Rasputin

 

   When the self-proclaimed holy man Rasputin died on this day in 1916, many in Russia felt the same sense of relief that Americans felt when the Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989.  Rasputin was dug up from his grave and cremated by his enemies, while Khomeni was knocked out of his coffin by his inconsolable followers during his funeral procession. Things did not improve thereafter in either Russia or Iran.

  I have come to realize the death of one person does not cure underlying problems in a nation. Rasputin's activities preceded but did not cause the Russian Revolution. The revolution would have happened without Rasputin but this peasant from the Siberian boondocks was very much tangled up in the process.

  Grigory Rasputin was born in a tiny village 1,400 miles east of Moscow.  The village was forest and farm country, a lot like Roseau County.  He got married, had children, and other than that, we don't know what he did till the age of 28, when he went on a pilgrimage to a monastery several hundred miles away.  A holy monk there changed Rasputin's life.  He returned home and swore off meat and alcohol, and began holding prayer meetings in a local root cellar.

  The bishop in the nearest town was so impressed with Rasputin that he sent him to the bishop in St. Petersburg which was then Russia's capital. This bishop was friends with someone who held a position in the Czar's palace. Rasputin held no official position in the Orthodox Church, but thanks to his charisma, he began to have an influence over the Czarina whose only son Alexei suffered from hemophilia.

  Hemophilia is a disorder in which the blood does not clot properly. A minor injury can lead to a serious loss of blood.  There was no effective treatment for hemophilia till the 1970s.  Little Alexei had two male servants with him at all times to make sure he didn't bump himself. This was an impossible task, and when Alexei did bruise himself, internal bleeding would start. The doctors would hover and the Czarina would weep until Rasputin was called in to pray. Rasputin would dismiss the doctors and calm the mother and Alexei would recover.  

  This happened often enough that Rasputin became indispensable to the imperial family. Meanwhile World War I had started and Russia was losing battles to the Germans. The government started printing roubles to finance the war, which led to inflation. Farmers hoarded grain in hopes of even higher prices. There was famine in the cities. The Czar went off to lead the army and the Czarina was put in charge of the country. She had been born in Germany and many Russian people thought she was colluding with the enemy.

  People were also looking askance at Rasputin by this time. He had acquired enemies among the court nobility who decided to get rid of him. A group of nobles led by Prince Felix Yusupov invited Rasputin to a late night party in the basement of Yusupov's palace.  Not suspecting anything, Rasputin ate the cakes and drank the wine, both of which were infused with cyanide. The poison had no effect. So Yusupov told Rasputin to say his prayers then shot him in the chest.

  When Yusupov went upstairs to report to his friends, they sent him back to double check.  Rasputin jumped up like a wounded bear and chased Yusupov upstairs. It took two more bullets to finish Rasputin off. His killers dropped his body into the river. The body was found three days later under the ice  and given a private funeral attended by the imperial family. Rasputin's own family was not invited.

  Two months later the revolution began and the Czar abdicated. A parliamentary government was established, but this only lasted a few months before civil war broke out.  The Czar and his family were executed in the chaos and the Bolsheviks, aka the Reds, aka the Communists came out on top. During the civil war, Rasputin's body was exhumed and cremated so that those who wanted a return to royal power could not make a martyr out of him. Where Rasputin's ashes went, no one knows, but his memory will live as long as people are interested in such matters.

Rasputin and the Romanovs