Rasputin’s Apocalypse

Charles Cameron:

August 23rd, 2013 at 11:29 pm

A friend, Gabor Por, points out to me that Rasputin would have been using the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, in which case if I am reading the FourmiLab calendar converter correctly — this stuff hurts my head! — we are now only at the 10th August, with a 13 day countdown still to go!  
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Pravda — my grandma told me not to trust their wicked, wicked propaganda…

Chana Dvora:

August 24th, 2013 at 5:52 pm

To dispel many of the myths about Rasputin, check out The Real Rasputin website: http://therealrasputin.wordpress.com 

You’ll be surprised to find that his evil reputation was fabricated by the aristocrats, and that he actually had some very progressive ideas for social and political reform that threatened the nobility. Read “Rasputin: The Memoirs of His Secretary” and “Rasputin and The Jews: A Reversal of History.”

Charles Cameron:

August 24th, 2013 at 6:50 pm

Thanks, Chana.

derek robinson:

August 24th, 2013 at 11:09 pm

I believe I read that a Rasputin film project is in the works with Leonardo di Caprio slated to do the honors. However it’s unlikely to be completed in the next fortnight.
 

zen:

August 25th, 2013 at 3:35 pm

The late historian of Imperial Russia, W. Bruce Lincoln, is a reliable source for Rasputin’s influence in court politics in 20th century Tsarist Russia. Rasputin was the focus of much untrue gossip, particularly that related to the Empress (who called the monk “Our Friend” in letters to the Tsar),who was a mystical hysteric but more importantly dependent on Rasputin because of the illness of the young Tsarevitch (hemophilia) was a state secret and Rasputin could calm the boy and stop his potentially lethal bleeding.
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That said, Rasputin was also by any measure a corrupt and debauched figure who regularly engaged in intrigues and because Alexandra herself was widely despised (‘that German woman” ) he appeared all the more sinister to the few able statesmen and members of the Romanov family trying to keep Russia afloat. 
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Rasputin also had a monkish rival, Illiodor:
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Trufanov
 

Charles Cameron:

August 25th, 2013 at 6:39 pm

Thanks, Zen.
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You nudged me into a quick search for Lincoln & Rasputin, which landed me on this choice morsel: 

Russian Minister of Defense Aleksandr Protopopov is depicted as missing the key government meeting in Petrograd on the eve of the February, 1917, Revolution: “He spent the entire evening trying to contact Rasputin’s ghost in order to ask its advice.”

— from an LA Times review of Passage Through Armageddon
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This too, on Rasputin’s death: 

Both Massie and Lincoln devote several pages to a blow-by-blow description of the murder of Rasputin. For two first-class scholars, whose main sources are the accounts of two of the murderers (Prince Felix Yusupov and Duma leader Vladimir Purishkevich) it is surprising how many minor discrepancies there are between their descriptions of the events that transpired when Rasputin came to Yusupov’s palace on the fateful night. Massie has him sitting down in the house’s basement hideaway and almost immediately gobbling two poisoned cakes, and then asking for and swallowing two glasses of Madeira laced with cyanide. Lincoln has Rasputin refusing cakes, Yusupov pressing a glass of poisoned Madeira on him, and Rasputin only later helping himself to one single cake. Both accounts are in agreement, of course, that all this poison had no effect on Rasputin whatever. Massie has Yusupov then playing his guitar for Rasputin for two-and-a-half hours. Lincoln has Yusupov waiting some terrible minutes, rushing upstairs, consulting his accomplices, rushing down, and then playing his guitar. Among many other discrepancies, Massie says Rasputin’s body was not found for three days, while Lincoln says the autopsy was performed on the day following Rasputin’s death.
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Massie’s account is more vivid than Lincoln’s, but they are both colorful enough. Why, however, are there so many discrepancies? Yusupov was the only witness to the scene in the basement, and he describes it in detail in his book “Rasputin.” Massie’s account is considerably closer to the one in “Rasputin” than Lincoln’s. Massie’s description of the scene in the courtyard is also closer than Lincoln’s to Purishkevich’s own account in “Comment J’ai Tue Raspoutine.” Besides, varied sources support Massie in his assertion that it took the Petrograd police several days to recover the corpse. The police search has been made easier by the fact that, in their haste, the assassins had left one of Rasputin’s boots on the ice near the hole.

Now only one question remains: who will give me Medici-level patronage, another lifetime, and the requisite library?

zen:

August 26th, 2013 at 4:53 am

And Russian language fluency!
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I’ve read both but I knew Lincoln and attended his lectures. He was a careful scholar without much patience for those who could not be sufficiently rigorous or productive ( terming one well known Soviet historian ” a flake”). My guess without looking on my shelf is that it boiled down to the reliability of the source material in Lincoln’s estimate. Both Iusupov and Purishkevich were adventurers and in different ways, extremists.

Charles Cameron:

August 26th, 2013 at 1:20 pm

Zen — yes, language fluency /fluencies indeed!
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I’m definitely way out of my depth as regards Massie & Lincoln, I posted those two paras for youbecause I thought you’d be interested, but have no horse in that vicinity!