Grigory Efimovich Rasputin short biography. Who is Rasputin? Biography, interesting facts about Grigory Rasputin In which village did Rasputin live?

Archimandrite Feofan (Bystrov) meets Rasputin, introducing him also to Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganov).

St. Petersburg since 1904

House on Gorokhovaya, where Rasputin lived (with windows overlooking the courtyard)

G. Rasputin and the imperial family

1908 Tsarskoye Selo. Rasputin with the Empress, four children and governess.

The date of the first personal meeting with the emperor is well known - on November 1, 1905, Nicholas II wrote in his diary:

November 1st. Tuesday. Cold windy day. It was frozen from the shore to the end of our canal and a flat strip in both directions. Been very busy all morning. Had breakfast: book. Orlov and Resin (deux.). I took a walk. At 4 o'clock we went to Sergievka. We drank tea with Militsa and Stana. We met the man of God - Gregory from Tobolsk province. In the evening I went to bed, studied a lot and spent the evening with Alix.

There are other mentions of Rasputin in the diaries of Nicholas II.

Rasputin gained influence on the imperial family and, above all, on Alexandra Feodorovna by helping her son, heir to the throne Alexei, fight hemophilia, a disease against which medicine was powerless.

Rasputin and the church

Later life writers of Rasputin (O. Platonov) tend to see some broader political meaning in the official investigations conducted by the church authorities in connection with the activities of Rasputin; but investigative documents (the Khlysty case and police documents) show that all cases were the subject of their investigation into very specific acts of Grigory Rasputin, which encroached on public morality and piety.

The first case of Rasputin's "Khlysty" in 1907

Secret file of the Tobolsk spiritual consistory about the peasant Grigory Rasputin.

By order of the Minister of Internal Affairs Makarov on January 23, 1912, Rasputin was again placed under surveillance, which continued until his death.

The second case of Rasputin's "Khlysty" in 1912

Decree of Nicholas II

It should also be noted that Rasputin’s opponents often forget about another elevation: Bishop Anthony of Tobolsk (Karzhavin), who brought the first case of “Khlysty” against Rasputin, was moved in 1910 from cold Siberia to the Tver See for this very reason and was elevated to the rank of archbishop on Easter. But they remember that this translation took place precisely because the first case was sent to the archives of the Synod.

Prophecies, writings and correspondence of Rasputin

During his lifetime, Rasputin published two books:

The books are a literary record of his conversations, since the surviving notes of Rasputin testify to his illiteracy.

The eldest daughter writes about her father: “... my father was not fully taught to read and write, to put it mildly. He began taking his first writing and reading lessons in St. Petersburg.”

In total there are 100 canonical prophecies of Rasputin. The most famous was the prediction of the death of the Imperial House: “As long as I live, the dynasty will live.”

Some authors believe that Rasputin is mentioned in Alexandra Feodorovna’s letters to Nicholas II. In the letters themselves, Rasputin’s surname is not mentioned, but some authors believe that Rasputin in the letters is designated by the words “Friend”, or “He” in capital letters, although this has no documentary evidence. The letters were published in the USSR by 1927, and in the Berlin publishing house “Slovo” in 1922. The correspondence was preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation - Novoromanovsky Archive.

Anti-Rasputin campaign in the press

Assassination attempt by Khionia Guseva

On June 29 (July 12), 1914, an attempt was made on Rasputin in the village of Pokrovskoye. He was stabbed in the stomach and seriously wounded by Khionia Guseva, who came from Tsaritsyn. . Rasputin testified that he suspected Iliodor of organizing the assassination attempt, but was unable to provide any evidence of this. On July 3, Rasputin was transported by ship to Tyumen for treatment. Rasputin remained in the Tyumen hospital until August 17, 1914. The investigation into the assassination attempt lasted about a year. Guseva was declared mentally ill in July 1915 and released from criminal liability, being placed in a psychiatric hospital in Tomsk. On March 27, 1917, on the personal orders of A.F. Kerensky, Guseva was released.

Murder

Rasputin's body recovered from the water.

Photo of a corpse in the morgue

Letter to V.K. Dmitry Pavlovich to father V.K. Pavel Alexandrovich about his attitude to the murder of Rasputin and the revolution. Isfahan (Persia) April 29, 1917. Finally, the last act of my stay in Petrograd was a completely conscious and thoughtful participation in the murder of Rasputin - as a last attempt to give the Emperor the opportunity to openly change course, without taking responsibility for the removal of this man. (Alix wouldn’t let him do that.)

Rasputin was killed on the night of December 17, 1916 in the Yusupov Palace on the Moika. Conspirators: F. F. Yusupov, V. M. Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, British intelligence officer MI6 Oswald Rayner (English) Russian (the investigation did not officially classify him as murder).

Information about the murder is contradictory, it was confused both by the killers themselves and by the pressure on the investigation by the Russian, British and Soviet authorities. Yusupov changed his testimony several times: in the St. Petersburg police on December 16, 1916, in exile in Crimea in 1917, in a book in 1927, sworn to in 1934 and in 1965. Initially, Purishkevich's memoirs were published, then Yusupov echoed his version. However, they radically diverged from the testimony of the investigation. Starting from naming the wrong color of the clothes that Rasputin was wearing according to the killers and in which he was found, and to how many and where bullets were fired. For example, forensic experts found 3 wounds, each of which was fatal: to the head, liver and kidney. (According to British researchers who studied the photograph, the test shot to the forehead was made from a British Webley .455 revolver.) After a shot to the liver, a person can live no more than 20 minutes, and is not capable, as the killers said, of running down the street in half an hour or an hour. There was also no shot to the heart, which the killers unanimously claimed.

Rasputin was first lured to the basement by being treated to red wine and a cake poisoned with potassium cyanide. Yusupov went upstairs and, returning, shot him in the back, causing him to fall. The conspirators went outside. Yusupov, who returned to get the cloak, checked the body; suddenly Rasputin woke up and tried to strangle the killer. The conspirators who ran in at that moment began to shoot at Rasputin. As they approached, they were surprised that he was still alive and began to beat him. According to the killers, the poisoned and shot Rasputin came to his senses, got out of the basement and tried to climb over the high wall of the garden, but was caught by the killers, who heard a dog barking. Then he was tied with ropes on his hands and feet (according to Purishkevich, first wrapped in blue cloth), taken by car to a pre-selected place near Kamenny Island and thrown from the bridge into the Neva polynya in such a way that his body ended up under the ice. However, according to the investigation materials, the discovered corpse was dressed in a fur coat, there was no fabric or ropes.

The investigation into the murder of Rasputin, led by the director of the Police Department A.T. Vasilyev, progressed quite quickly. Already the first interrogations of Rasputin’s family members and servants showed that on the night of the murder, Rasputin went to visit Prince Yusupov. Policeman Vlasyuk, who was on duty on the night of December 16-17 on the street not far from the Yusupov Palace, testified that he heard several shots at night. During a search in the courtyard of the Yusupovs' house, traces of blood were found.

On the afternoon of December 17, passers-by noticed blood stains on the parapet of the Petrovsky Bridge. After exploration by divers of the Neva, Rasputin’s body was discovered in this place. The forensic medical examination was entrusted to the famous professor of the Military Medical Academy D. P. Kosorotov. The original autopsy report has not been preserved; the cause of death can only be speculated.

“During the autopsy, very numerous injuries were found, many of which were inflicted posthumously. The entire right side of the head was crushed and flattened due to the bruise of the corpse when it fell from the bridge. Death resulted from heavy bleeding due to a gunshot wound to the stomach. The shot was fired, in my opinion, almost point-blank, from left to right, through the stomach and liver, with the latter being fragmented in the right half. The bleeding was very profuse. The corpse also had a gunshot wound in the back, in the spinal area, with a crushed right kidney, and another point-blank wound in the forehead, probably of someone who was already dying or had died. The chest organs were intact and were examined superficially, but there were no signs of death by drowning. The lungs were not distended, and there was no water or foamy fluid in the airways. Rasputin was thrown into the water already dead.”

Conclusion of the forensic expert Professor D.N. Kosorotova

No poison was found in Rasputin's stomach. Possible explanations for this are that the cyanide in the cakes was neutralized by sugar or high temperature when cooked in the oven. His daughter reports that after Guseva's assassination attempt, Rasputin suffered from high acidity and avoided sweet foods. It is reported that he was poisoned with a dose capable of killing 5 people. Some modern researchers suggest that there was no poison - this is a lie to confuse the investigation.

There are a number of nuances in determining O. Reiner's involvement. At that time, there were two MI6 officers in St. Petersburg who could have committed murder: Yusupov's school friend Oswald Rayner and Captain Stephen Alley, who was born in the Yusupov Palace. Both families were close to Yusupov, and it is difficult to say who exactly killed. The former was suspected, and Tsar Nicholas II directly mentioned that the killer was Yusupov’s school friend. Reiner was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1919, and destroyed his papers before his death in 1961. Compton's driver's log records that he brought Oswald to Yusupov (and another officer, Captain John Scale) a week before the assassination, and for the last time - on the day of the murder. Compton also directly hinted at Rayner, saying that the killer was a lawyer and was born in the same city as him. There is a letter Alley wrote to Scale 8 days after the murder: "Although not everything went according to plan, our goal was achieved... Rayner is covering his tracks and will undoubtedly contact you for instructions." According to modern British researchers, the order to three British agents (Rayner, Alley and Scale) to eliminate Rasputin came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming (English) Russian (first director of MI6).

The investigation lasted two and a half months until the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II on March 2, 1917. On this day, Kerensky became Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. On March 4, 1917, he ordered a hasty termination of the investigation, while investigator A. T. Vasiliev (arrested during the February Revolution) was transported to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was interrogated by the Extraordinary Commission of Investigation until September, and later emigrated.

Version about the English conspiracy

According to researchers motivated by the film and who published books, Rasputin was killed with the active participation of the British intelligence service Mi-6, the killers confused the investigation in order to hide the British trace. The motive for the conspiracy was the following: Great Britain feared Rasputin’s influence on the Russian Empress, which threatened the conclusion of a separate peace with Germany. To eliminate the threat, the conspiracy against Rasputin that was brewing in Russia was used.
It is also stated there that the next murder the British intelligence services planned immediately after the revolution was the murder of Joseph Stalin, who most loudly sought peace with Germany.

Funeral

Rasputin's funeral service was conducted by Bishop Isidor (Kolokolov), who was well acquainted with him. In his memoirs, A.I. Spiridovich recalls that the funeral mass (which he had no right to do) was celebrated by Bishop Isidore.

They said later that Metropolitan Pitirim, who was approached about the funeral service, rejected this request. In those days, a legend was spread that the Empress was present at the autopsy and funeral service, which reached the English Embassy. It was a typical piece of gossip directed against the Empress.

At first they wanted to bury the murdered man in his homeland, in the village of Pokrovskoye. But due to the danger of possible unrest in connection with sending the body across half the country, they buried it in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoe Selo on the territory of the Church of Seraphim of Sarov, which was being built by Anna Vyrubova.

Three months after Rasputin's death, his grave was desecrated. At the site of the burning, two inscriptions are inscribed on a birch tree, one of which is in German: “Hier ist der Hund begraben” (“A dog is buried here”) and then “The corpse of Rasputin Grigory was burned here on the night of March 10-11, 1917.” .

The fate of the Rasputin family

The Soviet government brutally dealt with the rest of the Rasputin family. In 1922, his widow Praskovya Fedorovna, son Dmitry and daughter Varvara were deprived of voting rights as “malicious elements.” Even earlier, in 1920, the house and entire peasant farm of Dmitry Grigorievich were nationalized. In the 1930s, all three were arrested by the NKVD, and their trace was lost in the special settlements of the Tyumen North.

Orgies

Rasputin and his admirers (St. Petersburg, 1914). In the top row (from left to right): Den Yu. A., 1914 Rasputin settled in an apartment on the street. Gorokhovaya, 64 in St. Petersburg. Various dark rumors quickly began to spread around St. Petersburg about this apartment, saying that Rasputin had turned it into a brothel and was using it to hold his “orgies.” Some said that Rasputin maintains a permanent “harem” there, while others say he collects them from time to time. There was a rumor that the apartment on Gorokhovaya was used for witchcraft, etc.

From the memories of witnesses

... One day Aunt Agnes. Fed. Hartmann (mother's sister) asked me if I would like to see Rasputin closer. ……..Having received an address on Pushkinskaya Street, on the appointed day and hour I showed up at the apartment of Maria Alexandrovna Nikitina, my aunt’s friend. Entering the small dining room, I found everyone already assembled. Around 6-7 young interesting ladies were sitting at an oval table set for tea. I knew two of them by sight (they met in the halls of the Winter Palace, where Alexandra Feodorovna organized sewing of linen for the wounded). They were all in the same circle and were animatedly talking to each other in low voices. Having made a general bow in English, I sat down next to the hostess at the samovar and talked with her.

Suddenly there was a sort of general sigh - Ah! I looked up and saw in the doorway, located on the opposite side from where I was entering, a powerful figure - the first impression was a gypsy. The tall, powerful figure was clad in a white Russian shirt with embroidery on the collar and fastener, a twisted belt with tassels, untucked black trousers and Russian boots. But there was nothing Russian about him. Black thick hair, a large black beard, a dark face with predatory nostrils of the nose and some kind of ironic, mocking smile on the lips - the face is certainly impressive, but somehow unpleasant. The first thing that attracted attention was his eyes: black, red-hot, they burned, piercing right through, and his gaze on you was simply felt physically, it was impossible to remain calm. It seems to me that he really had a hypnotic power to subjugate him when he wanted it. ...

Everyone here was familiar to him, vying with each other to please and attract attention. He sat down at the table cheekily, addressed everyone by name and “you,” spoke catchily, sometimes vulgarly and rudely, called them to him, sat them on his knees, felt them, stroked them, patted them on soft places, and everyone “happy” was thrilled with pleasure. ! It was disgusting and offensive to watch for women who were humiliated, who lost both their feminine dignity and family honor. I felt the blood rushing to my face, I wanted to scream, punch, do something. I was sitting almost opposite the “distinguished guest”; he perfectly sensed my condition and, laughing mockingly, each time after the next attack he stubbornly stuck his eyes into me. I was a new object unknown to him. ...

Impudently addressing someone present, he said: “Do you see? Who embroidered the shirt? Sashka! (meaning Empress Alexandra Feodorovna). No decent man would ever reveal the secrets of a woman's feelings. My eyes grew dark from tension, and Rasputin’s gaze unbearably drilled and drilled. I moved closer to the hostess, trying to hide behind the samovar. Maria Alexandrovna looked at me with alarm. ...

“Mashenka,” a voice said, “do you want some jam?” Come to me." Mashenka hurriedly jumps up and hurries to the place of summoning. Rasputin crosses his legs, takes a spoonful of jam and knocks it over the toe of his boot. “Lick it,” the voice sounds commanding, she kneels down and, bowing her head, licks the jam... I couldn’t stand it anymore. Squeezing the hostess’s hand, she jumped up and ran out into the hallway. I don’t remember how I put on my hat or how I ran along Nevsky. I came to my senses at the Admiralty, I had to go home to Petrogradskaya. She roared at midnight and asked never to ask me what I saw, and neither with my mother nor with my aunt did I remember about this hour, nor did I see Maria Alexandrovna Nikitina. Since then, I could not calmly hear the name Rasputin and lost all respect for our “secular” ladies. Once, while visiting De-Lazari, I answered the phone and heard the voice of this scoundrel. But I immediately said that I know who is talking, and therefore I don’t want to talk.....

Grigorova-Rudykovskaya, Tatyana Leonidovna

The Provisional Government conducted a special investigation into the Rasputin case. According to one of the participants in this investigation, V. M. Rudnev, sent by order of Kerensky to the “Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the abuses of former ministers, chief managers and other senior officials” and who was then a comrade prosecutor of the Yekaterinoslav District Court:

... the richest material for illuminating his personality from this side turned out to be in the data of that very secret surveillance of him, which was conducted by the security department; at the same time, it turned out that Rasputin’s amorous adventures did not go beyond the framework of night orgies with girls of easy virtue and chansonnet singers, and also sometimes with some of his petitioners.

Daughter Matryona in her book “Rasputin. Why?" wrote:

... that with all his life, the father never abused his power and ability to influence women in a carnal sense. However, one must understand that this part of the relationship was of particular interest to the father’s ill-wishers. I note that they received some real food for their stories.

... Then he would go to the phone and call all kinds of ladies. I had to do bonne mine mauvais jeu - because all these ladies were of extremely dubious character...

Estimates of Rasputin's influence

According to the recollections of courtiers, Rasputin was not close to the royal family and generally rarely visited the royal palace. Thus, according to the memoirs of the palace commandant V.N. Voeikov, the head of the palace police, Colonel Gherardi, when asked how often Rasputin’s visits to the palace were, answered: “once a month, and sometimes once every two months.” In the memoirs of the maid of honor A.A. Vyrubova, it is said that Rasputin visited the royal palace no more than 2-3 times a year, and the king received him much less often. Another maid of honor, S. K. Buxhoeveden, recalled:

“I lived in the Alexander Palace from 1913 to 1917, and my room was connected by a corridor with the chambers of the Imperial children. I never saw Rasputin during all this time, although I was constantly in the company of the Grand Duchesses. Monsieur Gilliard, who also lived there for several years, also never saw him."

From the memoirs of the director of the Police Department A.T. Vasiliev (he served in the secret police of St. Petersburg since 1906, and headed the police in 1916\17):

Many times I had the opportunity to meet with Rasputin and talk with him on various topics.<…>His intelligence and natural ingenuity gave him the opportunity to soberly and insightfully judge a person he had only met once. The queen also knew this, so she sometimes asked his opinion about this or that candidate for a high post in the government. But from such harmless questions to the appointment of ministers by Rasputin is a very big step, and this step neither the Tsar nor the Tsarina, undoubtedly, ever took<…>And yet people believed that everything depended on a piece of paper with a few words written in Rasputin's hand... I never believed this, and although I sometimes investigated these rumors, I never found convincing evidence of their veracity. The incidents I relate are not, as some may think, my sentimental inventions; they are evidenced by reports from agents who worked for years as servants in Rasputin's house and therefore knew his daily life in great detail.<…>Rasputin did not climb into the front rows of the political arena, he was pushed there by other people seeking to shake the foundation of the Russian throne and empire... These harbingers of the revolution sought to make a scarecrow out of Rasputin in order to carry out their plans. Therefore, they spread the most ridiculous rumors, which created the impression that only through the mediation of a Siberian peasant could one achieve high position and influence

The publication of reports about Rasputin in print could only be partially limited. By law, articles about the imperial family were subject to preliminary censorship by the head of the office of the Ministry of the Court. Any articles in which the name Rasputin was mentioned in combination with the names of members of the royal family were prohibited, but articles in which only Rasputin appeared were impossible to prohibit.

On November 1, 1916, at a meeting of the State Duma, P. N. Milyukov made a speech critical of the government and the “court party,” in which the name of Rasputin was mentioned. Miliukov took the information he provided about Rasputin from articles in the German newspapers Berliner Tageblatt dated October 16, 1916 and Neue Freie Press dated June 25, regarding which he himself admitted that some of the information reported there was erroneous. On November 19, 1916, V. M. Purishkevich gave a speech at a meeting of the Duma in which great importance was attached to Rasputin. The image of Rasputin was also used by German propaganda. In March 1916, German Zeppelins scattered a cartoon over the Russian trenches depicting Wilhelm leaning on the German people and Nikolai Romanov leaning on Rasputin's penis.

According to the memoirs of A. A. Golovin, during the First World War, rumors that the empress was Rasputin’s mistress were spread among officers of the Russian army by employees of the opposition Zemstvo-City Union. After the overthrow of Nicholas II, the chairman of Zemgor, Prince Lvov, became the chairman of the Provisional Government.

The first revolution and the counter-revolutionary era that followed it (1907-1914) revealed the whole essence of the tsarist monarchy, brought it to the “last line”, revealed all its rottenness, vileness, all the cynicism and depravity of the tsar’s gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head, all the atrocity of the family The Romanovs - these pogromists who flooded Russia with the blood of Jews, workers, revolutionaries...

Opinions of contemporaries about Rasputin

... oddly enough, the question of Rasputin involuntarily became the central issue of the near future and did not leave the scene for almost the entire time of my chairmanship of the Council of Ministers, leading me to resignation a little over two years later.

In my opinion, Rasputin is a typical Siberian varnak, a tramp, smart and trained himself in the well-known manner of a simpleton and a holy fool and plays his role according to a memorized recipe. In appearance, he lacked only a prisoner's coat and an ace of diamonds on his back. In terms of habits, this is a person capable of anything. He, of course, does not believe in his antics, but he has developed firmly memorized techniques with which he deceives both those who sincerely believe all his eccentricities, and those who deceive themselves with their admiration for him, having in fact only intended to achieve through it benefits that are not provided in any other way.

How did contemporaries imagine Rasputin? Like a drunken, dirty man who infiltrated the royal family, appointed and fired ministers, bishops and generals, and for a whole decade was the hero of the St. Petersburg scandalous chronicle. In addition, there are wild orgies in the “Villa Rode”, lustful dances among aristocratic fans, high-ranking henchmen and drunken gypsies, and at the same time an incomprehensible power over the king and his family, hypnotic power and faith in his special purpose. That was all.

If there had been no Rasputin, then the opponents of the royal family and the preparers of the revolution would have created him with their conversations from Vyrubova, if there had been no Vyrubova, from me, from whomever you want.

The investigator in the case of the murder of the royal family, Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov, writes in his book of judicial investigation:

The head of the Main Directorate of Posts and Telegraphs, Pokhvisnev, who held this position in 1913-1917, shows: “According to the established procedure, all telegrams sent to the Sovereign and Empress were presented to me in copies. Therefore, all telegrams that went to Their Majesties from Rasputin, I was known at one time. There were a lot of them. It is, of course, impossible to remember their contents consistently. In all honesty, I can say that the enormous influence of Rasputin with the Sovereign and the Empress was clearly established by the contents of the telegrams.

Hieromartyr Archpriest Philosopher Ornatsky, rector of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, describes the meeting of John of Kronstadt with Rasputin in 1914 as follows:

Father John asked the elder: “What is your last name?” And when the latter answered: “Rasputin,” he said: “Look, it will be your name.”

Attempts to canonize Rasputin

Religious veneration of Grigory Rasputin began around 1990 and originated from the so-called. The Mother of God Center (which changed its name over the following years).

Some extremely radical monarchist Orthodox circles have also, since the 1990s, expressed thoughts about canonizing Rasputin as a holy martyr. The supporters of these ideas were:

1. Editor of the Orthodox newspaper "Blagovest" Anton Evgenievich Zhogolev.
2. Konstantin Dushenov is the editor-in-chief of Rus Orthodox.
3. "Church of St. John the Evangelist" and others.

Despite this, over the past ten years, religious admirers of Grigory Rasputin have issued at least two akathists to him, and also painted about a dozen icons.

• By a strange coincidence, Rasputin met Tsar Nicholas II in the same year (1905) as Papus (who came to Russia in 1905). Rasputin, like Papus, had a strong religious influence on the tsar: Papus initiated the tsar into Martinism, treated his family and allegedly predicted his death... this is what they say about Rasputin. Both died at the end of 1916, with a difference of only about two months.

Rasputin in culture and art

According to research by S. Fomin, during March-November 1917, theaters were filled with dubious productions, and more than ten libelous films about Grigory Rasputin were released. The first such film was a two-part "sensational drama" "Dark forces - Grigory Rasputin and his associates"(produced by G. Liebken joint-stock company). The film was delivered in record time, within a few days: March 5 newspaper "Early morning" announced it, and already on March 12 (! - 10 days after the renunciation!) it appeared on cinema screens. It is noteworthy that this first libelous film was a failure as a whole and was successful only in small outlying cinemas, where the audience was simpler... The appearance of these films led to a protest from the more educated public because of their pornography and wild eroticism. In order to protect public morality, it was even proposed to introduce film censorship (and this in the first days of the revolution!), temporarily entrusting it to the police. A group of filmmakers petitioned the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky to ban the demonstration of the film "Dark Forces - Grigory Rasputin", stop the flow film smut and pornography. Of course, this did not stop the further spread of the Rasputin film across the country. Those who “overthrew the autocracy” were in power, and they needed to justify this overthrow. And further S. Fomin writes: “After October 1917, the Bolsheviks approached the matter more fundamentally. Of course, the film waste paper about Rasputin received a second wind, but much broader and deeper steps were taken. Falsified by P. E. Shchegolev and others were released. multi-volume Protocols of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry created by the Provisional Government, forged from beginning to end by the same P. Shchegolev with the “red count” A. Tolstoy “The Diaries” of A. Vyrubova. In the same row is the widely demonstrated play by A. Tolstoy “The Conspiracy of the Empress” ... It was only around 1930 that this campaign began to decline - the new generation entering adulthood in the USSR was already sufficiently “processed.”

Rasputin and his historical significance had a great influence on both Russian and Western culture. Germans and Americans are to some extent attracted to his figure as a kind of “Russian bear”, or “Russian peasant”.
In the village Pokrovskoe (now Yarkovsky district of the Tyumen region) there is a private museum of G.E. Rasputin.

List of literature about Rasputin

• Avrekh A. Ya. Tsarism on the eve of its overthrow.- M., 1989. - ISBN 5-02-009443-9
• Amalrik A. Rasputin
• Varlamov A. N. Grigory Rasputin-New. ZhZL series. - M: Young Guard, 2007. 851 pp. - ISBN 978-5-235-02956-9
• Vasiliev A. T. Security: Russian secret police. In the book: "Security". Memoirs of leaders of political investigation. - M.: New Literary Review, 2004. Volume 2.
• Vatala E. Rasputin. Without myths and legends. M., 2000
• Bokhanov A. N. The truth about Grigory Rasputin. - M: Russian Publishing Center, 2011. 608 pp., 5000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-4249-0002-0

Gatiyatulina Yu. R. Museum of Grigory Rasputin // Revival of the historical center of Tyumen. Tyumen in the past, present and future. Abstracts of reports and messages of the scientific-practical conference. - Tyumen, 2001. P. 24-26. - ISBN 5-88131-176-0

• E. F. Dzhanumova. My meetings with (Grigory) Rasputin
• N. N. Evreinov. The mystery of Rasputin. L.: “Byloe”, 1924 (M: “Book Chamber”, 1990 reprint: ISBN 5-7000-0219-1)
• V. A. Zhukovskaya. My memories of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin 1914-1916.
• Iliodor (Trufanov S.) Holy damn. Notes on Rasputin. With a foreword by S. P. Melgunov. Printing house of the Ryabushinsky company. - M., 1917 XV, 188 p.
• Zhevakhov N. Memoirs. Volume I. September 1915 - March 1917]
• Kokovtsov V. N. From my past. Memoirs 1903-1919 Volumes I and II. Paris, 1933. Chapter II
• Miller L. The Royal Family is a victim of dark power. Melbourne, 1988. ("Lodya": reprint)ISBN 5-8233-0011-5
• Nikulin L. God's adjutant. Chronicle novel. - M., 1927 “Worker” No. 98 - “Worker” No. 146
• Fall of the Tsarist regime. Verbatim reports of interrogations and testimony given in 1917 by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government. - M.-L., 1926-1927. At 7 t.
• Pikul V. Evil spirits (“At the last line”)
• O. Platonov. Life for the Tsar (The Truth about Grigory Rasputin)
• Polishchuk V.V., Polishchuk O.A. Tyumen by Grigory Rasputin-Novy //Slovtsov Readings-2006: Materials of the XVIII All-Russian Scientific Local History Conference. - Tyumen, 2006. P. 97-99. - ISBN 5-88081-558-7
• Purishkevich V. M. Diary for 1916 (Death of Rasputin) // “The Life of the Prodigal Elder Grishka Rasputin.” - M., 1990. - ISBN 5-268-01401-3
• Purishkevich V. M. Diary (in the book “The Last Days of Rasputin”). - M.: “Zakharov”, 2005
• Radzinsky E. Rasputin: Life and Death. - 2004. 576 pp. - ISBN 5-264-00589-3
• Rasputina M. Rasputin. Why? Memories of a daughter. - M.: “Zakharov”, 2001, 2005.
• The Rasputin theme on the pages of modern publications (1988-1995): an index of literature. - Tyumen, 1996. 60 p.
• Fulop-Miller, Rene Holy demon, Rasputin and women- Leipzig, 1927 (German) René Fülöp-Miller “Der heilige Teufel” – Rasputin und die Frauen, Leipzig, 1927 ). Reissued in 1992. M.: Republic, 352 pp. - ISBN 5-250-02061-5
• Ruud C. A., Stepanov S. A. Fontanka, 16: Political investigation under the Tsars.- M.: Mysl, 1993. Chapter 14. “Dark forces” around the throne
• Holy devil: Collection. - M., 1990. 320 pp. - ISBN 5-7000-0235-3
• Simanovich A. Rasputin and the Jews. Memoirs of Grigory Rasputin's personal secretary. - Riga, 1924. - ISBN 5-265-02276-7
• Spiridovich A.I. Spiridovitch Alexandre (Genéral). Raspoutine 1863-1916. D'après les documents russes et les archives de l'auteur.- Paris. Payot. 1935
• A. Tereshchuk. Grigory Rasputin. Biography
• Fomin S. The murder of Rasputin: the creation of a myth
• Chernyshov A. Who was “on guard” on the night of Rasputin’s murder in the courtyard of the Yusupov Palace? //Lukich. 2003. Part 2. pp. 214-219
• Chernyshov A.V. In search of the grave of Grigory Rasputin. (About one publication) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. - Vol. 7. pp. 36-42
• Chernyshov A.V. Choosing a path. (Highlights to the religious and philosophical portrait of G. E. Rasputin) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. - Vol. 9. P.64-85
• Chernyshov A.V. Something about Rasputinia and the publishing environment of our days (1990-1991) // Religion and the Church in Siberia. Collection of scientific articles and documentary materials. - Tyumen, 1991. Issue 2. pp. 47-56
• Shishkin O.A. Kill Rasputin. M., 2000
• Yusupov F. F. Memoirs (The End of Rasputin) Published in the collection “The Life of the Prodigal Elder Grishka Rasputin.” - M., 1990. - ISBN 5-268-01401-3
• Yusupov F. F. The End of Rasputin (in the book “The Last Days of Rasputin”) - M.: “Zakharov”, 2005
• Shavelsky G.I. Memoirs of the last protopresbyter of the Russian Army and Navy. - New York: ed. them. Chekhov, 1954
• Etkind A. Whip. Sects, literature and revolution. Department of Slavic Studies, University of Helsinki, New Literary Review. - M., 1998. - 688 p. (Book review - Alexander Ulanov A. Etkind. Whip. Bitter experience of culture. “Banner” 1998, No. 10)
• Harold Schucman. Rasputin. - 1997. - 113 p. ISBN 978-0-7509-1529-8.

Documentary films about Rasputin

• Last of the Czars. The Shadow of Rasputin, dir. Teresa Cherf; Mark Anderson, 1996, Discovery Communications, 51 min. (released on DVD in 2007)
• Who killed Rasputin? (Who Killed Rasputin?), dir. Michael Wedding, 2004, BBC, 50 min. (released on DVD in 2006)

Rasputin in theater and cinema

It is not known for certain whether there were any newsreel footage of Rasputin. Not a single tape has survived to this day on which Rasputin himself was depicted.

The very first silent feature short films about Grigory Rasputin began to be released in March 1917. All of them, without exception, demonized the personality of Rasputin, exposing him and the Imperial Family in the most unsightly light. The first such film, entitled “Drama from the Life of Grigory Rasputin,” was released by Russian film magnate A. O. Drankov, who simply made a film montage of his 1916 film “Washed in Blood,” based on M. Gorky’s story “Konovalov.” Most of the other films were produced in 1917 by the then largest film company, the G. Liebken Joint Stock Company. In total, more than a dozen of them were released and there is no need to talk about any of their artistic value, since even then they caused protests in the press due to their “pornographic nature and wild eroticism”:

• Dark forces - Grigory Rasputin and his associates (2 episodes), dir. S. Veselovsky; in the role of Rasputin - S. Gladkov

• Holy Devil (Rasputin in Hell)

• People of sin and blood (Tsarskoye Selo sinners)

• The love affairs of Grishka Rasputin

• Rasputin's funeral

• Mysterious murder in Petrograd on December 16

• Trading house of Romanov, Rasputin, Sukhomlinov, Myasoedov, Protopopov and Co.

• Tsar's guardsmen

etc. (Fomin S.V. Grigory Rasputin: investigation. vol. I. Punishment with truth; M., Forum publishing house, 2007, pp. 16-19)

However, already in 1917, the image of Rasputin continued to appear on the silver screen. According to IMDB, the first person to portray the image of the old man on screen was actor Edward Conelli (in the film “The Fall of the Romanovs”). The same year, the film “Rasputin, the Black Monk” was released, where Montague Love played Rasputin. In 1926, another film about Rasputin was released - “Brandstifter Europas, Die” (in the role of Rasputin - Max Newfield), and in 1928 - three at once: “The Red Dance” (in the role of Rasputin - Dimitrius Alexis), “Rasputin - Saint Sinner" and "Rasputin" are the first two films where Rasputin was played by Russian actors - Nikolai Malikov and Grigory Khmara, respectively.

In 1925, A. N. Tolstoy’s play “The Conspiracy of the Empress” (published in Berlin in 1925) was written and immediately staged in Moscow, where the murder of Rasputin is shown in detail. Subsequently, the play was also staged by some Soviet theaters. At the Moscow Theater. I. V. Gogol played the role of Rasputin by Boris Chirkov. And on Belarusian television in the mid-60s, a television play “The Collapse” was filmed based on Tolstoy’s play, in which Roman Filippov (Rasputin) and Rostislav Yankovsky (Prince Felix Yusupov) played.

In 1932, the German “Rasputin - a Demon with a Woman” was released (famous German actor Conrad Weidt played the role of Rasputin), and the Oscar-nominated “Rasputin and the Empress”, in which the title role went to Lionel Barrymore. In 1938, Rasputin was released with Harry Baur in the title role.

Cinema returned to Rasputin again in the 50s, which was marked by productions with the same name "Rasputin", released in 1954 and 1958 (for television) with Pierre Brasseur and Narzmes Ibanez Menta in the roles of Rasputin, respectively. In 1967, the cult horror film “Rasputin - the Mad Monk” was released with the famous actor Christopher Lee in the role of Grigory Rasputin. Despite many errors from a historical point of view, the image he created in the film is considered one of the best film incarnations of Rasputin.

The 1960s also saw the release of The Night of Rasputin (1960, starring Edmund Pardom), Rasputin (a 1966 TV production starring Herbert Stass), and I Killed Rasputin (1967), where The role was played by Gert Fröbe, known for his role as Goldfinger, the villain from the James Bond film of the same name.

In the 70s, Rasputin appeared in the following films: “Why the Russians Revolutionized” (1970, Rasputin - Wes Carter), the television production “Rasputin” as part of the “Play of the Month” series (1971, Rasputin - Robert Stevens), “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971, Rasputin - Tom Baker), the television series "Fall of Eagles" (1974, Rasputin - Michael Aldridge) and the television play "A Cárné összeesküvése" (1977, Rasputin - Nandor Tomanek)

In 1981, the most famous Russian film about Rasputin was released - "Agony" Elem Klimov, where the role was successfully embodied by Alexey Petrenko. In 1984, “Rasputin - Orgien am Zarenhof” was released with Alexander Conte in the role of Rasputin.

In the 90s, the image of Rasputin, like many others, began to deform. In the parody sketch of the show "Red Dwarf" - "The Melt", released in 1991, Rasputin was played by Steven Micallef, and in 1996 two films about Rasputin were released - "The Successor" (1996) with Igor Solovyov as Rasputin and "Rasputin", where he was played by Alan Rickman (and young Rasputin by Tamas Toth). In 1997, the cartoon "Anastasia" was released, where Rasputin was voiced by the famous actor Christopher Lloyd and Jim Cummings (singing).

In the new millennium, interest in the figure of Rasputin has not waned. The films “Rasputin: The Devil in the Flesh” (2002, for television, Rasputin - Oleg Fedorov and “Killing Rasputin” (2003, Rasputin - Ruben Thomas), as well as “Hellboy: Hero from Hell”, where the main villain is the resurrected Rasputin, have already been released played by Karel Roden.The film was released in 2007 "CONSPIRACY", directed by Stanislav Libin, where the role of Rasputin is played by Ivan Okhlobystin.

In music

Rasputin in poetry

Commercial use of Rasputin's name

Commercial use of the name Grigory Rasputin in some trademarks began in the West in the 1980s. Currently known:

In St. Petersburg there are also:

see also

Notes

1. GOVERNMENT OF TYUMEN REGION. On approval of the list of unique documents to be included in the register of unique documents of archival funds of the Tyumen region. Birth statistics of G. Rasputin.
2. “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” (3rd edition), Moscow, publishing house “Soviet Encyclopedia” 1969-1978. (Retrieved April 12, 2009)
3. “Rasputin: life and death”, M.: Vagrius, 2000, 279 pages (chapter - “The Disappeared Birthday”) Edward Radzinsky (Retrieved April 12, 2009)
4. See Chapter LXI // Nikolai Zhevakhov. Memoirs of the chief prosecutor of the Synod, Prince N. D. Zhevakhov. T. 1. September 1915 - March 1917. - Munich: Publishing house. F. Vinberg, 1923.
5. Varlamov A. N. Grigory Rasputin-New. ZhZL series. - M: Young Guard, 2007. 851 pp. - ISBN 978-5-235-02956-9
6. Diaries of Nicholas II (1894-1916) Diary of Nicholas II. 1905
7. Ioffe G.Z. Even the warnings of Elizaveta Fedorovna’s sister that people’s dissatisfaction with Rasputin was being transferred to the royal family did not in any way influence the empress. Writer and journalist Igor Obolensky writes about this in his book “Mysteries of Love. Rasputin. Chanel. Hollywood”:

   In response to warnings that the people’s dissatisfaction with Rasputin was transferring to the royal family, which surrounded itself with people who were dishonest in their hands and thoughts, and the worst could happen, the Empress coldly replied: “All this is not true. The people love us.” Leaving her sister, who made it clear that the audience was over, the Grand Duchess said: “Don’t forget about the fate of Marie Antoinette, who was sent to the guillotine by the people who loved her just as much.”

   FUCKED LIFE. A SECRET HIDDEN FOR 100 YEARS

   

   The villainous murder of G.E. Rasputin was preceded by inhumane slander and lies, the purpose of which was to discredit the Royal Family, deprive the country of strong monarchical power, and weaken Russia, which by that time occupied a leading place in political and economic life among world powers.

   In our time, interest in the royal theme, in the personality of G.E. Rasputin does not fade away. More and more publications are appearing where events and personalities are presented in the light of truth. We present to your attention one of such publications "Grigory Rasputin: slandered life, slandered death". The author of the article is a Russian philologist and writer Tatiana Mironova .

   Identity falsification - creating a double

   Forgery of historical documents, lies, with reference to “eyewitness accounts” are long-practiced, tested techniques of history falsifiers.<…>

   Grigory Rasputin was hated by those who hated the Tsar. They aimed at Grigory Efimovich in order to get into the Royal Family, into the Autocracy itself. Blatant slander against the Elder and falsification of his personality were used. Intelligent society in Russia was more willing to listen to rumors; they believed them even more than newspapers. Even Admiral Kolchak condemned the Sovereign for Rasputin, although Kolchak himself never saw the Elder, and here is a typical example: while he was serving in the Pacific Fleet, the admiral, according to him, barely managed to suppress the officer’s revolt in response to the spread rumor that Rasputin arrived in Vladivostok and wants to visit the warships. Kolchak himself was indignant at Rasputin for this intention, but it soon became clear that the rumor was false, Grigory Efimovich was not in Vladivostok. But Kolchak, by his own admission, remained disgusted with the Elder after this incident (1).

   The French ambassador Maurice Paleologue also describes Rasputin hostilely, based only on St. Petersburg rumors and gossip, recounting all sorts of fictions, although he himself saw Grigory Efimovich only once while visiting Countess L. And the Frenchman could not say anything bad about this meeting, he only had time to look at “a man with piercing eyes,” who, looking at the arrogant Frenchman, regretfully said, “There are fools everywhere,” and left. The paleologist did not attribute this phrase to himself, so he retold it with chronicle accuracy.

   Who and why was Grigory Efimovich hated? Who and what did the elder interfere with? Why was he hated?

   In 1912, when Russia was ready to intervene in the Balkan conflict, Rasputin begged the Tsar on his knees not to engage in hostilities, and, of course, prayed to God to incline the Tsar’s heart to this. According to Count Witte, “he (Rasputin) indicated all the disastrous results of the European fire and the arrows of history turned differently. War was averted" (2). The powers of Rasputin’s prayer were so feared that the warmongers, in which it was necessary to drag Russia into, so that, in the words of Engels, “crowns would fly into the mud,” so, the warmongers, in a new attempt to fan the flames of world carnage, decided to kill Grigory Efimovich on the same day and the same hour as the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, whose death was the prepared pretext for the outbreak of war. Rasputin was then seriously wounded and, while he was unconscious and could not pray, the Tsar was forced to begin general mobilization in response to Germany’s declaration of war on Russia.

   The enemies of Russia sensed and understood the entire threat posed by Rasputin to their destructive anti-autocratic, anti-Russian plans. No wonder Purishkevich, on behalf of all those who hated Autocratic Russia, shouted from the Duma rostrum about the main obstacle to the overthrow of the Throne: “As long as Rasputin is alive, we cannot win” (3).

   And Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was a humble man of prayer, convinced that all his grace-filled power was faith in the Lord of those who asked for his prayers. Purely earthly paths led Grigory Efimovich in 1904 to St. Petersburg to ask for permission to build the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God in his native village of Pokrovskoye. Then the Heir-Tsarevich had just been born, and the need for hourly prayer to God to save the child’s life was clearly outlined to his Royal parents.<…>

   In little Alexei Nikolaevich, given to the Royal Family through the prayers of St. Seraphim of Sarov, all the hopes of the Sovereign for the well-being of his beloved people of Russia were concentrated. He was truly a “ray of sunshine” - a kind and bright child, a great consolation to the Family, who trembled at the thought that he might fade away. Through the prayers of the saints, the gifted baby could only be saved by the prayer of the saint, especially since his illness - hemophilia - was painful, suddenly appeared, very dangerous, but not inevitably fatal, and already the sons of Tsarevich Alexei would have been an absolutely healthy generation. And the Lord sent a prayer book to the Royal Family about the health of their son.

   

   Grigory Efimovich Rasputin is presented to the Emperor in October 1905. Grigory Efimovich, according to a special revelation from God to him, even at the first meeting with the Tsar and Empress, realized his special destiny and devoted his entire life to serving the Tsar. He leaves his wanderings, lives for a long time in St. Petersburg, gathering around him people faithful to the Sovereign, and most importantly, at the slightest danger to the little one, he is nearby, because his prayer for the Tsarevich appeared, perhaps unexpectedly for himself, pleasing to God, heard by Him. And this actual prayerful intercession for the Tsarevich was for the Tsar a visible sign that in the most difficult times of his reign, a spiritual assistant to the Tsar’s service had been sent from God. As the Tsar’s sister V.K. said. Olga Alexandrovna, the Tsar and the Queen “saw in him a peasant whose sincere piety made him an instrument of God” (4, p. 298). And honest investigator V.M. Rudnev, who was a member of the Extraordinary Commission of the Provisional Government, noted in his official note on the results of the investigation that “Their Majesties were sincerely convinced of the holiness of Rasputin, the only real representative and prayer book for the Sovereign, His Family and Russia before God” (5, p.153 ).

   

   There are reliable facts, confirmed by many witnesses, that Rasputin saved Tsarevich Alexei from death. In 1907, when the Heir was three years old, he suffered a severe hemorrhage in his leg in Tsarskoye Selo Park. They called Grigory Efimovich, he prayed, the hemorrhage stopped. In October 1912, in Spala - the royal hunting grounds of Poland - Alexei Nikolaevich, after a severe injury, was so hopeless that doctors Fedorov and Rauchfus began to insist on the publication of bulletins about the health of the Heir. But the Empress did not rely on doctors, but only on the mercy of God. Rasputin was at that time in his homeland, in Pokrovskoye, and at the request of the Empress, Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova sent a telegram to Pokrovskoye. Soon the answer came: “God looked at your tears. Do not worry. Your Son will live." An hour after receiving the telegram, Alexei Nikolaevich’s condition improved sharply, and the mortal danger had passed.

   In 1915, the Emperor, having gone to the Army, took Alexei Nikolaevich with him. On the way, the Tsarevich began to have a nosebleed. The train was returned because the Heir was bleeding. He lay in the nursery: “A small waxen face, bloody cotton wool in his nostrils.” Grigory Efimovich was called. “He arrived at the palace and went with his parents to Alexei Nikolaevich. According to their stories, he approached the bed, crossed the Heir, told his parents that there was nothing serious and they had nothing to worry about, turned and left. The bleeding stopped... The doctors said that they did not understand at all how this happened” (6, p.143-144).

   The (Great) Princess Olga Alexandrovna testifies: “There were thousands and thousands of people who firmly believed in the power of prayer and the gift of healing that this man possessed” (29, p. 100).

   Standing in prayer before God for the Heir is only a small part of Rasputin’s service to his Sovereign. He was a companion of prayer to the Anointed One of God for the Russian Autocratic Kingdom, and human sophisticated cunning and devilish malice, hidden from the eyes of the tsars, were often revealed to him. He warned the Tsar against many decisions that threatened disaster for the country: he was against the last convocation of the Duma, asked not to publish Duma seditious speeches, on the very eve of the February Revolution he insisted on bringing food to Petrograd - bread and butter from Siberia, even came up with the idea of ​​packaging flour and sugar so that avoid queues, because it was in the queues during the artificial organization of the grain crisis that the St. Petersburg unrest began, skillfully transformed into a “revolution”. And this is just a fraction of Rasputin’s predictions of current events during the war and pre-revolutionary period of 1914-1917. Knowing how to see the human soul, Grigory Efimovich knew the souls and moods of the sovereign’s closest servants, and therefore saw that in. book Nikolai Nikolaevich as Commander-in-Chief was not just the death of the Army, but also a threat to the Reign. Rasputin insisted that the Emperor lead the Army, and victory was not long in coming.

   Rasputin's insight amazed everyone who had the opportunity to communicate with him. According to the story of Grigory Efimovich’s daughter Varvara, recorded by N.A. Sokolov in 1919, one day a woman came to Rasputin’s apartment. “The father, approaching her, said: “Well, come on, what’s in your right hand. I know what you have there." The lady took her hand out of her muff and handed him a revolver” (7, p.184).

   The fact that Rasputin was perspicacious, and his perspicacity, given to him by God, guided his feat of prayer, is known not only from people spiritually close to him. The murderer Felix Yusupov testified in despair: “I have been involved in the occult for a long time and I can assure you that people like Rasputin, with such magnetic power, appear once every few centuries... No one can replace Rasputin, therefore the elimination of Rasputin will have good consequences for the revolution "(8, p.532). The enemies of the Tsar, who dreamed of destroying the Throne through “swinging society,” focused on denigrating Rasputin.<…>

   How was Grigory Efimovich supposed to justify himself for non-existent sins and to whom? The Sovereign and Empress saw with their own eyes, felt his prayerful help every day and did not believe the slander, and from others... even the Sovereign and Empress only met condemnation and alienation for their favor towards the Elder. And Grigory Efimovich did not justify himself to anyone, but only prayed to God, and these prayers today remained his justification for all time: “I am going through difficult misdeeds. It’s terrible what they write, God! Give patience and stop the enemies from speaking!” (9, p.491).<…>

   And such a person, the Tsar’s Friend, in the most important meaning of the word, always spiritually co-present with the Tsar in his service as the Anointed of God, first began to be killed spiritually - slandered and persecuted, and the purpose of the persecution was to tear Rasputin away from the Tsar, to destroy this saving union, powerful standing up as a spiritual wall in front of the destroyers of Russia. Many near and far, who believed the lies, went to the Tsar and Empress, wrote them insulting letters, threatened them, and demanded that Rasputin be expelled from them! But could the Emperor and Empress do this?<…>Slander had no effect on the High Ones, and the Throne still remained inviolable behind the wall of prayer of Elder Gregory, but slander had an effect on the crowd of intellectuals, on the mob, who had forgotten their love for the Tsars.

   Almost all memoirs about Grigory Efimovich Rasputin suffer from a drawback that is surprising for memories: most memoirists did not see Grigory Efimovich or saw him briefly, from afar. But all the “memories”, both those who were sympathetic to the Royal Family and those who expressed hostility towards Her, spoke equally badly about Rasputin, repeating the same thing: a drunkard, a libertine, a whip. What did they know about him? What, besides rumors...<…>

   Fortunately, there are other people among memoirists. General P.G. Kurlov published the book “The Death of Imperial Russia” in Berlin in 1923. The general never belonged to the circle of Grigory Efimovich, and the elder’s haters cannot accuse him of bias, in addition, he is a professional policeman, director of the Police Department, head of the Main Prison Directorate, comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs, and experience in dealing with people of criminal thinking and behavior, namely, this is the image of Rasputin that was imposed on society, Kurlov had a huge one, and he had no reason to stand up for Rasputin and the Royal Family after 1911, because with the murder of P.A. Stolypin's own destiny and career collapsed. Kurlov describes Rasputin as he himself saw him. “I was in the ministerial office, where the courier on duty brought Rasputin. A thin man with a wedge-shaped dark brown beard and piercing, intelligent eyes approached the minister. He sat down with P.A. Stolypin near the large table and began to prove that it was in vain to suspect him of something, since he is the most meek and harmless person... Following this, I expressed to the minister my impression: in my opinion, Rasputin was a type of Russian cunning man, that is called - on his own mind, and did not seem like a charlatan to me” (15, p. 312). “For the first time I talked with Rasputin in the winter of 1912 at one of my acquaintances... The external impression of Rasputin was the same as what I made when, unknown to him, I saw him in the minister’s office... This time I was struck only by Rasputin’s serious acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures and theological issues. He behaved with restraint and not only did not show a shadow of boasting, but did not say a single word about his relationship with the Royal Family. Likewise, I did not notice any signs of hypnotic power in him and, leaving after this conversation, I could not help but say to myself that most of the rumors circulating about his influence on those around him belonged to the field of gossip, to which Petersburg is always so susceptible" (15, p. 317). At a new meeting with Kurlov, “Rasputin was keenly interested in the war and, since I had come from the theater of military operations, asked my opinion about its possible outcome, categorically stating that he considered the war with Germany a huge disaster for Russia... Being an opponent of the war that had begun, he with great patriotic enthusiasm he spoke about the need to bring it to the end, in the confidence that the Lord God will help the Emperor and Russia... It follows from this that the accusation of Rasputin of treason was just as justified as the already refuted accusation of the Empress... I had to talk with Rasputin several times in the last months of his life. I met him at the same Badmaev’s and was amazed by his innate intelligence and practical understanding of current issues, even of a state nature” (15, p. 318).

   

   So, slander had no effect on the Royal Family; Rasputin’s prayers were its constant strengthening.<…>That is why it was decided to kill the Royal Friend, leaving the Family alone and without prayer protection on earth. But in order to publicly kill the elder, in order to make society want this murder, it was necessary to increase the slander tenfold, it was necessary to drag the bright faces of the Tsars into the mud. For this purpose, a scam was invented with the appearance of a false identity - a double of Grigory Rasputin.

   The first guesses that the Royal Family compromised through Grigory Efimovich's double, appeared shortly after the murder of the Elder. One of the evidence of this is the story of the ataman of the Don Army, Count D.M. Grabbe about how, shortly after the murder of Rasputin, he was “invited to breakfast by the famous Prince Andronnikov, who allegedly handled business through Rasputin. Entering the dining room, Grabbe was amazed to see Rasputin in the next room. Not far from the table stood a man who looked exactly like Rasputin. Andronnikov looked inquisitively at his guest. Grabbe pretended not to be surprised at all. The man stood, stood, left the room and did not appear again” (17, p. 148). Needless to say, such a “double” could appear during the life of Grigory Efimovich in any “hot” place, could get drunk, make scandals, hug women, about which daily reports were compiled by dirt-hungry newspapermen, could leave the entrance of the house on Gorokhovaya and march on apartment to a prostitute, about which daily reports were compiled by security department agents. Yu.A. Den recalls with bewilderment: “It got to the point that they stated that Rasputin was debauched in the capital, while in fact he was in Siberia” (10, p.95).

   The story of the double's revelry in the Moscow restaurant "Yar" is the best confirmation of this.

   On March 26, 1915, Grigory Efimovich arrived and left Moscow on the same day. But here is the report of Colonel Martynov that “according to the information of the bailiff of the 2nd school. Sushchevsky part of Moscow, Colonel Semenov,” Rasputin on March 26, at about 11 pm, visited the Yar restaurant with the widow Anisya Reshetnikova, journalist Nikolai Soedov and an unidentified young woman. Then they were joined by the editor-publisher of the newspaper “News of the Season” Semyon Lazarevich Kugulsky. The company drank wine, the dispersed “Rasputin” danced the Russian dance, performed obscenities, and boasted of his power over the “old woman” (as this man called the Tsarina). At 2 o'clock in the morning the company left.<…>

   The Empress quite rightly wrote to the Emperor: “He (Elder Gregory) has been slandered enough. As if they couldn’t call the police immediately and catch Him at the scene of the crime” (19).

   So, in the Moscow restaurant "Yar" Rasputin's "double" walked with a dummy company, and everything played out as usual: drunkenness, harassment of ladies, mentions of the Royal Family, Khlystov dance. And if the police had been called at the same time, it would have been revealed that Rasputin was not real, and Anisya Reshetnikova, a pious merchant widow of 76 years old, had never been to the restaurant. But the newspaperman Semyon Lazarevich Kugulsky was a genuine person and, most likely, was the entrepreneur of the “orgy”. It was he who tried to ensure that the case of the revelry in “Yar” got into the press even before the investigation and became overgrown with obscene details. Following this, the State Duma prepared a request about the events at the Yar restaurant, then did not give it a go, deliberately spreading the fiction that the Duma was prohibited from making this request, since the Royal Family was “afraid of the truth.” And the idle rabble went and went to slander - a drunken, depraved man - the favorite of the Royal Family!

   This is how, deliberately and brazenly, the double of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was introduced into society. And although the actions of the double, his words, notes, his very appearance - a long fleshy nose, a thin beard, restless, shifting eyes - were very different from the handsome appearance of Grigory Efimovich, the double persistently passed himself off and, most importantly, was willingly accepted as the Prayer Book and Friend of the Royal Family.

   It is thanks to the existence of the double that two Rasputins appear from the pages of the security department reports: one is pious, splendid, pious, goes to churches, defends liturgies, lights candles, goes to apartments to heal the sick, receives petitioners, spiritual children, eats with them, and, moreover, how noted by all the people really close to him, Father Gregory does not take any wine, meat, or sweets into his mouth. Strict abstinence. The money donated by the petitioners is immediately distributed to other petitioners. And, most importantly, he is respectful to the point of reverence towards the Imperial Family. Another “Rasputin” is drunk for weeks, visits harlots, takes bribes for patronage, makes scandals in restaurants, breaks dishes and mirrors there, speaks bad things about the Royal Family.

   The time will come, and new documents will be discovered that will finally prove to us that the dark personality, who outwardly resembled Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, was created by the enemies of the Autocratic Russian Kingdom.

   (1.) Protocols of the interrogation of Admiral Kolchak by the emergency commission of inquiry in Irkutsk in January-February. 1920 // Archive of the Russian Revolution. – T.10. – M. – 1991.

   (3.) Interrogation of Maklakov V.A. Sokolov N.A. // Investigation of the regicide. Secret documents. – M. – 1993.

   (4.) Worres Ian. The last Grand Duchess. – M. – 1998.

   (5.) Note from Rudnev V.M. “The truth about the Russian Royal Family and dark forces” // Russian Archive. – M. – 1998.

   (6.) Taneyeva (Vyrubova) A.A. Pages of my life. – M. 2000.

   (7.) Sokolov N.A. Preliminary investigation 1919-1920 // Investigation of the regicide. Secret documents. – M. – 1993.

   (8.) Interrogation of Maklakov V.A. Sokolov N.A. // Investigation of the regicide. Secret documents. – M. – 1993.

   (9.) Groyan T.I. Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar. – M. – 2000.

   (10.) Den Yu.A. The real Queen. – M. – 1998.

   (15.) Kurlov P.G. The Death of Imperial Russia // Grigory Rasputin. Collection of historical materials. – M. – 1997. – T.2.

   (17.) Rodzianko M.V. The collapse of the empire. - Kharkiv. – 1990.

   (19.) Platonov O.A. Nicholas II in secret correspondence. – M. – 1996.

   (29.) Alexander Mikhailovich v. book Book of memories // Nicholas II. Memories. Diaries. – St. Petersburg. – 1994.

   

   We publish the preface to the book “Grigory Rasputin the New. The Life of an Experienced Wanderer. My thoughts and reflections”, published in 2002 by the publishing house “Lestvitsa”.

   In Russian history G.E. Rasputin is one of the most slandered people, in whose official biography there is not a single real event.

   Grigory Efimovich Rasputin (09/22.01.1869 – 17/30.12.1916) was born in the village of Pokrovsky, Tyumen region. Of the 9 born in the peasant family, he and his sister Feodosia remained, who later got married and left for another village. The surname “Rasputin” comes from the word “crossroads”, which means the development of roads, crossroads.

   God's gifts of insight and healing appeared in childhood. He knew which of his fellow villagers would soon die, who had stolen what. He could sit near the stove and say: “A stranger is coming towards us.” And indeed, soon he knocked. One day his father said that their horse had sprained a ligament. He went to her, prayed and told her: “Now you will feel better.” The horse recovered. Since then, he has become a kind of rural veterinarian. Then it spread to people.

   Rasputin met his future wife Dubrovina Paraskeva Fedorovna during a pilgrimage to the Abalaki monastery at the age of 18. The marriage produced 7 children, three of whom survived.

   Many people in Tsarist Russia lived according to the Orthodox traditions of Holy Rus' - mainly in the spring (during Lent) or autumn (after the harvest) people walked to the holy monasteries. The common people made pilgrimages mainly on foot, eating and spending the night with the hosts who sheltered them, who readily performed this godly task. Rasputin did the same. I visited the nearby Tyumen and Abalak monasteries, the Verkhoturye St. Nicholas Monastery, the Sedmiozersk and Optina Hermitages, and the Pochaev Lavra. Repeatedly went on pilgrimage to Kyiv, to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Later I was on New Athos, in Jerusalem. Until his death, he always farmed himself (sowing and harvesting work), without hiring help.

   He came to St. Petersburg in the late autumn of 1904 to the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Bishop Sergius of Stragorod (the future patriarch), with a letter of recommendation from the vicar of the Kazan diocese, Chrysanf (Shchetkovsky), who introduced him to some people in St. Petersburg society. Rasputin was looking for money to build a new church in the village of Pokrovskoye, and in the end the tsar himself gave money for the construction.

   He was also in Kronstadt with Fr. John, who was also at one time called a sectarian, a libertine, and a self-seeker for his communication with Tsar Alexander III. Received communion from the hands of Fr. John. According to the memoirs of Rasputin's daughter Matryona, Fr. John came out of the altar and asked: “Who is praying so fervently here?” He approached Rasputin, lifted him from his knees, and then invited him to his place. During the conversation he said: “It will be for you according to your name” (the name “Gregory” means “awake”).

   For many representatives of high society “after the eternal intrigues and evils of secular life,” as well as during those troubled times when monarchists in high positions were killed by bombs and gunshots, conversations with him served as a consolation. Learned people and priests found him interesting. Although Gregory was illiterate, he knew the Holy Scriptures by heart and knew how to interpret them. Bishop Alexy (Molchanov) of Tobolsk considered Rasputin “an Orthodox Christian, a very intelligent, spiritually minded man, seeking the truth of Christ, able to give good advice to those who need it.”

   He did the same in his native village of Pokrovskoye. According to memories in the 90s. old residents of the village, he helped the children get dressed for school, arrange a wedding for their son, buy a horse, etc.

   In addition to cases of stopping bleeding in an hemophiliac heir (including when the heir was in Poland, and Rasputin was in the village of Pokrovsky, and a telegram was sent to him), there are cases when, through Rasputin’s prayers, the Lord healed and alleviated the suffering of O.V. Lakhtina (neurasthenia of the intestines), son of A.S. Simanovich (Witt's dance), A.A. Vyrubova (crushed bones in a train crash), daughter of P.A. Stolypin (his legs were blown off when terrorists exploded a bomb at his dacha).

   Rasputin was an opponent of the war, he said that it was death for Russia, but if we are going to fight, we must see it to a victorious end. He approved when the tsar introduced prohibition in 1914 and replaced him as Commander-in-Chief in 1915. book Nikolai Nikolaevich, who led the army to retreat. On his advice, during the war, the empress and her eldest daughters completed courses and worked as nurses, while the younger ones darned clothes for soldiers and prepared bandages and lint in the Tsarskoye Selo hospital (the only case in history).

   He could refuse to meet with the prince or count and walk on foot to the outskirts of the city to meet with an artisan or simple peasant. Princes and counts, as a rule, do not forgive such independence to a “simple peasant”. The epicenter of slander comes from the palace of Uncle Nicholas II. book Nikolai Nikolaevich and his wife Stana Nikolaevna with her sister Militsa. It was through these sisters that Grigory Rasputin first met the royal couple in November 1905. But after the tsarina’s quarrel with her sisters and the failure of Nikolai Nikolaevich to use Rasputin to influence the tsar, this family and its entourage in 1907 became unfriendly to the royal family and especially to its friend Rasputin. Many people from secular society were indignant at the royal family for bringing a simple peasant closer to them, and not from among the well-born and eminent.

   In 1910, in order to undermine the throne and the entire Russian state, some newspapers joined in denigrating Rasputin, which people believed just as much as we now believe the media. Provincial newspapers often took articles from metropolitan newspapers.

   In 1912, Hieromonk Iliodor (Trufanov), who knew Rasputin, renounces Christ (sends a written renunciation to the synod), apologizes to the Jews and begins to write a slanderous book on Rasputin and the royal family “Holy Devil”, individual episodes from which were published in imperial Russia, and it was published in its entirety in Russia after the February Revolution.

   In 1914, the bourgeois Khionia Guseva makes an attempt on Rasputin's life in the village of Pokrovskoye (she hits him in the stomach with a dagger). When the police find out that she is a follower of Iliodor-Trufanov, he flees responsibility abroad. Unlike us, the enemies of our Fatherland know very well who is for them and who is against them, and Iliodor-Trufanov, who has already returned to Soviet Russia, gets a job on the recommendation of F.E. Dzerzhinsky to the Cheka for special cases.

   To create the image of Rasputin as a drunkard, a whip and a depraved person, his doubles worked.

   

   The real G.E. Rasputin

   

   Photos of G.E.'s doubles Rasputin, given in the book

   Reputable journalists and writers were invited to a meeting with the double and his fans, so that they would subsequently write and tell their friends about Rasputin’s behavior (memoirs of the writer N.A. Teffi). The existence of a double was also testified to by the ataman of the Don army, Count D.M. Grabbe, who spoke about how, shortly after the murder of Rasputin, he was invited to breakfast by the famous Prince Andronnikov, who allegedly handled business through Rasputin. Entering the dining room, Grabbe was amazed to see Rasputin in the next room. Not far from the table stood a man who looked exactly like Rasputin. Andronnikov looked inquisitively at his guest. Grabbe pretended not to be surprised at all. The man stood, stood, left the room and did not appear again.

   General V.F. was also active. Dzhunkovsky was the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the head of the gendarme corps while he was in this post. Under his patronage, a case was fabricated in 1915 about Rasputin’s unbridled behavior in the Moscow restaurant “Yar” without a single testimony from a real person, who was widely covered in the press, and the diaries of external surveillance of Rasputin, supposedly to protect his life after the assassination attempt, were subjected to literary processing.

   The owner of the St. Petersburg restaurant “Villa Rode” A.S. also worked in conjunction with the double. Rode. Articles about Rasputin's debauchery in this restaurant were regularly published in newspapers.

   After the Bolshevik revolution, Prince Andronnikov and General Dzhunkovsky were accepted and worked in the bodies of the Cheka, and the merchant A.S. Rode was appointed director of the House of Scientists in Petrograd.

   Forged letters from the empress and her daughters to Rasputin circulated in secular salons, talking about an adulterous relationship between them, allegedly given by Rasputin to Iliodor-Trufanov while communicating with him. Rumors spread at the front that the Empress (German by birth) and Rasputin surrendered Russia to Germany due to the alleged weakness of the Tsar because of their love of alcohol. Rasputin was credited with influencing government affairs, all unpopular dismissals and appointments, and government actions that were undesirable to society. Duma figures, future Februaryists, spoke out and spoke from the rostrum against Rasputin.

   A woman came to confession to the confessor of the royal family, Archimandrite Feofan (Bistrov), who told about Rasputin’s inappropriate behavior with her, and he, not allowing the idea that one could lie in confession, and violating the secrecy of confession, told the empress and his hierarchs about it.

   Rasputin spoke about the highest Christian virtue - love, which is not understandable even to all Christians, not to mention the people of this world, and it was conveniently turned into carnal “love”, understandable to everyone. Likewise, humility was turned into thoughtless submission.

   It must be said that everyone close to the royal family, the royal ministers, and monarchists in general were subjected to attacks and ridicule. As the royal doctor E.S. said. Botkin: “If there had been no Rasputin, the opponents of the Royal Family and the preparers of the revolution would have created him with their conversations from Vyrubova; if there had been no Vyrubova, from me, from whomever you want.”

   Many people, incl. those who subsequently left their memoirs in exile, who did not know Rasputin personally, formed their opinion about him based on rumors circulating in their social circle. The tsar himself repeatedly arranged secret checks of the “facts,” but they were not confirmed.

   Believing in the slander against the royal family and its friend Rasputin, the Russian people calmly accepted the February revolution, the overthrow of the tsar and even the murder of the royal family.

   Rasputin told his loved ones that he would not live to see 1917 and would die in terrible agony. Before going with F.F. Yusupov to his house, he burned all the correspondence and put on a new shirt. They killed as martyrs: they beat him with a whip, knocked out an eye, pulled out tufts of hair, and made an incision under the left hypochondrium (in the image of Christ). Then they threw him alive into the hole, because... my lungs were full of water.

   The investigation showed all this contrary to the official version - the execution, which was described by those who declared themselves to be murderers (but from their testimony it is clear that they did not know what kind of shirt Rasputin was wearing, i.e. they did not see him without outer clothing). Found not far from a hole under the ice. The fingers of the right hand, freed from the rope, were folded into the sign of the cross as a symbol of victory over death.

   Immediately after the abdication of the king, by order of A.F. Kerensky's body, Rasputin's body was dug up and burned in the suburbs of Petrograd, the case of his murder was closed, Khionia Guseva was released (in 1919, she also attempted the life of Patriarch Tikhon with a dagger), Rasputin's spiritual father, Fr. Makariy (Polikarpov) Verkhotursky. The revolutionary synod sent all the monarchist hierarchs to retire, incl. Bishop Isidore (Kolokolov), who performed the funeral service for Rasputin. After the Bolshevik revolution, Rasputin's daughter Matryona emigrated with her husband, the second daughter died of typhus, his wife and son were exiled as special settlers, where they died. Church and house of Rasputin in the village. Pokrovsky was destroyed. The main reason for burning the bodies of the royal family and Rasputin is to conceal the method of murder (those who were actually shot were not burned).

   

   In films and books - creating the external image of a huge, tall and scary man. In reality, Rasputin was in poor health, not physically very strong, and of short stature (as can be seen from the photograph, and the Empress, as is known, was of average height).

   All films, all foreign and domestic literature (with the exception of books: I.V. Evsin “The Slandered Elder”, T.L. Mironov “From Under the Lies”, O.A. Platonov “Life for the Tsar” and the documentary film “ Martyr for Christ and for the Tsar Gregory the New” directed by V. Ryzhko, as well as the book of the same name by schema-nun Nikolai (Groyan) and V.L. Smirnov “The Unknown about Rasputin”), fake diaries of the queen’s friend A.A. Vyrubova, Rasputin himself and the memoirs of his daughter Matryona, allegedly his secretary A.S. Simanovich, the names of restaurants, alcohol and tobacco products - everything is aimed at denigrating Rasputin, which pursues 3 goals:

   1) Discrediting the monarchy. By calling it imperialism, tsarism, the tsarist regime, we are told that the tsar himself, with his wife and friend Rasputin, became the cause of the fall of the autocracy, revolutions and subsequent troubles in Russia.

   2) Discrediting the Orthodox faith.“The royal family and Rasputin were Orthodox, but what did they do?”

   3) Discrediting the Russian people. Because Rasputin is a representative of the common people, a representation of this people as the source of everything bad and unclean, and not the source of a godly life and loyalty to the tsar.

   The denigration of Rasputin is being done constantly (new books and films are being published) in order to instill in all generations of Russian people (and the whole world) a persistent rejection, and therefore a non-return to their Christian statehood - Orthodoxy, monarchy, nationality.

   On the contrary, what was disintegrated in Tsarist Russia was secular society, which stood between the Tsar and the people. It despised the common people, at the expense of which it lived, considered the monarchy an obstacle to progress according to the Western model, and a disdainful and mocking attitude towards Orthodoxy was a sign of good form (many were involved in the occult). In his last letter, Rasputin said that in 25 years there would be no nobles left in Russia.

   Many people refer to the negative attitude of the now canonized saints towards Rasputin, but no one talks about a subsequent change in their opinion. After the Bolshevik revolution, Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganov) (whose cell attendant Iliodor-Trufanov was at one time) sent the royal family in Tobolsk a letter apologizing for his statements, served a memorial service for Rasputin, for which he was drowned in the river. Ture opposite the village. Pokrovsky. The Tsarina's sister Elizaveta Feodorovna sent the royal family in Yekaterinburg a small copy of the newly-revealed "Sovereign" icon of the Mother of God and a letter of forgiveness for condemning them, believing in the slander of Rasputin.

   There is only one truth, and it is with God. The Lord does not give His gifts to ordinary sinful people, not to mention obvious sinners. And images of ordinary people do not stream myrrh, but only the righteous, and there are no exceptions to this phenomenon (as the icon of Rasputin, painted by the Tobolsk Orthodox who did not wait for his canonization, streams myrrh).

   

   Myrrh-streaming icon G.E. Rasputin

   The Lord will ask each person for failure to comply with His commandment “Do not judge,” especially if the person being condemned is innocent. A person’s guilt is greater in the case of public statements and seducing others into this sin.

   Those people who believe that Rasputin stopped the blood of the heir with witchcraft blaspheme the Holy Spirit, because. do not agree with the decision of the Orthodox Church to canonize the royal family. Because According to the canons of the Orthodox Church, turning to magicians is punishable by excommunication from church communion, and certainly not canonization. And, as you know, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven either in this or in the next century.

   A Russian peasant who became famous for his “fortunes” and “healings” and had unlimited influence on the imperial family, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin was born on January 21 (January 9, old style) 1869 in the Ural village of Pokrovsky, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province (now located in the Tyumen region ). In memory of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the baby was baptized with the name Gregory. His father, Efim Rasputin, was a driver and was a village elder, his mother was Anna Parshukova.

   Grigory grew up as a sickly child. He did not receive an education, since there was no parochial school in the village, and remained illiterate for the rest of his life - he wrote and read with great difficulty.

   He began to work early, at first he helped herd cattle, went with his father as a carrier, then he took part in agricultural work and helped harvest the crops.

   In 1893 (according to other sources in 1892) Gregory

   Rasputin began to wander to holy places. At first, the matter was limited to the nearest Siberian monasteries, and then he began to wander throughout Russia, mastering its European part.

   Rasputin later made a pilgrimage to the Greek monastery of Athos (Athos) and to Jerusalem. He made all these journeys on foot. After his travels, Rasputin invariably returned home for sowing and harvesting. Upon returning to his native village, Rasputin led the life of an “old man,” but far from traditional asceticism. Rasputin's religious views were distinguished by great originality and did not in everything coincide with canonical Orthodoxy.

   In his native places he gained a reputation as a seer and healer. According to numerous testimonies from contemporaries, Rasputin indeed, to a certain extent, possessed the gift of healing. He successfully dealt with various nervous disorders, relieved tics, stopped bleeding, easily relieved headaches, and banished insomnia. There is evidence that he had extraordinary powers of suggestion.

   In 1903, Grigory Rasputin visited St. Petersburg for the first time, and in 1905 he settled there and soon attracted everyone's attention. The rumor about the “holy elder” who prophesies and heals the sick quickly reached the highest society. In a short time, Rasputin became a fashionable and famous person in the capital and began to enter high society drawing rooms. Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Militsa Nikolaevna introduced him to the royal family. The first meeting with Rasputin took place in early November 1905 and left a very pleasant impression on the imperial couple. Then such meetings began to happen regularly.

   The rapprochement between Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna with Rasputin was of a deeply spiritual nature; in him they saw an old man who continued the traditions of Holy Rus', wise in spiritual experience, and capable of giving good advice. He gained even greater trust from the royal family by providing assistance to the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei, who was ill with hemophilia (incoagulability of blood).

   At the request of the royal family, Rasputin was given a different surname - Novy - by a special decree. According to legend, this word was one of the first words that the heir Alexei uttered when he began to speak. Seeing Rasputin, the baby shouted: “New! New!”

   Taking advantage of his access to the Tsar, Rasputin approached him with requests, including commercial ones. Receiving money for this from interested people, Rasputin immediately distributed part of it to the poor and peasants. He did not have clear political views, but firmly believed in the connection between the people and the monarch and the inadmissibility of war. In 1912 he opposed Russia's entry into the Balkan Wars.

   There were many rumors in the St. Petersburg world about Rasputin and his influence on the government. Around 1910, an organized press campaign began against Grigory Rasputin. He was accused of horse stealing, belonging to the Khlysty sect, debauchery, and drunkenness. Nicholas II expelled Rasputin several times, but then returned him to the capital at the insistence of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

   In 1914, Rasputin was wounded by a religious fanatic.

   Opponents of Rasputin prove that the influence of the “old man” on Russian foreign and domestic policy was almost comprehensive. During the First World War, every appointment in the highest echelon of government services, as well as at the top of the church, passed through the hands of Grigory Rasputin. The Empress consulted with him on all issues, and then persistently sought from her husband the government decisions she needed.

   Authors sympathetic to Rasputin believe that he did not have any significant influence on the foreign and domestic policies of the empire, as well as on personnel appointments in the government, and that his influence related mainly to the spiritual sphere, as well as to his miraculous abilities to alleviate suffering Tsarevich.

   In court circles, the “elder” continued to be hated, considered guilty of the decline in the authority of the monarchy. A conspiracy against Rasputin matured in the imperial entourage. Among the conspirators were Felix Yusupov (husband of the imperial niece), Vladimir Purishkevich (state Duma deputy) and Grand Duke Dmitry (cousin of Nicholas II).

   On the night of December 30 (December 17, old style) 1916, Grigory Rasputin was invited to visit by Prince Yusupov, who served him poisoned wine. The poison did not work, and then the conspirators shot Rasputin and threw his body under the ice in a tributary of the Neva. When Rasputin's body was discovered a few days later, it turned out that he was still trying to breathe in the water and even freed one hand from the ropes.

   At the insistence of the empress, Rasputin's body was buried near the chapel of the imperial palace in Tsarskoye Selo. After the February Revolution of 1917, the body was dug up and burned at the stake.

   The trial of the murderers, whose act was approved even by those around the emperor, did not take place.

   Grigory Rasputin was married to Praskovya (Paraskeva) Dubrovina. The couple had three children: a son, Dmitry (1895-1933), and two daughters, Matryona (1898-1977) and Varvara (1900-1925). Dmitry was exiled to the north in 1930, where he died of dysentery. Both daughters of Rasputin studied in St. Petersburg (Petrograd) at the gymnasium. Varvara died in 1925 from typhus. In 1917, Matryona married officer Boris Solovyov (1893-1926). The couple had two daughters. The family emigrated first to Prague, then to Berlin and Paris. After the death of her husband, Matryona (who called herself Maria abroad) performed in dance cabarets. Later she moved to the USA, where she began working as a tamer in a circus. After she was injured by a bear, she left this profession.

   She died in Los Angeles (USA).

   Matryona wrote memoirs about Grigory Rasputin in French and German, published in Paris in 1925 and 1926, as well as short notes about her father in Russian in the emigrant magazine Illustrated Russia (1932).

   The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

   Grigory Rasputin is a well-known and controversial figure in Russian history, debates about which have been going on for a century. His life is filled with a mass of inexplicable events and facts related to his proximity to the emperor’s family and influence on the fate of the Russian Empire. Some historians consider him an immoral charlatan and a swindler, while others are confident that Rasputin was a real seer and healer, which allowed him to gain influence over the royal family.

   Childhood and youth

   Rasputin Grigory Efimovich was born on January 21, 1869 in the family of a simple peasant Efim Yakovlevich and Anna Vasilievna, who lived in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tobolsk province. The day after his birth, the boy was baptized in a church with the name Gregory, which means “awake.”

   Embed from Getty Images Grigory Rasputin

   Grisha became the fourth and only surviving child of his parents - his older brothers and sisters died in infancy due to poor health. At the same time, he was also weak from birth, so he could not play enough with his peers, which became the reason for his isolation and craving for solitude. It was in early childhood that Rasputin felt an attachment to God and religion.

   At the same time, he tried to help his father graze cattle, drive a cab, harvest crops and participate in any agricultural work. There was no school in the Pokrovsky village, so Grigory grew up illiterate, like all his fellow villagers, but he stood out among others because of his illness, for which he was considered defective.

   Embed from Getty Images Peasant Grigory Rasputin

   At the age of 14, Rasputin became seriously ill and was almost dying, but suddenly his condition began to improve, which, according to him, happened thanks to the Mother of God, who healed him. From that moment, Gregory began to deeply understand the Gospel and, not even knowing how to read, was able to memorize the texts of the prayers. During that period, the gift of foresight awakened in the peasant son, which later prepared for him a dramatic fate.

   At the age of 18, Grigory Rasputin made his first pilgrimage to the Verkhoturye Monastery, but decided not to take a monastic vow, but to continue wandering through the holy places of the world, reaching the Greek Mount Athos and Jerusalem. Then he managed to establish contacts with many monks, wanderers and representatives of the clergy, which in the future historians associated with the political meaning of his activities.

   Royal family

   The biography of Grigory Rasputin changed its direction in 1903, when he arrived in St. Petersburg, and the palace doors opened before him. At the very beginning of his arrival in the capital of the Russian Empire, the “experienced wanderer” did not even have a means of subsistence, so he turned to the rector of the theological academy, Bishop Sergius, for help. He introduced him to the confessor of the royal family, Archbishop Feofan, who by that time had already heard about Rasputin’s prophetic gift, legends about which were spread throughout the country.

   Embed from Getty Images Grigory Rasputin with fans

   Grigory Efimovich met Emperor Nicholas II during a difficult time for Russia. Then the country was gripped by political strikes and revolutionary movements aimed at overthrowing the tsarist government. It was during that period that a simple Siberian peasant managed to make a powerful impression on the tsar, which made Nicholas II want to talk for hours with the wanderer-seer.

   Thus, the “elder” acquired enormous influence on the imperial family, especially on. Historians are confident that Rasputin’s rapprochement with the imperial family occurred thanks to Gregory’s help in treating his son and heir to the throne, Alexei, who had hemophilia, against which traditional medicine was powerless in those days.

   Embed from Getty Images Grigory Rasputin with the royal family

   There is a version that Grigory Rasputin was not only a healer for the tsar, but also a chief adviser, as he had the gift of clairvoyance. “The man of God,” as the peasant was called in the royal family, knew how to look into the souls of people and reveal to Emperor Nicholas all the thoughts of the king’s closest associates, who received high positions at the Court only after agreement with Rasputin.

   In addition, Grigory Efimovich participated in all government affairs, trying to protect Russia from a world war, which, in his conviction, would bring untold suffering to the people, general discontent and revolution. This was not part of the plans of the instigators of world war, who plotted against the seer, aimed at eliminating Rasputin.

   Conspiracy and murder

   Before committing the murder of Grigory Rasputin, his opponents tried to destroy him spiritually. He was accused of whipping, witchcraft, drunkenness, and depraved behavior. But Nicholas II did not want to take into account any arguments, since he firmly believed in the elder and continued to discuss all state secrets with him.

   Wax figures of Felix Yusupov and Grigory Rasputin / Nikolay Mylyuev, Wikipedia

   Therefore, in 1914, an “anti-Rasputin” conspiracy arose, initiated by the prince, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Jr., who later became the commander-in-chief of all military forces of the Russian Empire during the First World War, and Vladimir Purishkevich, who was an actual state councilor at that time.

   It was not possible to kill Grigory Rasputin the first time - he was seriously wounded in the village of Pokrovskoye by Khionia Guseva. During that period, while he was on the verge between life and death, Nicholas II decided to participate in the war and announced mobilization. At the same time, he continued to consult with the recovering seer about the correctness of his military actions, which again was not part of the plans of the royal ill-wishers.

   Therefore, it was decided to bring the conspiracy against Rasputin to the end. On December 29 (new style), 1916, the elder was invited to the Palace of Prince Yusupov to meet with the famous beauty, the prince's wife Irina, who needed the healing help of Grigory Efimovich. There they began to treat him to food and drinks poisoned by poison, but potassium cyanide did not kill Rasputin, which forced the conspirators to shoot him.

   
   The place of the supposed burial of the remains of Grigory Rasputin in Piskarevsky Park / Monoklon, Wikipedia

   After several shots in the back, the elder continued to fight for life and was even able to run out into the street, trying to hide from the killers. After a short chase, accompanied by gunfire, the healer fell to the ground and was severely beaten by his pursuers. Then the exhausted and beaten old man was tied up and thrown from the Petrovsky Bridge into the Neva. According to historians, once in the icy water, Rasputin died only a few hours later.

   Nicholas II entrusted the investigation into the murder of Grigory Rasputin to the director of the Police Department, Alexei Vasiliev, who got on the “trail” of the killers of the healer. 2.5 months after the death of the elder, Emperor Nicholas II was overthrown from the throne, and the head of the new Provisional Government ordered a hasty end to the investigation into the Rasputin case.

   Personal life

   The personal life of Grigory Rasputin is as mysterious as his fate. It is known that back in 1900, during a pilgrimage to the holy places of the world, he married a peasant pilgrim like himself, Praskovya Dubrovina, who became his only life partner. Three children were born into the Rasputin family - Matryona, Varvara and Dmitry.

   
   Chronos

   After the murder of Grigory Rasputin, the elder’s wife and children were subjected to repression by the Soviet authorities. They were considered “evil elements” in the country, so in the 1930s the entire peasant farm and the house of Rasputin’s son were nationalized, and the healer’s relatives were arrested by the NKVD and sent to special settlements in the North, after which their trace was completely lost. Only her daughter managed to escape from the hands of the Soviet regime, who emigrated to France after the revolution and then moved to the USA.

   Predictions of Grigory Rasputin

   Despite the fact that the Soviet authorities considered the elder a charlatan, the predictions of Grigory Rasputin, which he left on 11 pages, were carefully hidden from the public after his death. In his “testament” to Nicholas II, the seer pointed out that several revolutionary coups had taken place in the country and warned the tsar about the murder of the entire imperial family “ordered” by the new authorities.

   Rasputin also predicted the creation of the USSR and its inevitable collapse. The elder predicted that Russia would defeat Germany in World War II and become a great power. At the same time, he foresaw terrorism at the beginning of the 21st century, which would begin to flourish in the West.

   Embed from Getty Images Elder Grigory Rasputin

   In his predictions, Grigory Efimovich did not ignore the problems of Islam, clearly indicating that Islamic fundamentalism is emerging in a number of countries, which in the modern world is called Wahhabism. Rasputin argued that at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, power in the East, namely Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, would be seized by Islamic fundamentalists who would declare "jihad" on the United States.

   After this, according to Rasputin’s predictions, a serious military conflict will arise, which will last 7 years and will be the last in human history. True, Rasputin predicted one big battle during this conflict, during which at least a million people would die on both sides.

   Grigory Efimovich Rasputin-Novykh is a legendary man from a remote Siberian village, who managed to get close to the August Family of Nicholas II as a medium and adviser and, thanks to this, went down in history.

   Historians are contradictory in assessing his personality. Who was he - a cunning charlatan, a black magician, a drunkard and a libertine, or a prophet, a holy ascetic and a miracle worker who had the gift of healing and foresight? There is no consensus to this day. Only one thing is certain - the uniqueness of nature.

   Childhood and youth

   Gregory was born on January 21, 1869 in the rural settlement of Pokrovskoye. He became the fifth, but the only surviving child in the family of Efim Yakovlevich Novykh and Anna Vasilievna (before Parshukova’s marriage). The family was not in poverty, but due to the alcoholism of its head, all property was sold under the hammer shortly after Gregory’s birth.

   Since childhood, the boy was not very strong physically, he was often sick, and from the age of 15 he suffered from insomnia. As a teenager, he surprised his fellow villagers with his strange abilities: he could supposedly heal sick cattle, and once, using clairvoyance, he pinpointed exactly where the neighbor’s missing horse was located. But in general, until the age of 27, he was no different from his peers - he worked a lot, drank, smoked, and was illiterate. His dissolute lifestyle gave him the nickname Rasputin, which stuck tightly. Also, some researchers attribute to Gregory the creation of a local branch of the Khlyst sect, preaching “dumping sin.”

   
   

   In search of work, he settled in Tobolsk, got a wife, a religious peasant woman Praskova Dubrovina, who gave birth to a son and two daughters, but the marriage did not curb his temperament, eager for female affection. It was as if some inexplicable force was attracting the opposite sex to Gregory.

   Around 1892, a dramatic change occurred in the man's behavior. Prophetic dreams began to bother him, and he turned to nearby monasteries for help. In particular, I visited Abalaksky, located on the banks of the Irtysh. Later, in 1918, it was visited by the royal family exiled to Tobolsk, who knew about the monastery and the miraculous icon of the Mother of God kept there from Rasputin’s stories.

   
   

   The decision to start a new life finally matured for Gregory when in Verkhoturye, where he came to venerate the relics of St. Simeon of Verkhoturye, he had a sign - the heavenly patron of the Ural land himself came in a dream and ordered him to repent, go wander and heal people. The appearance of the saint shocked him so much that he stopped sinning, began to pray a lot, gave up eating meat, stopped drinking and smoking, and set out on wanderings to introduce spirituality into his life.

   He visited many holy places in Russia (in Valaam, Solovki, Optina Desert, etc.), and visited beyond its borders - on the holy Greek Mount Athos and in Jerusalem. During the same period, he mastered reading and writing and the Holy Scriptures, and in 1900 he made a pilgrimage to Kyiv, then to Kazan. And all this - on foot! Wandering across the Russian expanses, he delivered sermons, made predictions, cast spells on demons, and talked about his gift of working miracles. Rumors about his healing powers spread throughout the country, and suffering people from different places began to come to him for help. And he treated them, having no idea about medicine.

   Petersburg period

   In 1903, the healer, who had already become famous, found himself in the capital. According to legend, the Mother of God appeared to him with orders to go and save Tsarevich Alexei from illness. Rumors about the healer reached the empress. In 1905, during one of the attacks of hemophilia, which was inherited by the son of Nicholas II through Alexandra Feodorovna, the “people's doctor” was invited to the Winter Palace. Through the laying on of hands, whispered prayers, and a poultice of steamed tree bark, he was able to stop what could have been a fatal nosebleed and calm the boy.

   
   

   In 1906, he changed his last name to Rasputin-Novykh.

   The subsequent life of the wanderer-seer in the city on the Neva was inextricably linked with the August family. For more than 10 years, he treated the Tsarevich, successfully driving away the empress’s insomnia, sometimes doing this simply over the phone. The distrustful and cautious autocrat did not welcome frequent visits from the “elder,” but noted that after talking with him, even his soul felt “light and calm.”

   
   

   Soon, the extraordinary visionary acquired the image of an “adviser” and “friend of the king,” gaining enormous influence over the couple of rulers. They did not believe the rumors that circulated about his drunken brawls, orgies, performing black magic rituals and obscene behavior, as well as that he accepted bribes for the promotion of certain projects, including fateful decisions for the country, and for the appointment of officials to high positions. For example, at the behest of Rasputin, Nicholas II removed his uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich from the post of supreme commander-in-chief of the army, since he clearly saw Rasputin as an adventurer and was not afraid to tell his nephew about it.

   
   

   Rasputin was forgiven for drunken brawls and shameless antics like carousing in the Yar restaurant in the nude. “The legendary debauchery of Emperor Tiberius on the island of Capri becomes moderate and banal after this,” the American ambassador recalled about the parties in Gregory’s house. There is also information about Rasputin's attempt to seduce Princess Olga, the emperor's younger sister.

   Communication with a person of such a reputation undermined the authority of the emperor. In addition, few knew about the Tsarevich’s illness, and the healer’s closeness to the Court began to be explained by his more than friendly relations with the Empress. But, on the other hand, he had a striking effect on many representatives of secular society, especially women. He was admired and considered a saint.

   
   

   Personal life of Grigory Rasputin

   Rasputin married at the age of 19, after returning to Pokrovskoye from the Verkhoturye Monastery, to Praskovya Fedorovna, nee Dubrovina. They met at an Orthodox holiday in Abalak. In this marriage three children were born: in 1897 Dmitry, a year later daughter Matryona and in 1900 Varya.

   In 1910, he took his daughters to his capital and enrolled them in a gymnasium. His wife and Dima stayed at home, in Pokrovskoye, on the farm, where he periodically visited. She supposedly knew very well about his riotous lifestyle in the capital, and was completely calm about it.

   
   

   After the revolution, daughter Varya died from typhoid and tuberculosis. The brother, mother, wife and daughter were sent into exile to the North, where they all soon passed away.

   The eldest daughter managed to live to old age. She got married and gave birth to two daughters: the eldest in Russia, the youngest in exile. In recent years she lived in the USA, where she passed away in 1977.

   Death of Rasputin

   In 1914, an attempt was made on the life of the seer. Khionia Guseva, the spiritual daughter of the far-right hieromonk Iliodor, shouting “I killed the Antichrist!” wounded him in the stomach. The emperor's favorite survived and continued to participate in state affairs, causing sharp protest among the tsar's opponents.

   
   

   Shortly before his death, Rasputin, feeling a threat looming over him, sent a letter to the Empress, in which he indicated that if any of the relatives of the royal family became his killer, then Nicholas II and all his relatives would die within 2 years, - they say, it was to him such a vision. And if a commoner becomes a murderer, then the imperial family will flourish for a long time.

   A group of conspirators, including the husband of the sovereign’s niece Irina, Felix Yusupov and the autocrat’s cousin, Dmitry Pavlovich, decided to put an end to the influence of the unwanted “adviser” on the imperial family and the entire Russian government (they were spoken of in society as lovers).

   
   

   The life path of the seer was shrouded in mystery, but death was no less mysterious and added mysticism to his person. On a December night in 1916, the conspirators invited a healer to Yusupov’s mansion to meet with the beautiful Irina, supposedly to provide her with “special help.” They added the strongest poison - potassium cyanide - to the wine and food prepared for the treat. However, it had no effect on him.

   Felix then shot him in the back, but again to no avail. The guest ran out of the mansion, where the killers shot him point-blank. And it did not kill the “man of God.” Then they started finishing him off with batons, castrated him, and threw his body into the river. Later it turned out that even after these bloody atrocities, he remained alive and tried to get out of the icy water, but drowned.

   Rasputin's predictions

   During his life, the Siberian soothsayer made about a hundred prophecies, including:

   Your own death;

   The collapse of the empire and the death of the emperor;

   The Second World War, describing in detail the blockade of Leningrad (“I know, I know, they will surround St. Petersburg, they will starve! How many people will die, and all because of the Germans. But you can’t see bread on the palm of your hand! That’s death in the city. But you won’t see St. Petersburg! If we don’t, we’ll die hungry, but we won’t let you in! "- he once shouted in his heart to a German who insulted him. Anna Vyrubova, a close friend of Empress Alexandra, wrote about this in her diary);

   Flights into space and landing a man on the Moon (“the Americans will walk on the Moon, leave their shameful flag and fly away”);

   The formation of the USSR and its subsequent collapse (“There was Russia - there will be a red hole. There was a red hole - there will be a swamp of the wicked, who dug a red hole. There was a swamp of the wicked - there will be a dry field, but there will be no Russia - there will be no hole");

   Nuclear explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (claimed to have seen two islands burned to the ground in fire);

   Genetic experiments and cloning (the birth of “monsters without a soul or an umbilical cord”);

   Terrorist attacks at the beginning of this century.

   Grigory Rasputin. Documentary.

   One of his most impressive predictions is considered to be a statement about “the world in reverse” - this is the upcoming disappearance of the sun for three days, when fog will cover the earth, and “people will wait for death as salvation,” and the seasons will change places.

   All this information was gleaned from the diaries of his interlocutors, so there is no prerequisite to consider Rasputin a “fortuneteller” or “clairvoyant.”