Rasputin Grigory. Why can't you trust memories of him?

Memoirs of contemporaries about Grigory Rasputin

“We had tea with Militsa and Stana. We met a man of God - Gregory from the Tobolsk province." (November 1, 1905). ...After lunch we had the joy of seeing Gregory upon his return from Jerusalem and Athos (June 4, 1911).”

(From the diary of Nicholas II).

“In moments of doubt and mental anxiety, I love to talk with him (Rasputin - comp.) and after such a conversation my soul always feels light and calm.”
(Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich).

“Count Fredericks (Minister of the Imperial Court - comp.) once, in an intimate conversation, in my presence, when the question touched on the topic of the day, said: “You know that I love the Sovereign like a son, and therefore could not resist asking His Majesty, what, finally, is Rasputin, about whom everyone talks so much?

His Majesty answered me completely calmly and simply - “indeed, they say too much and, as usual, a lot of unnecessary things, as they do about anyone who is not from the usual environment and is occasionally received by us. This is just a simple Russian person, very religious and believing...

The Empress likes him for his sincerity; she believes in his devotion and in the power of his prayers for our family and Alexei... but this is our completely private matter... it’s amazing how people like to interfere in everything that doesn’t concern them at all... who is he bothering? "

(From the memoirs of adjutant Mordvinov’s wing).

“Our servants, when Rasputin happened to spend the night with us or came to our dacha, said that Rasputin does not sleep at night, but prays.

When we lived in the Kharkov province at the dacha, there was such a case that the children saw him in the forest, immersed in deep prayer. This message from the children interested our neighbor, the general, who could not hear the name Rasputin without disgust. She was not too lazy to follow the children into the forest, and indeed, although an hour had already passed, she saw Rasputin, immersed in prayer.”

(From the memoirs of journalist, candidate of rights G.P. Sazonov).

“Once Rasputin was invited to visit a famous general, but when this gentleman realized that his cordiality would not achieve any benefits, he turned away from his former friend.

Rasputin had to move into a cramped, modest apartment, where he lived on voluntary donations from his admirers. The old man’s home was very modest, he ate rather meagerly, and wine was brought to him as a gift only in the last year of his life.”

(From the memoirs of Julia Den “The True Queen”).

Although Rasputin was constantly accused of debauchery, wrote A. Vyrubova, it seems strange that when the investigative commission began to operate after the revolution, there was not a single woman in Petrograd or in Russia who would make accusations against him: information was drawn from records of the “guards” who were assigned to him.”

altInvestigator of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission A.F. Romanov revealed the secrets of the appearance of some “evidence”: “Among various kinds of papers selected during the search, a photograph was found in which, in the setting of a finished lunch or dinner - a table with leftover food, unfinished glasses - Rasputin is depicted and some priest with some laughing women. Behind them are balalaeshniks. The impression of revelry in a separate office.

Upon closer examination of this photograph, it was discovered that two male figures were etched on it: one between Rasputin and the sister of mercy standing next to him, and the other between the priest and the lady standing next to him. Later it turned out that the photograph was taken in the Empress infirmary after breakfast on the occasion of the opening. It seems that Colonel L. and another gentleman took Rasputin and a nurse by the arm, and the other a priest and a lady, brought them to the dining room, trying to make them laugh, and in this form they were photographed by a photographer invited in advance. Then the initiators etched their images...”

Another investigator of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission V.M. Rudnev exposed another myth: about Rasputin’s supposedly huge fortune. It turned out that after his death there was not a penny of money left, and the children were forced to apply for the Highest allowance.

Rudnev writes: “Rasputin, constantly receiving money from petitioners for satisfying their petitions, widely distributed this money to the needy and, in general, to people of the poor classes who approached him with any requests, even of a non-material nature.”

Nevertheless, the situation around the Royal Family and Rasputin was saturated with so many lies that people of high spiritual life fell into its network.

In 1910, the Empress’s confessor, Bishop Theophan, “reported to the Empress that during confession so-and-so had revealed to him something bad about Gregory’s behavior. What was it like for the deeply religious Empress to hear from her confessor what was revealed to him in confession!

/.../ The queen knew the canonical decree on the strictest punishment of confessors who dare to violate the secret of confession, including the reduction of such confessors to a primitive state. By this act of yours; unacceptable for a confessor, he decisively pushed away his hitherto devoted spiritual daughter, the Queen...”

(Hegumen Seraphim, Orthodox Tsar-Martyr.
Russian type. on a spiritual mission. Beijing. 1920).

In addition, subsequently the woman who told Vl. Feofan said something bad about Rasputin, she retracted her words.”

(From comments to the book of Abbot Seraphim (Kuznetsov) “Orthodox Tsar-Martyr”, compiled by S. Fomin).

Grigory Efimovich Rasputin (New; January 9 (21), 1869 - December 17 (30), 1916) - peasant of the village of Pokrovskoye, Tobolsk province. He gained worldwide fame due to the fact that he was a friend of the family of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II. In the 1900s, among certain circles of St. Petersburg society, he had a reputation as a “royal friend,” “elder,” seer and healer.

The negative image of Rasputin was used in revolutionary and later Soviet propaganda; there are still many rumors about Rasputin and his influence on the fate of the Russian Empire.

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Ancestors and etymology of the surname
  • 1.2 Birth
  • 1.3 Beginning of life
  • 1.4 Petersburg period
  • 1.5
    • 1.5.1
    • 1.5.2
    • 1.5.3
    • 1.5.4
  • 1.6
  • 1.7 Political Views
  • 1.8
  • 1.9 Assassination attempt by Khionia Guseva
  • 1.10 Murder
    • 1.10.1
  • 1.11 Funeral
• 2 The fate of the Rasputin family
• 3
  • 3.1 From the memories of witnesses
• 4 Estimates of Rasputin's influence
• 7
  • 7.1
  • 7.2
  • 7.3
  • 7.4 In music
  • 7.5 Rasputin in poetry
  • 7.6

Biography

Ancestors and etymology of the surname

The ancestor of the Rasputin family was “Izosim Fedorov’s son.” The census book of the peasants of the village of Pokrovsky for 1662 says that he and his wife and three sons - Semyon, Nason and Yevsey - came to Pokrovskaya Sloboda twenty years earlier from the Yarensky district and “set up arable land.” Nason's son later received the nickname "Rosputa". From him came all the Rosputins, who became Rasputins at the beginning of the 19th century. According to the yard census of 1858, there were more than thirty peasants in Pokrovskoye who bore the surname “Rasputins,” including Efim, Gregory’s father. The surname comes from the words “crossroads”, “thaw”, “crossroads”.

Birth

Born on January 9 (21), 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen district, Tobolsk province, in the family of coachman Efim Yakovlevich Rasputin and Anna Vasilievna (nee Parshukova).

Information about Rasputin's date of birth is extremely contradictory. Sources give various dates of birth between 1864 and 1872. TSB (3rd edition) reports that he was born in 1864-1865. Rasputin himself in his mature years did not add clarity, reporting conflicting information about his date of birth. According to biographers, he was inclined to exaggerate his true age in order to better fit the image of an “old man.”

In the metric book of Pokrovskaya Sloboda, in part one “About those born” it is written: “A son, Grigory, was born to Efim Yakovlevich Rasputin and his wife Anna Vasilievna of the Orthodox faith.” He was baptized on January 10. The godfathers (godparents) were uncle Matfei Yakovlevich Rasputin and the girl Agafya Ivanovna Alemasova. The baby received his name according to the existing tradition of naming the child after the saint on whose day he was born or baptized. The day of the baptism of Grigory Rasputin is January 10, the day of celebration of the memory of St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Beginning of life

In his youth, Rasputin was sick a lot. After a pilgrimage to the Verkhoturye Monastery, he turned to religion. In 1893, Rasputin traveled to the holy places of Russia, visited Mount Athos in Greece, and then Jerusalem. I met and made contacts with many representatives of the clergy, monks, and wanderers.

In 1890 he married Praskovya Fedorovna Dubrovina, a fellow pilgrim-peasant, who bore him three children: Matryona, Varvara and Dimitri.

In 1900 he set off on a new journey to Kyiv. On the way back, he lived in Kazan for quite a long time, where he met Father Mikhail, who was associated with the Kazan Theological Academy.

Petersburg period

In 1903, he came to St. Petersburg to visit the rector of the Theological Academy, Bishop Sergius (Stragorodsky). There is a version that Rasputin was prompted to come to St. Petersburg by the Mother of God, entrusting him with a mission to save Tsarevich Alexei. At the same time, the inspector of the St. Petersburg Academy, Archimandrite Feofan (Bistrov), met Rasputin, introducing him also to Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganov).

By 1904, Rasputin had gained the fame of an “old man,” a “fool,” and a “man of God” from part of high society society, which “secured the position of a ‘saint’ in the eyes of the St. Petersburg world.” Father Feofan told about the “wanderer” to the daughters of the Montenegrin prince (later king) Nikolai Njegosh - Militsa and Anastasia. The sisters told the empress about the new religious celebrity. Several years passed before he began to clearly stand out among the crowd of “God’s men.”

On November 1 (Tuesday) 1905, Rasputin’s first personal meeting with the emperor took place. This event was honored with an entry in the diary of Nicholas II. The mentions of Rasputin do not end there.

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.

From the diary 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.

In December 1906, Rasputin submitted a petition to the highest name to change his surname to Rasputin-New, citing the fact that many of his fellow villagers have the same last name, which could lead to misunderstandings. The request was granted.

Rasputin and the Orthodox Church

Later life writers of Rasputin (O. Platonov, A. Bokhanov) tend to see some broader political meaning in the official investigations conducted by the church authorities in connection with Rasputin’s activities.

The first charge of "Khlysty", 1903

In 1903, his first persecution by the church begins: the Tobolsk Consistory receives a report from the local priest Pyotr Ostroumov that Rasputin behaves strangely with women who come to him “from St. Petersburg itself,” about their “passions from which he delivers them... in the bathhouse”..., that in his youth Rasputin “from his life in the factories of the Perm province brought acquaintance with the teachings of the Khlyst heresy.” An investigator was sent to Pokrovskoye, but he did not find anything discrediting, and the case was archived.

The first case of Rasputin’s “Khlysty”, 1907

On September 6, 1907, based on a denunciation from 1903, the Tobolsk Consistory opened a case against Rasputin, who was accused of spreading false teachings similar to Khlyst’s and forming a society of followers of his false teachings.

The initial investigation was carried out by priest Nikodim Glukhovetsky. Based on the collected facts, Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, a member of the Tobolsk Consistory, prepared a report to Bishop Anthony with the attachment of a review of the case under consideration by sect specialist D. M. Berezkin, inspector of the Tobolsk Theological Seminary.

D. M. Berezkin, in a review of the conduct of the case, noted that the investigation was carried out by “persons with little knowledge of Khlystyism,” that only Rasputin’s two-story residential house was searched, although it is known that the place where the zeal takes place “is never placed in residential premises ... and always takes place in the backyard - in bathhouses, in sheds, in cellars... and even in dungeons... The paintings and icons found in the house are not described, yet they usually contain the solution to the heresy...". After which Bishop Anthony of Tobolsk decided to conduct a further investigation into the case, entrusting it to an experienced anti-sectarian missionary.

As a result, the case “fell apart” and was approved as completed by Anthony (Karzhavin) on May 7, 1908.

Subsequently, the Chairman of the State Duma Rodzianko, who took the file from the Synod, said that it soon disappeared, but, according to E. Radzinsky, “The Case of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory on the Khlystism of Grigory Rasputin” was eventually found in the Tyumen archive.

The first “Case of Khlysty,” despite the fact that it exonerates Rasputin, causes an ambiguous assessment among researchers.

According to E. Radzinsky, the unspoken initiator of the case was Princess Militsa of Montenegro, who, thanks to her power at court, had strong connections in the Synod, and the initiator of the hasty closure of the case due to pressure “from above” was one of Rasputin’s St. Petersburg fans, General Olga Lokhtina. The same fact of Lokhtina’s patronage as a scientific discovery of Radzinsky is cited by I. V. Smyslov. Radzinsky associates the relationship between Princess Militsa and Anastasia with the Tsarina that soon deteriorated precisely with her attempt to initiate this case (quote: “... they were together indignant at the “black women” who dared to organize a shameful investigation against the “Man of God”).”

O. A. Platonov, seeking to prove the falsehood of the charges against Rasputin, believes that the case appeared “out of nowhere,” and the case was “organized” by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (husband of Anastasia of Chernogorsk), who before Rasputin occupied the place of the royal family’s closest friend and adviser. O. A. Platonov especially highlights the prince’s affiliation with Freemasonry. A. N. Varlamov does not agree with Platonov’s version of Nikolai Nikolaevich’s intervention, not seeing a motive for him.

According to A. A. Amalrik, Rasputin was saved in this matter by his friends Archimandrite Feofan (Bistrov), Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganev) and Tsar Nicholas II, who ordered to “hush up” the matter.

Historian A. N. Bokhanov claims that the “Rasputin case” is one of the first cases of “black PR” not only in Russia, but also in world history. The Rasputin theme is “the clearest indicator of the most severe spiritual and psychological split in the country, a split that became the detonator of the revolutionary explosion of 1917.”

O. A. Platonov in his book provides in detail the contents of this case, considering a number of testimonies against Rasputin hostile and/or fabricated: surveys of village residents (priests, peasants), surveys of St. Petersburg women who, after 1905, began to visit Pokrovskoye. A. N. Varlamov nevertheless considers these testimonies to be quite reliable, and analyzes them in the corresponding chapter of his book. A. N. Varlamov identifies three charges against Rasputin in the case:

1. Rasputin acted as an impostor doctor and was engaged in healing human souls without a diploma; he himself did not want to become a monk (“He said that he did not like monastic life, that monks do not observe morality and that it is better to be saved in the world,” Matryona testified at the investigation), but he also dared others; as a result of which two Dubrovina girls died, who, according to fellow villagers, died due to “Grigory’s bullying” (according to Rasputin’s testimony, they died from consumption);
2. Rasputin’s craving for kissing women, in particular, the episode of the forced kiss of 28-year-old prosphora Evdokia Korneeva, about which the investigation arranged a confrontation between Rasputin and Korneeva; “the accused denied this testimony partly completely, and partly making a forgettable excuse (“6 years ago”)”;
3. testimony of the priest of the Church of the Intercession, Father Fyodor Chemagin: “I went (by chance) to the accused and saw how the latter returned wet from the bathhouse, and after him all the women who lived with him came from there - also wet and steamy. The accused confessed, in private conversations, to the witness about his weakness to caress and kiss the “ladies,” admitted that he was with them in the bathhouse, that he stood in the church absent-mindedly.” Rasputin “objected that he went to the bathhouse long before the women, and, having become very angry, lay in the dressing room, and came out really steamy - shortly before the women (arrived there).”

The appendix to the report of Metropolitan Juvenaly (Poyarkov) at the bishops' council, held in the fall of 2004, states the following: “The case of G. Rasputin being accused of Khlysty, stored in the Tobolsk branch of the State Archives of the Tyumen Region, has not been thoroughly studied, although lengthy excerpts from it are given in the book by O. A. Platonov. In an effort to “rehabilitate” G. Rasputin, O. A. Platonov, who, by the way, is not a specialist in the history of Russian sectarianism, characterizes this case as “fabricated.” Meanwhile, even the extracts he cited, including the testimony of the priests of the Pokrovskaya settlement, indicate that the question of G. Rasputin’s closeness to sectarianism is much more complicated than it seems to the author, and in any case still requires a special and competent analysis.”

Covert police surveillance, Jerusalem - 1911

In 1909, the police were going to expel Rasputin from St. Petersburg, but Rasputin was ahead of them and he himself went home to the village of Pokrovskoye for some time.

In 1910, his daughters moved to St. Petersburg to join Rasputin, whom he arranged to study at the gymnasium. At the direction of Prime Minister Stolypin, Rasputin was placed under surveillance for several days.

At the beginning of 1911, Bishop Theophan suggested that the Holy Synod officially express displeasure to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in connection with Rasputin’s behavior, and a member of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky), reported to Nicholas II about the negative influence of Rasputin.

On December 16, 1911, Rasputin had a clash with Bishop Hermogenes and Hieromonk Iliodor. Bishop Hermogenes, acting in alliance with Hieromonk Iliodor (Trufanov), invited Rasputin to his courtyard; on Vasilievsky Island, in the presence of Iliodor, he “convicted” him, striking him several times with a cross. An argument ensued between them, and then a fight.

In 1911, Rasputin voluntarily left the capital and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

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

In January 1912, the Duma announced its attitude towards Rasputin, and in February 1912, Nicholas II ordered V.K. Sabler to resume the case of the Holy Synod, the case of Rasputin’s “Khlysty” and transfer it to Rodzianko for the report, “and the palace commandant Dedyulin and transferred to him the Case of the Tobolsk Spiritual Consistory, which contained the beginning of Investigative Proceedings regarding the accusation of Rasputin of belonging to the Khlyst sect.” On February 26, 1912, at an audience, Rodzianko suggested that the tsar expel the peasant forever. Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) openly wrote, [source not specified 754 days] that Rasputin is a whip and participates in zeal.

The new (who replaced Eusebius (Grozdov)) Tobolsk Bishop Alexy (Molchanov) personally took up this matter, studied the materials, requested information from the clergy of the Intercession Church, and repeatedly talked with Rasputin himself. Based on the results of this new investigation, a conclusion of the Tobolsk Ecclesiastical Consistory was prepared and approved on November 29, 1912, which was sent to many high-ranking officials and some deputies of the State Duma. In conclusion, Rasputin-Novy is called “a Christian, a spiritually minded person who seeks the truth of Christ.” Rasputin no longer faced any official charges. But this did not mean that everyone believed in the results of the new investigation.

Rasputin’s opponents believe that Bishop Alexy “helped” him in this way for selfish purposes: the disgraced bishop, exiled to Tobolsk from the Pskov See as a result of the discovery of a sectarian St. John’s monastery in the Pskov province, stayed at the Tobolsk See only until October 1913, that is, only a year and a half, after which he was appointed Exarch of Georgia and elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Kartalin and Kakheti with the title of member of the Holy Synod. This is seen as the influence of Rasputin.

However, researchers believe that the rise of Bishop Alexy in 1913 took place only thanks to his devotion to the reigning house, which is especially visible from his sermon delivered on the occasion of the 1905 manifesto. Moreover, the period in which Bishop Alexy was appointed Exarch of Georgia was a period of revolutionary ferment in Georgia.

According to Archbishop Anthony Karzhavin, it should also be noted that Rasputin’s opponents often forget about another exaltation: Bishop of Tobolsk Anthony (Karzhavin), who brought the first case of “Khlysty” against Rasputin, was moved in 1910 from cold Siberia to the Tver See and to Easter was elevated to the rank of archbishop. But, according to Karzhavin, 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:

• Rasputin, G. E. Life of an Experienced Wanderer. - May 1907.
• G. E. Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. - Petrograd, 1915.

In his prophecies, Rasputin speaks of “God’s punishment,” “bitter water,” “tears of the sun,” “poisonous rains” “until the end of our century.” Deserts will advance, and the earth will be inhabited by monsters that will not be people or animals. Thanks to “human alchemy”, flying frogs, kite butterflies, crawling bees, huge mice and equally huge ants will appear, as well as the monster “kobaka”. Two princes from the West and the East will challenge the right to world domination. They will have a battle in the land of four demons, but the western prince Grayug will defeat his eastern enemy Blizzard, but he himself will fall. After these misfortunes, people will again turn to God and enter “earthly paradise.”

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.

Political Views

In 1912, Rasputin dissuaded the emperor from intervening in the Balkan War, which delayed the start of the First World War by 2 years. In 1915, anticipating the February Revolution, Rasputin demanded an improvement in the capital's supply of bread. In 1916, Rasputin spoke out strongly in favor of Russia's withdrawal from the war, concluding peace with Germany, renouncing rights to Poland and the Baltic states, and also against the Russian-British alliance.

Anti-Rasputin campaign in the press

In 1910, the writer Mikhail Novoselov published several critical articles about Rasputin in Moskovskie Vedomosti (No. 49 - “Spiritual guest performer Grigory Rasputin”, No. 72 - “Something else about Grigory Rasputin”).

In 1912, Novoselov published in his publishing house the brochure “Grigory Rasputin and Mystical Debauchery,” which accused Rasputin of being a Khlysty and criticized the highest church hierarchy. The brochure was banned and confiscated from the printing house. The newspaper "Voice of Moscow" was fined for publishing excerpts from it. After this, the State Duma followed up with a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the legality of punishing the editors of Voice of Moscow and Novoye Vremya. Also in 1912, Rasputin’s acquaintance, former hieromonk Iliodor, began distributing several scandalous letters from Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the Grand Duchesses to Rasputin.

Copies printed on a hectograph circulated around St. Petersburg. Most researchers consider these letters to be forgeries. Later, Iliodor, on the advice of Gorky, wrote a libelous book “Holy Devil” about Rasputin, which was published in 1917 during the revolution.

In 1913-1914, the Masonic Supreme Council of the All-Russian People's Republic attempted to launch a propaganda campaign regarding the role of Rasputin at court. Somewhat later, the Council made an attempt to publish a brochure directed against Rasputin, and when this attempt failed (the brochure was delayed by censorship), the Council took steps to distribute this brochure in a typed copy.

Assassination attempt by Khionia Guseva

In 1914, an anti-Rasputin conspiracy matured, headed by Nikolai Nikolaevich and Rodzianko.

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 could not 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 was killed on the night of December 17, 1916 (December 30, new style) in the Yusupov Palace on the Moika. Conspirators: F. F. Yusupov, V. M. Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, British intelligence officer MI6 Oswald Reiner.

Information about the murder is contradictory, it was confused both by the killers themselves and by the pressure on the investigation by the Russian imperial and British authorities. Yusupov changed his testimony several times: in the St. Petersburg police on December 18, 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, to how many and where bullets were fired. For example, forensic experts found three wounds, each of which was fatal: to the head, liver and kidney. (According to British researchers who studied the photograph, the shot to the forehead was made from a British Webley .455 revolver.) After being shot in 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 into the basement, treated to red wine and a pie 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, 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 British MI6 intelligence officers serving in St. Petersburg who could have committed the murder: Yusupov’s friend from University College (Oxford) Oswald Rayner and Captain Stephen Alley, who was born in the Yusupov Palace. The former was suspected, and Tsar Nicholas II directly mentioned that the killer was Yusupov's friend from college. 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 from Alley written to Scale on January 7, 1917, eight 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...”. According to modern British researchers, the order to three British agents (Rayner, Alley and Scale) to eliminate Rasputin came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming (the 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 was arrested and 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

In 2004, the BBC aired the documentary Who Killed Rasputin?, which brought new attention to the murder investigation. According to the version shown in the film, the “glory” and the idea of ​​this murder belong to Great Britain, the Russian conspirators were only the perpetrators, the control shot to the forehead was fired from a revolver of British officers Webley.455.

According to the researchers who published the 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.

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 Bishop Isidore celebrated the funeral mass (which he had no right to do).

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.

M.V. Rodzianko writes that in the Duma during the celebrations there were rumors about Rasputin’s return to St. Petersburg. In January 1917, Mikhail Vladimirovich received a paper with many signatures from Tsaritsyn with a message that Rasputin was visiting V.K. Sabler, that the Tsaritsyn people knew about Rasputin’s arrival in the capital.

After the February Revolution, Rasputin's burial place was found, and Kerensky ordered Kornilov to organize the destruction of the body. For several days the coffin with the remains stood in a special carriage. Rasputin's body was burned on the night of March 11 in the furnace of the steam boiler of the Polytechnic Institute. An official act on the burning of Rasputin's corpse was drawn up.

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

Rasputin's daughter Matryona emigrated to France after the revolution and subsequently moved to the USA.

The remaining members of Rasputin's family were subjected to repression by the Soviet authorities. In 1922, his widow Praskovya Fedorovna, son Dmitry and daughter Varvara were deprived of voting rights as “malicious elements.” Even earlier, in 1920, Dmitry Grigorievich’s house and entire peasant farm 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.

Accusations of immorality

In 1914, Rasputin settled in an apartment at 64 Gorokhovaya Street 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.

From the testimony of Prince M. M. Andronikov to the Extraordinary Investigative Commission:

... 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

Mikhail Taube, who was a fellow minister of public education in 1911-1915, cites the following episode in his memoirs. One day a man came to the ministry with a letter from Rasputin and a request to appoint him as an inspector of public schools in his native province. The minister (Lev Kasso) ordered this petitioner to be lowered from the stairs. According to Taube, this incident proved how exaggerated all the rumors and gossip about Rasputin's behind-the-scenes influence were.

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 Vladimir Voeikov, the head of the palace police, Colonel Gherardi, when asked how often Rasputin visited the palace, answered: “once a month, and sometimes once every two months.” The memoirs of maid of honor Anna Vyrubova say that Rasputin visited the royal palace no more than 2-3 times a year, and the king received him even less often. Another maid of honor, Sophia 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.”

During all the time he spent at court, Gilliard recalls his only meeting with Rasputin: “One day, getting ready to go out, I met him in the hallway. I managed to look at him while he was taking off his fur coat. He was a tall man, with a gaunt face, with very sharp gray-blue eyes from under unkempt eyebrows. He had long hair and a big man’s beard.” Nicholas II himself in 1911 told V.N. Kokovtsov about Rasputin that:

...personally, he almost doesn’t know “this little guy” and has seen him briefly, it seems, no more than two or three times, and at that at very long distances.

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 1916-1917):

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.

A. Ya. Avrekh believed that in 1915 the Tsarina and Rasputin, having blessed the departure of Nicholas II to Headquarters as supreme commander, carried out something like a “coup d’etat” and appropriated a significant part of the power to themselves: as an example, A. Ya. Avrekh cites their intervention in the affairs of the southwestern front during the offensive organized by A. A. Brusilov. A. Ya. Avrekh believed that the queen significantly influenced the king, and Rasputin influenced the queen.

A. N. Bokhanov, on the contrary, believes that the entire “Raspuniada” is the fruit of political manipulation, “black PR.” However, as Bokhanov says, it is well known that information pressure only works when certain groups not only have the intentions and capabilities to establish a desired stereotype in the public consciousness, but also society itself is prepared to accept and assimilate it. Therefore, just to say, as is sometimes done, that the widely circulated stories about Rasputin are a complete lie, even if this is really true, means not to clarify the essence: why were the fabrications about him taken on faith? This basic question remains unanswered to this day.

At the same time, the image of Rasputin was widely used in revolutionary and German propaganda. In the last years of the reign of Nicholas II, there were many rumors in the St. Petersburg world about Rasputin and his influence on the government. It was said that he himself absolutely subjugated the Tsar and Tsarina and ruled the country, either Alexandra Feodorovna seized power with the help of Rasputin, or the country was ruled by a “triumvirate” of Rasputin, Anna Vyrubova and the Tsarina.

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 of 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.

After the overthrow of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government organized an emergency commission of inquiry, which was supposed to look for crimes of tsarist officials and, among other things, investigate the activities of Rasputin. The commission carried out 88 surveys and interrogated 59 people, prepared “stenographic reports,” the chief editor of which was the poet A. A. Blok, who published his observations and notes in the form of a book entitled “The Last Days of Imperial Power.”

The commission has not finished its work. Some of the interrogation protocols of senior officials were published in the USSR by 1927. From the testimony of A.D. Protopopov to the extraordinary investigative commission on March 21, 1917:

CHAIRMAN. Do you know the importance of Rasputin in the affairs of Tsarskoe Selo under the Tsar? - PROTOPOPOV. Rasputin was a close person, and, like a close person, they consulted with him.

V.I. Lenin wrote:

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

The Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia in 1911-1914, Vladimir Kokovtsov, wrote with surprise in his memoirs:

... 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.

Rasputin's secretary Aron Simanovich writes in his book:

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.

The confessor of the royal family, Archpriest Alexander Vasiliev:

Rasputin is “a completely God-fearing and believing person, harmless and even rather useful for the Royal Family... He talks with them about God, about faith.”

Doctor, life physician of the family of Nicholas II Evgeny Botkin:

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, testifies: “According to the established procedure, all telegrams submitted to the Sovereign and Empress were presented to me in copies. Therefore, all the telegrams that were sent to Their Majesties from Rasputin were known to me at one time. There were a lot of them. It is, of course, impossible to remember their contents sequentially. In all honesty, I can say that Rasputin’s enormous influence with the Tsar and 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.”

Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov), an elder of the Sedmiezernaya Hermitage, spoke very harshly about Rasputin: “Kill him like a spider: forty sins will be forgiven...”

Attempts to canonize Rasputin

See also: Question about the canonization of Ivan the Terrible

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. writer of the Orthodox-patriotic, historical genre Oleg Platonov
3. singer Zhanna Bichevskaya
4. editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Orthodox Rus'” Konstantin Dushenov
5. "Church of St. John the Evangelist" and others.

The ideas were rejected by the Synodal Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church for the canonization of saints and criticized by Patriarch Alexy II: “There is no reason to raise the question of the canonization of Grigory Rasputin, whose dubious morality and promiscuity cast a shadow on the August family of the future royal martyrs of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.”

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.

Rasputin in culture and art

According to the research of 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 hit theater screens. It is noteworthy that this first “libel” 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 about Rasputin received a second wind, but much broader and deeper steps were taken. The multi-volume Protocols of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission created by the Provisional Government, falsified by P. E. Shchegolev and others, were published; from beginning to end, forged by the same P. Shchegolev with the “red count” A. Tolstoy, “Diaries” of A. Vyrubova. In the same row stands A. Tolstoy’s widely demonstrated play “The Conspiracy of the Empress.” ... Only around 1930 did this campaign begin 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
• Bokhanov A. N. Grigory Rasputin. Adventurer or holy elder? M.: Veche, 2012. - 288 p. - (Mystery man). 2000 copies, ISBN 978-5-9533-6425-6
• Bokhanov A.N. Grigory Rasputin. Myths and reality. - M: Russian Publishing Center, 2014.>
• 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 (Général). 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

• Historical chronicles. 1915. Grigory 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 “pornography 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 image was successfully embodied by Alexey Petrenko. In 1984, “Rasputin - Orgien am Zarenhof” was released with Alexander Conte in the role of Rasputin.

In 1992, stage director Gennady Egorov staged the play “Grishka Rasputin” based on the play of the same name by Konstantin Skvortsov at the St. Petersburg Drama Theater “Patriot” ROSTO in the genre of political farce.

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).

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 2011, the French-Russian film “Rasputin” was shot, in which the role of Gregory was played by Gerard Depardieu. According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, it was this work that gave the actor the right to receive Russian citizenship.

In 2014, the Mars Media studio produced an 8-episode television film “Gregory R.” (dir. Andrey Malyukov), in which the role of Rasputin was played by Vladimir Mashkov.

In music

• Disco band Boney M in 1978 she released the album “Night flight to Venus”, one of the hits of which was the song “Rasputin”. The lyrics of the song were written by Frank Farian and contain Western cliches about Rasputin - “the greatest Russian love machine” (eng. Russia's greatest love machine ), "lover of the Russian queen" (eng. Lover of the Russian queen). The music used motifs from popular Turkic style "Kyatibim", the song “mimics” Eartha Kitt’s performance of the Turk (Kitt’s exclamation “Oh! those Turks” Boney M copied as “Oh! those Russians"). On the road Boney M In the USSR, this song was not performed at the insistence of the host party, although it was later included in the release of the group’s Soviet record. The death of one of the band members, Bobby Farrell, occurred exactly on the 94th anniversary of the night of the murder of Grigory Rasputin in St. Petersburg.
• Alexander Malinin's song "Grigory Rasputin" (1992).
• The song by Zhanna Bichevskaya and Gennady Ponomarev “The Spiritualized Wanderer” (“Elder Gregory”) (c. 2000) from the music album “We are Russians” is aimed at exalting “holiness” and canonizing Rasputin, where there are the lines “ Russian elder with a staff in his hand, a miracle worker with a staff in his hand».
• The thrash band Corrosion of Metal has a song “Dead Rasputin” in the album “Sadism”, released in 1993.
• In 2002, the German power metal band Metalium recorded their own song “Rasputin” (album “Hero Nation – Chapter Three”), presenting their view of the events around Grigory Rasputin, without the cliches that have developed in pop culture
• Finnish folk/Viking metal band Turisas released the single “Rasputin” in 2007 with a cover version of the song by Boney M. A video clip was also shot for the song “Rasputin”.
• In 2002, Valery Leontiev performed the Russian version of Boney M Rasputin’s song “New Year” at RTR’s “New Year’s Attraction” (“Ras, Let’s open the doors wide, and let all of Russia join a round dance...”)

Rasputin in poetry

Nikolai Klyuev more than once compared himself to him, and in his poems there are frequent references to Grigory Efimovich. “Millions of charming Grishkas are coming for me,” wrote Klyuev. According to the memoirs of the poet Rurik Ivnev, the poet Sergei Yesenin performed the then fashionable ditties “Grishka Rasputin and the Tsarina.”

The poetess Zinaida Gippius wrote in her diary dated November 24, 1915: “Grisha himself rules, drinks and fucks his ladies-in-waiting. And Fedorovna, out of habit.” Z. Gippius was not a member of the inner circle of the imperial family, she simply passed on rumors. There was a proverb among the people: “The Tsar-Father is with Yegor, and the Tsarina-Mother is with Gregory.”

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:

• Vodka Rasputin. Produced in various forms by Dethleffen in Flexburg (Germany).
• Beer "Old Rasputin". Produced by North Coast Brewing Co. (California, USA)
• Beer "Rasputin". Produced by Brouwerij de Moler (Netherlands)
• Cigarettes “Rasputin black” and “Rasputin white” (USA)
• In Brooklyn (New York) there is a restaurant and nightclub “Rasputin”
• There is a Rasputin International Food store in Encio (California), which is very popular
• In San Francisco (USA) there is a music store “Rasputin”
• In Toronto (Canada) there is a famous vodka bar Rasputin http://rasputinvodkabar.com/
• In Rostock (Germany) there is a Rasputin supermarket http://rasputin-online.de/?id=0&lang=ru
• In Andernach (Germany) there is a Rasputin club http://www.rasputinclub.de/
• In Dusseldorf (Germany) there is a large Russian-language disco “Rasputin”.
• In Pattaya (Thailand) there is a Russian cuisine restaurant Rasputin.
• In Moscow there is a men's club "Rasputin"
• A men's erotic magazine "Rasputin" is also published in Moscow, published once a month in Russian and English.

In St. Petersburg there are also:

• In St. Petersburg, in the Neptune shopping and entertainment complex, the interactive show “Horrors of St. Petersburg” has been operating since the mid-2000s, the main character of which is Grigory Rasputin. The advertising slogan of the show is “Rasputin doesn’t joke!”
• Beauty salon "Rasputin's House" and the hairdressing school of the same name
• Hostel "Rasputin"

5. Prophecies, writings and correspondence of Rasputin

During his lifetime, Rasputin published two books:

Rasputin, G. E. Life of an Experienced Wanderer. - May 1907.

G. E. Rasputin. My thoughts and reflections. - Petrograd, 1915. .

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, to put it mildly, not fully trained in reading and writing. 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.

6. Assassination attempt on 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 could not 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.

7. Estimates of Rasputin’s influence

M. A. Taube, who was a comrade of the Minister of Public Education in 1911-1915, cites the following episode in his memoirs. One day a man came to the ministry with a letter from Rasputin and a request to appoint him as an inspector of public schools in his native province. The minister (L.A. Kasso) ordered this petitioner to be lowered from the stairs. According to Taube, this incident proved how exaggerated all the rumors and gossip about Rasputin's behind-the-scenes influence were.

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.”

During all the time he spent at court, Gilliard recalls his only meeting with Rasputin: “One day, getting ready to go out, I met him in the hallway. I managed to look at him while he was taking off his fur coat. He was a tall man, with a gaunt face, with very sharp gray-blue eyes from under unkempt eyebrows. He had long hair and a big man’s beard.” Nicholas II himself in 1911 told V.N. Kokovtsov about Rasputin that:

...personally, he almost doesn’t know “this little guy” and has seen him briefly, it seems, no more than two or three times, and at that at very long distances.

At the same time, the image of Rasputin was widely used in revolutionary and German propaganda. In the last years of the reign of Nicholas II, there were many rumors in the St. Petersburg world about Rasputin and his influence on the government. It was said that he himself absolutely subjugated the Tsar and Tsarina and ruled the country, either Alexandra Feodorovna seized power with the help of Rasputin, or the country was ruled by a “triumvirate” of Rasputin, Anna Vyrubova and the Tsarina.

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.

V.I. Lenin wrote:

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...

8. Rasputin's entourage

Rasputin's inner circle at one time or another included:

Vyrubova, Anna Alexandrovna

Manasevich-Manuilov, Ivan Fedorovich

Aron Simanovich

Andronikov, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Dmitry Rubinstein

9. Opinions of contemporaries about Rasputin

Vladimir Kokovtsov wrote with surprise in his memoirs:

... 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.

Rasputin's secretary Aron Simanovich writes in his book:

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.

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.

The State Archive of the Russian Federation (GA RF) contains 1,796 telegrams from Nicholas II to the family, Rasputin, and ministers for 1904, August 1915 - March 1917, delivered from the Tsar’s headquarters in Mogilev.

However, it is important to know the fate of investigator Sokolov, who did not listen to Henry Ford’s entreaties to stay with him in the USA just in case and unexpectedly died in France at the age of forty years in November 1924 (found dead in the yard of his house). The circumstances surrounding the publication of his book are unclear. The manuscript of the book and the investigation materials fell into the hands of the “benefactor” of the investigator, Prince Nikolai Orlov, who already in 1925 published a manuscript under the title “The Murder of the Royal Family. From the notes of forensic investigator N.A. Sokolov.”

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.”

Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov), an elder of the Sedmiezernaya Hermitage, spoke very harshly about Rasputin: “Kill him like a spider: forty sins will be forgiven...”

10. Murder and funeral of Rasputin

Killed by conspirators (F.F. Yusupov, V.M. Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and British intelligence officer Oswald Reiner) on the night of December 17, 1916. They tried to poison Rasputin (potassium cyanide was added to his cakes) and shoot him (11 shots were fired at him). However, he 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. They caught Rasputin, tied his hands and feet with ropes, took him by car to a pre-selected place near Kamenny Island and threw him from the bridge into the Neva polynya in such a way that his body ended up under the ice.

The emperor and empress entrusted the forensic medical examination 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.

Before the February Revolution of 1917, attempts were made to canonize Rasputin.

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 halfway across the country, they buried him in the Alexander Park of Tsarskoye Selo on the territory of the Church of Seraphim of Sarov, which was being built by Anna Vyrubova.

The investigation into the murder of Rasputin lasted just over two months and was hastily terminated by Kerensky on March 4, 1917. Three months passed between Rasputin's death and the desecration of his grave.

The burial was found, and Kerensky ordered Kornilov to organize the destruction of the body. For several days the coffin with the remains stood in a special carriage. Rasputin's body was burned on the night of March 11 in the furnace of the steam boiler of the Polytechnic Institute. . An official act on the burning of Rasputin's corpse was drawn up. 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.” .

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.

After the overthrow of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government organized an emergency commission of inquiry, which was supposed to look for crimes of tsarist officials and, among other things, investigate the activities of Rasputin. The commission carried out 88 surveys and interrogated 59 people, prepared “stenographic reports,” the chief editor of which was the poet A. A. Blok, who published his observations and notes in the form of a book entitled “The Last Days of Imperial Power.” The commission has not finished its work. Some of the interrogation protocols of senior officials were published in the USSR by 1927. From the testimony of A.D. Protopopov to the extraordinary investigative commission on March 21, 1917:

Opinions of contemporaries about Rasputin

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

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:

Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov), the elder of the Sedmiezernaya Hermitage, spoke very harshly about Rasputin: “Kill him like a spider: forty sins will be forgiven...”

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. Zhanna Bichevskaya.
3. Konstantin Dushenov is the editor-in-chief of Rus Orthodox.
4. Church of St. John the Evangelist and others.

The ideas were rejected by the Synodal Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church for the canonization of saints

and criticized by Patriarch Alexy II:

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 S. Fomin's research, 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 the two-part “sensational drama” “Dark Forces - Grigory Rasputin and His Companions” (produced by the joint-stock company G. Libken). The film was delivered in record time, within a few days: on March 5, the Early Morning newspaper announced it, and on March 12 (! - 10 days after the abdication!) it was released 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 a 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” and to stop the flow of film dirt 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.”

(1873-1956) - famous lawyer, professor at the Imperial St. Petersburg University, the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, teacher at the Higher Women's Courses. As a journalist, he collaborated with Novoye Vremya and was the newspaper’s correspondent in the State Duma. Chairman of the Duma Journalists Society. Since 1911 - member of the St. Petersburg City Duma. The essay below was written while in exile.

In addition to the author of the memoirs and G.E. Rasputin, the evening was attended by: Irina Alekseevna Pilenko, Lyubov Valerianovna Golovina, Maria Evgenievna Golovina, Olga Evgenievna Golovina, Princess T., sister of mercy (Akilina Laptinskaya?), two ladies; then another lady came.

Initials of first and last names in the text, thus presented by Pilenko himself (although the names were easily deciphered by knowledgeable people):

L. V. G—a — Lyubov Valerianovna Golovina
M—ya, M—ka — Maria (Munya) Evgenievna Golovina
Princess T. - Princess Tarkhanova or Tumanova

Source: Today. 11/29/1931. No. 330. P. 4.

Alexander Alexandrovich Pilenko.

Petrograd, October 1915

- Do you want to have dinner with Rasputin? - my wife once told me.

I decided it would be interesting.

Two weeks later we had an invitation to L.V.G—oi, an ardent admirer of the “elder.” Her youngest daughter, M—ya, served as his secretary or maid.

- M—ka? - he used to say: - she’s a good girl, she doesn’t steal anything from me.

We arrived at Fontanka [Moika? - A.R.] a few minutes before seven. The spacious living room was dimly lit. Princess T. was sitting, two ladies unknown to me and a sister of mercy with a stony face. When I lit a cigarette, she said clearly, without specifically addressing anyone:

- Those who smoke, their souls will be smoked; but they won’t let the yellow one into heaven...

I decided not to be surprised by anything. The ladies spoke in low voices, as if next to the dead man's room.

A loud, proprietary bell rang. M—I rushed as fast as I could into the hallway. Rasputin entered slowly, with a swagger. He was wearing patent leather high boots, velvet trousers and a loose-fitting shirt, lilac faille. He was belted with a thick, white twisted silk cord: a paisan from a ballet or from the first act of Eugene Onegin. On top of all this velvet and silk was a disgusting, clearly unwashed head: a swollen nose, swollen eyes and greasy hair, with “feathers” on all sides.

“The donkey’s head from A Midsummer Night’s Dream” flashed through my mind.

The ladies rushed forward: I didn’t keep track of whether he made a gesture of blessing, but they all kissed his hand...

I decided in advance to stay away and close my “aura”. I had the impression that Rasputin’s main strength was his unusually developed intuition, the ability to immediately feel with whom he was dealing and what this person expected from him. I remember that in the St. George Monastery I confessed to the local schema-monk, very famous in religious circles. He says something to me, and a ridiculous thought was spinning in my brain:

- Oh, I didn’t ask if he should be paid and how much? Three? Or maybe twenty-five?..

And he suddenly stopped and calmly answered my unspoken thought:

- No, dear, I don’t charge anything for confession...

Based on the totality of indirect observations, I was convinced that Rasputin was also a virtuoso intuitionist. In order not to put weapons into his hands, I decided, as far as possible, to block all individual radiations. The Sphinx sits, the stone man.

He came up to me and said suspiciously to G—oh:

- Who is this?

“A. A. Pilenko,” she answered ingratiatingly, “a professor, I’ve known him for a long time.” “He writes in Novoye Vremya,” she added with emphasis, “please be welcome, Grigory Efimovich.”

He looked at me searchingly:

- Manuylov is dragging himself around to see me...

I said nothing. “I won’t open my mouth for at least half an hour,” I decided after him.

- Please eat, Grigory Efimovich.

We went to the dining room. Rasputin sat down first, in the middle of the table. My wife was seated next to him, to the right. Then it turned out to be M—me. Next, at the short end of the table, is the author of these lines. To my right is an anti-nicotine sister of mercy (or a nun? - I couldn’t tell); then G—oh’s other daughter, G—a herself, opposite Rasputin, Princess T. and the other two ladies. Rasputin pulled towards him a dish that turned out to be directly opposite his device: Siberian pike, sprinkled with rye flour. He began to eat fish with his fingers. The rest were served soup.

Rasputin drank all the time, pouring himself Madeira from a bottle that was not shared with other guests. He drank persistently, licking his lips, with the antics of an old alcoholic. After the fourth or fifth “double” glass, some “action” began: he would pour it, drink half of it, put it down - and immediately M—I or the nun grabs the glass and drains it to the bottom, one by one, like sentries. They drank with obvious effort and even disgust: apparently, so that the “old man” would have less to drink.

The conversation was slow. G—a asked various—insignificant—questions, and Rasputin reluctantly answered. The more he drank (his hops were unusually fast), the more talkative he became. And immediately I noticed that my “sphinx” was pressing on him like an unbearable weight. At first, he just fidgeted in his chair and glanced nervously at me: would I smile, would I somehow let him grab hold of my individuality. Then, he began to answer questions from third parties, turning ingratiatingly in my direction, looking for my reactions. But there were no reactions: a wooden pole sits, eats carefully... and - a glazed porcelain doll. Rasputin twitched neurasthenically - he was apparently suffering physically. He began to wink at me, talk to me, addressing the ladies... Have you seen a child who, almost crying, picks at a tightly locked piggy bank and for whom nothing else exists in the world? - nothing exists except this piggy bank - and until this piggy bank opens?

Having tormented him as long as possible, I suddenly intervened in the conversation and said, completely out of the blue, out of connection with what the ladies were discussing, and almost rudely breaking the thread of their banalities:

- Yes!.. you are a smart person, Grigory Efimovich!!

I took the most elementary tone: the tone of a swindler who encourages his accomplice in fooling the public.

Rasputin jumped up in his chair, rubbed his hands, clapped his hands above his head and literally laughed:

- Ehe-he-hee!.. And what, brother, ehe-he-hee!!

All his torment immediately disappeared. He labeled and classified me. In a further conversation - I noticed that he never said to me either “you” or “you” - he interpreted me like this: at the same time, they say, turuses, to breed.

Strictly speaking, he was a very elementary peasant, and his cunning was spot on.

- This is it... what... brother... yes! (He was already half drunk)... ehhehhe... strictly necessary... strictly...

He turned to the princess:

- Well, are you wearing my dirty shirt?

She perplexedly opened her bodice and showed purple silk.

- That's it, wear it, don't take it off... It will be better for you.

He looked at me insolently; A smile of triumph was outlined on his face, almost not hidden. He extended his left hand, smeared with fat, to the princess. She kissed. G—a herself also smacked her lips on the fly.

- Give me a piece of paper... I want to write them a piece of paper...

- A piece of paper!

He looked at me for a long time, closing his right and left eyes in turn. It wrinkled, swollen, but also began to scratch.

There was a cross on the top of the piece of paper. Then, in illiterate handwriting:

“Your wisdom is higher than the light.”

- Show! Show! - G—a rushed towards me.

At this time my wife said:

- And a piece of paper for me.

He reluctantly looked at her and said wearily:

- I feel better right away...

(“Intuitiveist” I thought; I already talked to her at home; I lost the first impression... the only one that is important to him).

Rasputin scribbled a cross and the words:

“Mother is like a dream from her.”

My piece of paper has already gone around the entire table. Each lady repeated with reverence and almost horror, three times: “Your wisdom is higher than the sun!” The nun poured me a glass of wine from Rasputin’s bottle. One of those present said firmly:

- A. A., with this piece of paper you will go far... for God’s sake, just don’t lose it... Do you know?.. you know?..

A convulsion passed over her face and she froze with her eyes wide open.

At that moment, a daring thought occurred to me. Who am I? - journalist? What am I doing? - questionnaire. So I’ll take this questionnaire to the bottom. Excuse me, my wisdom is beyond light: isn’t it a trump card?

Rasputin makes and butchers ministers? Is this really true? How does this happen? What twists and turns? Make an experience...

- Risk? - none. Let them offer it: there will be material for memoirs. First of all, I will be a living witness. Secondly, advertising is hellish for me.

All this flashed through my head at once: like lightning.

I took a glass, stood up, and clinked glasses with Rasputin.

And went...

- Can you go far?! My wisdom?

The ladies were speechless. I stood and continued:

- Do we really give the wise a go?.. Who are our ministers?.. Who is in charge of our international politics?

I will not repeat my philippics against Sazonov. Frankly, I couldn’t even remember all the vulgar malice that I began to spew. Demagogically in the lowest sense; rude, stupid, false, pressing hard on the “patriotic” pedal. Great state. Divine Monarch!! Who is letting him down? - Sazonov. Who's the fool? - Sazonov. Who could do this, and that, and the third? - Sazonov.

I carried on this nonsense—even in a Russian teahouse it would have been awkward—for about ten minutes.

Rasputin drank and listened to me little.

G—and suddenly she couldn’t stand it and interrupted me:

- Grigory Efimovich!! But here he is, our Minister of Foreign Affairs!!!

The princess crossed herself. The nun ran for a new bottle and poured Madeira into a huge mineral water glass for me, whispering:

- To your health, father, eat Madeira.

One of the unknown ladies, almost with a groan of despair, said:

- God! If only Grigory Efimovich wanted to tell the sovereign!

“Grigory Efimovich,” the other one picked up in a hasty whisper. - Empress, empress, I must say... they, poor people, don’t know anything...

My wife looked at me questioningly.

Rasputin wiped his wet mustache with his hand, stared at me with salty eyes (just think that some kind of “magnetism” was attributed to these faded pupils of a habitual alcoholic!..) and began to mutter, trying to figure something out, hiccupping:

- That’s it... yes... that’s right... strictness is needed... the old man (Goremykin) is weak...

The end of lunch was less memorable to me. Another lady came and the conversation began to turn to mystical topics. It was difficult for me to follow the train of thought of these possessed people, calling to each other like sparrows in a jargon that was understandable to them. The talk was about renouncing one's pride, about a church of believers united in one impulse.

Regarding the renunciation of pride, the conclusions suggested themselves: a society lady should wear a dirty shirt; the nastier and more vile what Rasputin prescribes to her, the more willingly she will obey... to the end, to the point of sexual psychopathy.

The United Church, apparently, also descended into Khlystyism, but in a somewhat more complicated way.

Already weak from wine, Rasputin again pressed the liturgical proclamation:

- Let us love each other, and be of one mind...

And the ladies echoed him, almost in ecstasy:

- You won’t love and won’t confess...

- There is no confession without love...

- You have to love, this is true communion...

Let me not insist on these abominations. It was stuffy, disgusting, unbearable. Zeal. All the sacraments of the Orthodox Church, one after another, boiled down to the fact that the lady should... guilty, I won’t say anything more.

We went out into the living room. Mr. and the princess detained me in a corner and questioned me about Bosnia, about Wilhelm, about the revolution. I tried to answer in such a way as not to upset anyone.

Suddenly, my wife jumped out from the next room: dryly and excitedly she snapped:

On the way she told me.

“He, that is, Rasputin, took me into the hall, took me by the waist and began to lead me in a circle. It's getting bigger and bigger. He's inside, and I'm running in circles. My head began to spin, he hugged and kissed her.

- Here you go, son of a bitch!

Sazonov's briefcase turned out to be a little expensive...

Two days later, a phone call. My wife came up and I was right there. From the very first answer, I noticed that the conversation was not banal... she continued.

- Hello... Ah... yes!.. I don’t know...

Then backhand:

- I'll ask my husband.

- It was M—I called. “They will talk to you.” Then Rasputin. “Cook me a Siberian-style pike, I’ll come to you for dinner.”

That was the end of the matter.
-----
A year later, on September 17th, we went to G—oh for the first time again, to congratulate on Love.

- Why have you, A.A., completely forgotten me? - she said still sweetly.

- For mercy, L.V. When we were last with you, Rasputin kissed Irina... If I had been in the room, I would have killed him...

She looked at me calmly.

- What are you, what are you! Is it possible to kill him? They already tried it in Siberia... it didn’t work out... God’s angels are protecting him.

- I’m surprised, L.V. He got drunk like a pig in front of you and me... and you consider him a saint.

- But how?.. In a monastery it’s easy to be a saint... And he, my dear, deigns to be in the dirt among us sinners, so that everyone can see for what it is, dirt... surrounded by viciousness - a saint. This is true holiness...

She repeated this learned lesson for a long time.