Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (21 January [ O.S. 9 January] 1869 – 30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916) was a Russian peasant, mystical faith healer and a trusted friend to the family of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. He became an influential figure in Saint Petersburg, especially after August 1915 when Nicholas took command of the army at the front.

There is much uncertainty over Rasputin's life and the degree of influence he exerted over the shy and irresolute Tsar and Alexandra Feodorovna, his nervous and depressed wife. Accounts are often based on dubious memoirs, hearsay and legend. While his influence and position may have been exaggerated—he had become synonymous with power, debauchery and lust—his presence played a significant role in the increasing unpopularity of the Imperial couple.



Quotes

 * I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially  by  my brothers the  Russian  peasants,  you, Tsar  of Russia, have  nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and  you,  Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But  if I am  murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain  soiled with  my  blood, for twenty-five  years  they  will  not  wash  their  hands  from my blood. They will leave Russia.  Brothers  will kill brothers,  and  they  will kill each  other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of  the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory  has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have  wrought my  death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain  alive  for  more  than two  years.  They will  be killed by the Russian people...I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living.  Pray,  pray,  be strong,  think of  your  blessed family.
 * Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916


 * God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.
 * As quoted in Rasputin: The Untold Story By Joseph T. Fuhrmann p.100


 * God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Fear not, the child will not die.
 * As quoted in the opening of The Chalice of Immortality - Page xi - Google Books Result

About

 * There lived a certain man in Russia long ago He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow Most people looked at him with terror and with fear But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear He could preach the bible like a preacher Full of ecstasy and fire But he also was the kind of teacher Women would desire
 * Boney M., in their 1978 song "Rasputin"


 * Ra ra Rasputin Lover of the Russian queen There was a cat that really was gone Ra ra Rasputin Russia's greatest love machine It was a shame how he carried on
 * Boney M., in their 1978 song "Rasputin"


 * What eyes he has! You cannot endure his gaze for long.
 * Elena Dzhanumova "Grigory Rasputin – Russiapedia History and mythology Prominent Russians". Retrieved 27 December 2014.


 * On December 16, 1916, the royal couple's charismatic and corrupt holy man Rasputin was murdered by the Tsar's own cousin, Grand Duke Dmitry, aided and abetted by the effete Prince Felix Yusupov and a right-wing politician named V. M. Purishkevich, in the belief that the monk was exerting a malign influence on the Tsar and on Russian foreign policy. But things did not improve. Deserted by his own generals in what amounted to a mutiny in early March 1917, Nicholas agreed to abdicate, complaining bitterly of 'treachery, cowardice and deceit'.
 * Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), pp. 142-143


 * An illiterate itinerant peasant, Rasputin was monk able to wield considerable influence over Russia’s autocratic rulers. He rose to prominence as an enigmatic mystic, finding a ready audience for his peculiar brand of religious devotion at a time when many Russian aristocrats were fixated by mysticism and the occult. He appears to have embraced a distorted version of the ‘Khlysty’ creed, reworking its emphasis on flagellation to advocate sexual exhaustion as the surest path to God.
 * Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 125
 * Introduced to the royal family in 1905, Rasputin eased the suffering of Tsarevich Alexei — the heir to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and a sufferer from haemophilia. He swiftly became the confidant and personal adviser of Tsarina Alexandra (a German by birth), and when, in September 1915, Tsar Nicholas made himself commander-in-chief of the Russian armies following the outbreak of the First World War — spending much of his time at the front — fears grew that Rasputin was effectively running the country. Alexandra heeded Rasputin’s advice in sacking several ministers and appointing new ones — but ultimately authority lay with her and the tsar, who ratified all decisions and, indeed, had rebuffed Rasputin’s advice to stay out of the war.
 * Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 125
 * Nicholas and Alexandra were actually inept, cruel, rigid and obtuse reactionaries. Nicholas, in a speech made in 1895, had deplored the ‘senseless dreams’ of those seeking democracy, and had helped fund the murderous anti-Semitic Black Hundreds movement after crushing the 1905 Revolution. The country’s problems, then, were firmly down to the incompetence of the tsar and tsarina, but Rasputin provided a scapegoat. Rasputin’s close relationship with the tsarina provoked rumours of sexual deviance at the Russian court led by the ‘Mad Monk’, and before long his position had become a national scandal. He came to symbolize the perceived corruption of the tsar’s rule — with stories widespread about Alexandra’s supposed lesbianism and Nicholas’ impotence. Finally, in December 1916, a high-level plot involving senior politicians, noblemen and members of the imperial family - desperate to safeguard the regime — succeeded in eliminating the cleric. Rasputin was poisoned, shot (twice), beaten and eventually dumped into the River Neva, where he finally drowned. His astonishing resistance to poison and bullets suggested to some the mysterious potency of his powers.
 * Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 125


 * I have always responded to challenges, followed apocalyptical personalities, apostles, Rasputins, Joan of Arcs who hear voices that come from Heaven, illuminated guides of humanity, holders of truth, priests.
 * Elena Poniatowska "A Question Mark Engraved on my Eyelids" in The Writer on Her Work (1992), translated from Spanish by Cynthia Steele