasputin did not suit the court. Cases were initiated against him, but each time the "elder" very successfully left the capital, going either home to Pokrovskoe, or on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1911, the Synod came out against Rasputin. Bishop Hermogenes (ten years ago who expelled a certain Joseph Dzhugashvili from the seminary) tried to expel the devil from Gregory and publicly beat him on the head with a cross. Police surveillance was established over Rasputin, which did not stop until his death.
Rasputin, Bishop Hermogenes and Hieromonk Iliodor.
Secret agents watched through the windows the most piquant scenes from the life of a man who would soon be called the "holy devil." Once hushed up, rumors about Grishka's sexual adventures began to swell with renewed vigor. The police recorded Rasputin's visit to the baths in the company of prostitutes and the wives of influential persons.
Copies of the tsarina's tender letter to Rasputin circulated around Peter, from which one could conclude that they were lovers. These stories were picked up by newspapers and the word "Rasputin" became known throughout Europe.
Public health
People who believed in Rasputin's miracles believe that he himself, as well as his death, is mentioned in the Bible itself: “And if they drink something deadly, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover”(Mark 16-18).
Today, no one doubts that Rasputin really had a beneficial effect on the physical condition of the prince and the mental stability of his mother. How did he do it?
The queen at the bedside of the sick heir
Contemporaries noted that Rasputin's speech was always incoherent, it was very difficult to follow his thoughts. Huge, with long arms, a tavern hairstyle and a "shovel" beard, he often talked to himself and slapped himself on the thighs.
Without exception, all of Rasputin's interlocutors recognized his unusual look - deeply sunken gray eyes, as if shining from within and fettering your will. Stolypin recalled that when he met Rasputin, he felt that they were trying to hypnotize him.
This certainly influenced the king and queen. However, the repeated deliverance of the royal children from pain is difficult to explain. Rasputin's main healing weapon was prayer - and he could pray all night long.
Once in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the heir began to have severe internal bleeding. The doctors told his parents that he would not survive. A telegram was sent to Rasputin with a request to heal Alexei from a distance. He quickly recovered, which surprised the court Aesculapius a lot.
Kill the dragon
The man who called himself "little fly" and appointed officials by phone was illiterate. He learned to read and write only in Petersburg. I left behind only short notes, filled with terrible scribbles.
Until the end of his life, Rasputin looked like a tramp, which repeatedly prevented him from "filming" prostitutes for daily orgies. The wanderer quickly forgot about a healthy lifestyle - he drank, and when drunk he called ministers with various "petitions", failure to comply with which was a career suicide.
Rasputin did not save money, now starving, now throwing it right and left. He seriously influenced the foreign policy of the country, twice persuading Nicholas not to start a war in the Balkans (instilling in the tsar that the Germans are a dangerous force, and the “brothers”, that is, the Slavs, are pigs).
Facsimile of Rasputin's letter asking for some of his protégés.
When the First World War nevertheless began, Rasputin expressed a desire to come to the front to bless the soldiers. The commander of the troops, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, promised to hang him on a nearby tree. In response, Rasputin gave birth to yet another prophecy that Russia would not win the war until an autocrat (who had a military education, but who proved to be a mediocre strategist) took over at the head of the army. The Tsar, of course, led the army. With consequences known to history.
Politicians actively criticized the queen - the "German spy", not forgetting about Rasputin. It was then that the image of the "gray cardinal" was created, deciding all state issues, although in reality Rasputin's power was far from absolute. German zeppelins scattered leaflets over the trenches, where the Kaiser relied on the people, and Nicholas II - on the genitals of Rasputin. The priests did not lag behind either. It was announced that the murder of Grishka is a blessing for which "forty sins will be removed."
On July 29, 1914, the mentally ill Khionia Guseva stabbed Rasputin in the stomach, shouting at the same time: "I killed the Antichrist!" Witnesses said that from the blow "Grishka's intestines crawled out." The wound was fatal, but Rasputin got out. According to his daughter's recollections, he has changed since then - he began to tire quickly and took opium for pain.
Rasputin's death is even more mysterious than his life. The scenery for this drama is well known: on the night of December 17, 1916, Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitry Romanov (rumored to be Yusupov's lover) and deputy Purishkevich invited Rasputin to the Yusupov Palace. There he was offered cakes and wine, generously flavored with cyanide. This allegedly did not affect Rasputin.
Plan B was used: Yusupov shot Rasputin in the back with a revolver. While the conspirators were preparing to get rid of the body, he suddenly came to life, tore off Yusupov's shoulder strap and ran into the street. Purishkevich was not taken aback - with three shots he finally knocked down the "elder", after which he just clanked his teeth and wheezed.
To be faithful, they beat him again, tied him with a curtain and threw him into the ice-hole of the Neva. The water that killed Rasputin's older brother and sister also took the fatal man's life - but not immediately. Examination of the body, recovered three days later, showed the presence of water in the lungs (the autopsy protocol was not preserved). This indicated that Grishka was alive and simply choked.
The corpse of Rasputin.
The queen was furious, but at the insistence of Nicholas II, the murderers escaped punishment. The people praised them as deliverers from the "dark forces". Rasputin was called in every way: a demon, a German spy or the empress's lover, but the Romanovs were faithful to him to the end: the most odious figure in Russia was buried in Tsarskoe Selo.
The February Revolution broke out two months later. Rasputin's prediction about the fall of the monarchy came true. On March 4, 1917, Kerensky ordered the body to be dug up and burned. The exhumation took place at night, and according to the testimony of the exhumators, the burning corpse tried to rise. This was the final touch to the legend of Rasputin's superpower (it is believed that a cremated person can move due to the contraction of the tendons in the fire, and therefore the latter should be cut).
The act of burning the body of Rasputin.
"Who are you, Mr. Rasputin?" - such a question might have been asked by English and German intelligence at the beginning of the 20th century. A clever werewolf or an artless man? Rebel Saint or Sexual Psychopath? To cast a shadow on a person, it is enough just to correctly illuminate his life.
It is reasonable to assume that the true image of the Tsar's favorite was distorted beyond recognition by "black PR". And minus the compromising evidence, an ordinary peasant appears before us - an illiterate, but very cunning schizophrenic, who achieved fame only thanks to a fortunate coincidence of circumstances and the obsession of the heads of the house of Romanov with religious metaphysics.
Attempts at canonization
Since the 1990s, radical monarchist Orthodox circles have repeatedly proposed to canonize Rasputin as a holy martyr.
The ideas were rejected by the Synodal Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church and criticized by Patriarch Alexy II: "There is no reason to raise the question of canonization of Grigory Rasputin, whose dubious morality and illegibility cast a shadow on the august surname of Tsar Nicholas II and his family."
Despite this, over the past ten years, religious admirers of Grigory Rasputin have released at least two akathists for him, and also written about a dozen icons.
Curious facts
Rasputin supposedly had an older brother Dmitry (caught a cold while swimming and died of pneumonia) and a sister Maria (who suffered from epilepsy and drowned in the river). He named his children after them. Grishka named his third daughter Varvara.
Bonch-Bruevich knew Rasputin well.
The Yusupov clan originates from the nephew of the prophet Muhammad. Irony of fate: a distant relative of the founder of Islam killed a man who was called an Orthodox saint.
After the overthrow of the Romanovs, Rasputin's activities were investigated by a special commission, of which the poet Blok was a member. The investigation was never completed.
Rasputin's daughter Matryona managed to emigrate to France, and then to the USA. There she worked as a dancer and tiger trainer. She died in 1977.
The rest of the family members were dispossessed and sent to camps, where their trail was lost.
Today the church does not recognize the holiness of Rasputin, pointing out his dubious morality.
Yusupov successfully sued MGM over a film about Rasputin. After this incident, the cinema began to put a warning about the fiction "all coincidences are accidental."
