S4 – Interview 1: Douglas Smith

to separate the man from the myth. As you'll know well from this season of Unobscured, Dr Smith's work has become an essential guide to that difficult task. His original research set a new standard of understanding the Siberian mystic, from his early life to the details of his murder and the importance of his legacy. Both the man and the myth matter, and there's no one better for walking

through the details than Douglas Smith. Since his book was published, its reach has grown year by year, and so has the respect he earns for experts and curious readers alike. Were delighted to have his perspective on Unobscured researcher Sam Alberty and writer Carl Nellis talked to Douglas about the revelations that came from taking a new look at Rasputin. It's a pleasure to share this conversation with all of you. This is the Unobscured Interview series for season four. I'm

Aaron Manky for Unobscured Podcast. I'm Carl Nellis, and I'm here with my co producer Sam Alberty. Today we're talking with Dr Douglas Smith, an award winning historian and translator. Douglas Smith is the author of six books on Russia. It's a privilege to have him join us. Uh. Douglas, welcome to an Obscured Podcast. Thanks for having me. Um So your book on Rasputin, Rasputin, Faith, Power and the Twilight of the Romanovs. It's a landmark study in Gregory

Rasputin's life and his influence. And as I've just mentioned, you've written a lot on Russia. What what brought you to such an important project, uh, and one that focused on Rasputin in particular. Well, I had never really planned to write a book about Rasputin and to spend like

six years of my life full time doing it. Um I wrote a book before this, called Former People, which told the story of what happened to the Russian nobility, the Russian one percent, if you will, following the revolutions of nineteen seventeen with the collapse of the Romanov dynasty and then Lennon and the Bolshevik seizure of power at the end of the year. Um and I was fascinated by the story. You know, in the United States we

always love to hear about, you know, rags to riches. Well, the story of the nobility was the ultimate story of riches to rags. And while I was researching that book, I had to dig deep into the final years of the Romanov dynasty, so the first years of the twenty century, and in every source I seemed to poke my nose into, there was the specter of of respute and hanging hanging around in the background. And so I became more and more curious about them. Simply as a result of that

that previous research. Um and Uh as a figure, as a character, as a as a as a myth and a legend, he began to attract my attention. Um And then also purely for sort of um marketing purposes. I realized this was about that we were going to be coming up on the centenary of the murder of Resputing in sixteen and then the centenary of the Russian Revolution UM and publishers do love these big hundred year retrospective

type publishing opportunities. So I thought, well, this is a perfect time to uh to revisit uh and try to really better understand this amazingly important character. Douglas sam here speaking of the of the sources in that um in

this work. One of the things that was so illuminating to me through as I was reading your book is how complicated the just trying to trace out the history of that is, even as he looms uh so ever presently in the background, UM, can you describe your work a little bit and analyzing the sources that have formed the traditional history of the Rasputin myth and some of the what has made it, what makes it so difficult to dig into, like a a kind of unblemished history

of Rasputin. Yeah. Well, you know, when I decided I want to do to the book, UM, I I told myself that I wasn't going to go down to the university library and pull out the last fifteen biographies of resputing and take notes and sort of regurgitated all which is kind of what has happened for a long time now, So you get the same myths and stories and distortions

and lies and airs told and retold and retold. Um So I set myself the task of really digging into the archives and going back to the original sources, the original letters and documents and memoirs and police reports and and things like that, which basically no one has really done. Not necessarily their fault, but for most of the Soviet period documents on respute and were not available. It was sort of a taboo subject. You just couldn't study it

in depth. Um So I came along at a good time when a lot of this stuff that for decades no one had been allowed to see, I was given access to. So I spent years in archives across Russia and Moscow and Petersburg, but also out in Siberia where he was from places like to Bullskin to mien Um. And then I also was really interested in in finding out, you know, what might be available about him outside of Russia. So I was to Paris and Berlin, to Vienna, London,

Oxford UM, the Hoover Institution at Stanford. So I really ransacked the archives and was able to dig up tons of of amazing original source material that had escaped the attention of historians before. And in so doing too, I think dispel with a lot of the myth and and conjecture and air, and I hope create a much more

realistic portrayal of this person. That's great. That really comes through to us of course, to the readers of your book, and we hope that people who listened to to our program will go and read your book because your researches is amazing. Let's let's go back to some of what you found. You mentioned Siberia there before your work. As you say, much of what we you know, quote, knew of Recputan's life in Siberia prior to his coming to the capital and rising to prominence. It was a mystery.

So maybe for recipients early life, what did you discover when you did that work, Well, that's that was one of the real challenges is basically the first thirty years or so of his life or a giant black hole for which we have very little reliable information and in a way that lack of information, lack of documentation has allowed UM people to create all sorts of lies and stories about the young Resputin. There was nothing to refute those stories pretty much, and so it was sort of

an open book. You could write as you saw fit, and so people tended to talk about him as this, you know, horse thieve, this, reprobate this, UM, you know, hooligan if you will, UM. And I decided that, okay, there's got to be something in the archives out in Siberia that will dispel these stories or prove them to be true. You know, I was open to whatever I

might find. And so one of the things that was interesting is UM into bolsk Uh in Siberia, which has a fairly good sized archive and has information on Resputing that no one had really seen before. I was able to dispel once and for all the story that he had been a horse thief in his youth, which is one of these things that gets repeated over and over

and over. But I did find uh some information that had escaped previous historians, which was a a small notice in a document that recorded UH arrests and UM brief jailings, if you will, of people in the village of Pakrovskaya, which is where he was from, not far from to bullsk and as a teenager, young Grigory Resiput and had in fact been thrown as my dad would say, thrown in the uscal uh put In the local pen, the local jail for a couple of days for using abusive

language towards the local mayor. Now, this was kind of an interesting discovery, um in that it does give us like one of the few little kernels of real factual information about his youth, and it does, in my reading of it, suggests that he was sort of a ruffian um, a little bit of a rebel, a little bit of a troublemaker, even as a young person. So that was one of the few things that I found that would add to the story. But chiefly what I found there was the lack of evidence, uh to dispel so many

of the false stories. One of the things that that you point out, especially in the beginning of your book, and seems to be a theme that comes out, is that Rasputin's background, just being from Siberia is something that really follows him and plays plays into his relationships even in the capital Um. And it seems like Raspute, or that Siberia rather occupies the kind of a complicated place

in in broader in the broader identity of Russia. Can you describe some of the general contours of the place of of Siberia and cybera Arians within Russian identity and consciousness, especially kind of as they're seen in as they would have been seen in like European Russia, or well, obviously for for so much of the world, I mean, Siberia conjures up all sorts of uh, exotic notions if you will, you know, bears walking down the street, and the vastness

of the place, it's extremes of of temperature um and the fact that so for so much of Russian history Siberia has been a dumping ground for for criminals and political prisoners. It's, you know, this vast space of that was some sort of you know, enormous um ice clad jail, if you will, for for for centuries um. And while there is obviously a great deal of truth to that um, Siberia is a more complicated place than one might originally think.

And it was also um a place of freedom, which seems somewhat contradictory, but One of the things that distinguishes Siberia, which is that area east of the euro Mountains that divides Europe from Asia in that part of the world, is that there was never any serfdom in Siberia. Now, serfdom was basically a form of slavery, if you will,

that existed in the European part of Russia. Um, much of much of the Russian populace under the Tsars were serfs um, which by sort of the beginning of the nineteenth century really was not all that different in many ways from American slavery. Serfs could be bought and sold, they could be abused, uh and were abused, work to the bone, and what have you. Well, the peasants of Siberia were not owned, they didn't have landlords, they didn't have masters, and so they they had a more independent

kind of spirit than the serfs in European Russia. And I think this was central to understanding Resputing and who he was. He had never been a surf, he had never been owned. He was born a peasant, but a free peasant. And I think this is an important aspect of his biography and background that um explains part of

how he managed to do what he do. It's hard to conceive of a Russian serf um growing up in such a harsh type of a system, displaying the level of of independence and freedom of spirit that resputant had mm hm. And you note that in that early period of his life he becomes a pilgrim, and that the themes that you were able to discern from studying the whole arc of his life, um, they really coalesced during that period. Could you talk a little about what those

themes were and how they developed for the pilgrim Rasputin? Yeah, Well, the the Russians had this notion of the holy pilgrim Russian ortstrani and by roughly n there was maybe as many as a million of these people, typically typically peasants who picked up and wandered the vast Russian Empire in search of spiritual and religious enlightenment. Um. They tended to live on the edge of poverty. Some of them went

around in fetters, chains um. Some of them, even resputing, who went around in fetters for a while, would try to sort of mortify the flesh and deny themselves the pleasures of any flesh, whether it be you know, food, um. Resputing for long stretches as a holy pilgrim, would not change his clothes or underwear, lived in the wilds, lived out of doors UM in search of enlightenment that they might find in churches and monasteries and from priests um

all over the country. And they would simply live off of alms and things like that as they went. So this was resputants university, if you will. UM. Sometime roughly when it was around twenty eight years old, he apparently had some sort of a religious experience of vision or something, and he got up and would leave home for long stretches and travel on foot all over the Russian Empire UM as one of these pilgrims seeking enlightenment, and it became,

if you will, his university. He learned the Bible inside and out and was able after that to quote long stretches of the Bible from memory. UM. He had this incredible power of speaking about the Gospels in a way that was direct, honest, earthy, and full of the fire of a true believer that he had gained through these years as a pilgrim. And this is something that sort of set him apart um. And he also, if you will,

learned all about the social order of Russia. He learned about the nobile, he learned about peasants, he learned about convicts and criminals, UM, And he came to see the world and to see Russia in one in which the peasants were the backbone of the country. UM and the elites were in a sense sort of parasites that lived off of the labor of the common of the common man.

And these were themes that very much shaped his his thinking about Scripture UM, about the place of religion, and and the sort of critique that he kind of developed about the Russian social order. So, of course, uh speaking of the of the elites and and recipient's life as a pilgrim, of course that that life brings him to St. Petersburg. And could you tell us a bit about what St. Petersburg was like at the turn of the century, what what concerns dominated life there, and what might have attracted

Rasputin to come to that city in. St. Petersburg was obviously the capital of the of the Russian Empire, and had been since the beginning of the eighteenth century when it was first created out of swamps by the Czar Peter the Great Um and by you know, nineteen hundred, around the time when Rasputin showed up, it was a very sort of vibrant, growing metropolis, full of enormous ghettos of poor, really miserable living conditions, on top of which

sat a glittering small elite of the very wealthy and powerful. But for a figure like Resputant, who was clearly very ambitious, he he had he had enormous hopes for himself and his career as as sort of you know, an itinerant preacher, if you will. Um he was also very much a devout monarchist and believed in the institution of the monarchy and saw himself as a real devoted son subject of

the of the Emperor of Russia. And I think much of what drove him to the capitol was was this sort of, if you will, kind of vainglory that he had that somehow he was going to reach the top of Russian society, that he had this message to bring to the elites of Russia and even bring to the palace of the Tsars. And I think this is ultimately what um led him from one provincial city after another to make his way to Petersburg, where he arrives either in nineteen o four or nineteen o five from what

we can tell. Sometimes this period or the years leading up to it is called the Silver Age of Russia. Can you explain how people have used the Silver Age and what is usually meant by that? Right? So, the Silver Age refers to a period roughly from eighteen ninety until the outbreak of World War One in nineteen fourteen. And it's contrasted with the so called Golden Age of of Russian literature, which was sort of the first decades of the nineteenth century with the greatest of all Russian

writers and poets Alexander Pushkin. So what you had in the Silver Age contrast with that was another flowering of of literature, art, culture, music that was going on in that fantasy eclip period um where you had incredible writers like Ahmatova coming along uh yes, say in Alexander Bloch and and many others that you had great painters like Rubel, You had composers like Rachmaninoff and Rubinstein. Um, the ballet was at its height under Um, under Jago liv and

artists like Alexander ben Wah. So there was this like outpouring, this literally sort of bubbling of artistic expression that was happening during that period. UM. And this it's interesting is that Resputant's life and career overlaps almost exactly with with the Silver Age, So in some ways you could view him as as another expression of this this fervent bubbling

over of of artistic and intellectual curiosity and productivity. You mentioned, Uh, of course that Rasputin was a UM, a devoted monarchist and had the these you know, these ambitions for UH, led by vain glory, to reach reach the pinnacle, reach even the czar and the emperor. UH. And the role of the autocracy just in general and Russia is is so central, it seems like to the story. UM, how would you describe the role that that the autocracy did

play in in Russian life and consciousness? UM, and especially the connection between the czar and the people. Well, by this time, under Zar Nicholas the second, who would who would be the last? Are? The Romanov's had ruled rush of Um for three hundred years since sixteen thirteen when the first Romanoff was put on the throne. UM, So there's been three hundred years of of Romanov monarchy. The later decades of the dynasty under Nicholas. The second our

our period of dynamic um change. The economy is taking off, it's growing, you get an increasingly sizeable um urban middle class, you get the development of of an urban proletariat. So on one hand, what you have is this sort of dynamism and and change going on in the economy and in society at large. And then you have this static um political system that goes back to the early seventeenth century of you know, one ruler with all supreme power

apparently handed down from God. And so there's this growing tension between a dynamic and developing society and a rigid um political system that doesn't reflect the change um. And it's it's it's very much one of the struggles that the Nicholas faces as czar is how to handle this, and he does and absolutely horrifically appallingly bad job of handling it um. And it's obviously what then leads to revolution and the downfall of the monarchy in nineteen seventeen.

Part of the problem is is Nicholas his own personality. Uh, he's weak, he's passive, he's indecisive, and he feels that he was handed this this duty upon coming to the throne following the death of his father, Alexander the Third, who was a true sort of tyrant who ruled with an iron fist. And and he doesn't sort of have that character that his father does, and he waffles, and he prevaricates, and he's not always sure what the right move is to make, and he basically in many ways

sort of uh fumbles the situation. And he lives in a world that is completely cut off from the realities of the people that he rules over. Um. They live in a gilded cage. The Romanovs do partially because they know that there are segments of society with the want the monarchy swept away, and not only that would would want to kill him, and there are attempts on his life. Um. Alexander the Second was blown up by terrorists in eighty one UM. And so they're they're very much in a

way isolated from the society that they rule over. You mentioned their Nicholas's personality. Of course, he marries Alexandra. Could you describe her past personality, maybe in comparison to Nicholas, or or how her personality interacted with this society that she stepped into when she married him right. So obviously, Alexandra, it's important to to know was was German born Um marries into the Russian Romanov family Uh, and it was a truly um loving marriage. They were utterly devoted to

each other their entire life. They were utterly devoted to their children. But by temperament they were in many ways very different from each other. Whereas Nicholas was again sort of weak and and indecisive and and passive, if you will, she was UH brittle yet determined, UM very much someone who was very shy and awkward in public settings, always preferred to be uh in the privacy of the family and not out in public in a sense doing her

royal duties as the Empress. She was profoundly mystical, spiritual, UM believed in all sorts of what to us today would seem in many ways as strange um occult kind

of notions. UM. And she was somebody who, though she loved Nicholas, dearly saw him for who he was, and it must be said, saw the weaknesses of his character, and so spent much of her her life trying to find ways to support him in his role as are and trying to to do what she could, in her understanding of it, to make him a more effective and

more powerful ruler. You mentioned Alexandra's mysticism, which which seems to show up certainly, not just in her, but it seems seems like it's a kind of almost a trend among elites in the capitol um. What was going on in Russia at that time, during this Silver Age that made the members among the aristocracy so interested and eager in these kind of eccentric religious figures and occultism, mysticism, things like that, right with the sort of the the

tight geist, if you will, of of fantasy eclo. Russia, like other parts in Europe. Actually, to be honest, at the time, there was there was very much a fascination with with with dark forces at play, with a sense that they were on the verge of some sort of apocalyptic change, that it was in some ways the end of times um. And there was a profound um fascination with with mysticism, spiritualism, the cult uh you know, seances and table turning and and all sorts of these sorts

of things. Hypnotism was was quite popular at the time, and that's one thing that's often forgotten, I think when people write about Nicholas and Alexandrin and their relationship with Respute and um is it wasn't like they were the only ones who were into this kind of thing. Most of UH sort of elite aristocratic society and Rush at the time was fascinated with with very spiritualist leaders, with

gurus uh and what have you. UM and there was this desire to to seek alternate ways of connecting with with forms of reality that traditional religion and the church UM and science were unable to explain to people who were who were seeking answers to to sort of these life's questions that seemed to have this pressing urgency right around nineteen it Can you talk about who Mr Philippe was who stepped into this environment and maybe what his

rise was like in that milieu. Well, Mr philipp is one of the one of the great characters in the whole story of Nicholas and Alexandra and and then by extension of resputing Uh he was basically a necromancer, a seer charlatan if you will, from France who came to the attention of Nicholas and Alexandra by way of the so called Black Crows. UH. These two sisters who had married into the extended Romanov family, and they were utterly

obsessed with the occult and Rosicrucianism and mysticism. And they learned about this Monsieur Philippe through travels to France UM and they helped introduce him to Nicholas and Alexandra UM and he made his way to the court in St. Petersburg, and they were utterly taken with him. They were convinced he was a prophet um, that he could divine the future, and that he had insights um into the nature of rule and power and and and how um Nicholas should

should govern Russia. And he also claimed a very unique skill that was really crucially important to UH Nicholas an Alexander at the time, and that was the ability to determine and shape the sex of a child in utero. Now this was hugely important because obviously Alexandra's main task as empress was to give birth to a son and heir to the throne, and she gave birth to four

daughters in a row. And there was great consternation uh within the royal family that Alexandra had failed her duty as the empress, and Philip claimed there was a certain magnetic electric energy that emanated from his fingertips, and by passing them over Uh the empresses belly once she was pregnant, he could make sure that the next child she had

would be a son. And obviously this is something that was high on their list of priorities, and that gave Philippe this great um hold over Nicholas and Alexander for quite some time until he was outed as a charlatan by other members of the royal family and forced to

leave Russia and go back to France for good. Speaking of Nicholas and Alexandra's male heir, then, UM, it seems like one of the most determinative decisions that they make is when they find they have a male son, Uh that he of course has has hemophilia, but they they keep it a secret for a long time. Um. Why did why did they feel like they needed to keep

that such a secret from everyone? Well, obviously, there was incredible sense of relief and joy when alex say, the first boy was born into the into the family after four girls. Um. There was a sense that Alexandra had fulfilled her duty as the Empress, had delivered a male heir.

For Nicholas the second. But once it's learned not that long on, that he that he has tim ophelia, that he has this bleeding disease, there's utter terror and panic because obviously there's a fear, as often happens with with OPHELIAX, especially in those days when the disease was not as well understood, that he would not live to adulthood UM. And the last thing they wanted Russia to know was that the boy that she had produced was ill, was diseased UH, and would likely die within a few years.

And this was something they were kept as a very closely guarded secret and were terrified UM to let out

beyond sort of the confines of the palace. Now it's interesting is that UM people always assume that what brought Respute into the palace was his ability to heal the sick air, alex say, But in fact it's much more complicated than that, and you have to, in fact go back to Monsieur Philippe, because Monsieur Philippe, when he left Russia for good, told Nicholas and Alexandra to be patient, that he could see into the future at time when a man would come to take his place as their friend,

and that is how they referred to Monsieur Philippe and later to Respute, was as our friend, and that someone would come to take his place and to provide the same role um, to play the same role that he

had in their lives Um. And this is very much then what prepares the way for resputing to come into the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra, that is independent of the illness of alex Say, when resput and does arrive, he makes lots of connections with others among the aristocracy, among the elites before he meets the czar um, when he when he got to St. Petersburg nineteen o five and nineteen o six, What kinds of relationships was he building with these elite figures? Were they his followers? Were

they some kind of friend? What were these relationships he was building? Well? What helps sort of open the doors of the capital for resputing um, chiefly are his contacts with higher ups within the um Russian Orthodox Church. Through his years as a holy pilgrim, he had come to impress a great many priests and then bishops and archbishops within the church as a true man of God, as a true holy man who has risen up from the

depths of Russian peasant society. And he literally gets letters of recommendation from priests and bishops as churches, at churches and monasteries as he goes along. And it's with these letters of recommendation that he shows up in St. Petersburg, probably some time around nineteen o four and is immediately accepted in at the Alexander Neevsky Monastery, one of the great seats of Russian holiness within the Russian Orthodox Church UM.

And originally, these these church members are amazed at this figure. They have never seen someone quite like him, the energy, the fervor with which he praised the and preaches the word of God. UM. He's referred to as a as a burning torch, as a taught string um. They sense this sort of electrical charge that comes from him as he speaks the word of God. And then through his connections in the church, he then is introduced into aristocratic society. He makes his way from palace to palace, going to

various aristocratic salons UM. And these men and women within the upper echelons of Russian society are fascinated by these um peasant holy men. If you will. It's like they're being put in touch with creatures from another planet. Um. It's a world that they, being part of the westernized

urban elite, have no real contact with. They don't go to Siberia, they don't go to peasant huts, and so it allows them to enter this whole world of a Russian society from which they're cut off, but which holds great fascination for them amidst this group of of elites that he's building these relationships with. It seems like or certainly one of the more enduring elements of the respute and story is that a lot of a lot of

these followers were women. Uh. And I was wondering if you could comment and help us to understand what aristocratic St. Petersburg women found it to be attractive in Respue, what

what drew them to him. I think what's really important in trying to understand h resputants popularity amongst sort of um, the women of places like St. Petersburg is to is to recognize that these were women typically from the upper levels of society, women who did not work, women who are not encouraged or often he even really allowed to

do work. Um, they were often lonely. They were often in loveless marriages or single um many of them, uh, we're not actually put it, having their emotional spiritual needs met either in their personal relationships within the family or from the religious um figures that they met through the official Russian Orthodox Church, which by this time was very bureaucratic, was almost like a you know, simply a branch of

civil servants, if you will. And a figure like Resputin comes along, full of of dynamism and passion and energy, and he very basically on one level, he just listens to them. He's willing to hear them. He's he's willing, uh, he hears them, he listens to them, he takes their concerns into his soul, if you will. And for a lot of women, this is this is something they simply have not had in their life, that they've been searching

in their life. So that's that's part of it. Um. There's also the flip side, which you know is central to to who risputing was um uh is he was alleged. I mean, there's no better way around it. He would not have fared very well in the the me too moment of our our recent history. Um. He pawed them,

he rubbed them, he stroked them. Uh. We really don't know how far he went with some of them, um, but uh, you know, to some of these women, his physical attentions may have been welcome things lacking in their own lives. But I think for most of them they were elements of his personality and conduct that they cared uh not to indulge him in um um. But there was this against attention he gave to these women who were were very much seeking of connection, if you will.

So at this point, what was resputing along with these relationships? What was he actually teaching um where his teaching is kind of esoteric? Were they scandalous to the Russian Orthodox Church? Or you mentioned that it was a connections in the church that built the bridge into high society for him. Was he teaching Orthodoxy where his teaching is practical? Can you describe characterize his his teaching at this point? Well, on one hand, you know, the the church is looking

to revitalize itself. It feels that, you know, they're sort of dead at its core, and they they're looking for um an injection of energy and fervency and and and burning belief and figures like Resputent offered that um. Now myths uh and gossips start to develop around Respute and that he is a member of one of these illegal sex known as the klisti hlist is the Russian word

for whip. That the uh, that he is a member of this group that engages in all sorts of strange rights and rituals of selflagellation or giastic sex um, all sorts of things like this and this is this is a cloud that hangs over his head his whole his whole life. He probably was never remembered that UM. But in terms of his his actual teachings and the message that he brings really in many ways is nothing radical,

is nothing terribly um earth shattering or new. What he's able to do is to is to quote scripture talk about the teachings of Jesus and the Gospel in a way that is imbued with this sort of peasant earthiness. UM. He speaks about it in a way that that imbues it with the life and an energy that the sort of hide bound priests of the of the Orthodox Church

are are aren't able to do. He goes on and on at length about the beauty of of of nature of God's creation UM that can be felt and experienced by being out in the in the fields and woods of Russia. And this speaks very much to the people in the urban areas UM. He also has a message of love, of Christ's love that is powerful. And he also has a certain social critique that I think people

are are UM open to listening. And this is very much about the importance of the common people, the importance of the Russian peasant, the importance of the poor and the degree to which they are being fed upon UM by the upper classes. Much of the teachings that he he gives is a social critique of the idle rich of the urban capitals UM, and this is something that he he very much believes in UM and has a certain resonance among people themselves, even though they may be

from these social classes. Speaking of dynamic, dynamic religious figures that are are gaining popularity at this time, one of the most fascinating figures aside from Rasputin, to me as I was reading your book was the monk iliodor h. Can you tell us a bit about about who he is and why he's He looms so heavily in Rasputin's. Yeah, Iliodorus a fascinating and utterly bizarre character. I mean, he's one of these figures you really couldn't make up even

if you tried. He was again one of these sort of popular preachers who, unlike Resputent, does go to the theological seminary and does get an actual training UH in theology and religion and becomes an an Orthodox priest. Resputent never gets a theological training, never becomes a priest. Um. But Iliodor is UH an extreme vocal critic of Nicholas the Second and the autocracy in its in its waning years.

Not what you might expect from the left, denouncing it as an oppressive autocratic institution that denies freedom and civil liberties, but a critic from the right. He is the nastiest of anti semites. Um is constantly um denouncing Jews as an evil influence as the destroyers of the Russian Orthodox people, denounces Nicholas and his government for not doing more to come down hard on the Jews and the Empire. He denounces intellectuals he had, denounces socialists and liberals and the

intelligentsia and what have you. And he he establishes fairly large following in the city of Saditz in UH quite a way as outside the capital, but he becomes a thorn in the side of the regime because he's he's constantly denouncing it and calling for violence UM and early on Resputing is drawn to Eliador and another one of these sort of right wing priests by the name of Germ again and the three of them, Krum becomes sort of a tricha, a threesome of these um upstart preachers,

if you will. UM. But eventually, over time Respute and breaks with Theodore and get him again, and they become sort of blood enemies, to the point that Iliador will be involved in two plots to have Respute and murdered once Ressputan does meet the czar and meet the Romanos. What do we know about You know, we we've talked about that he was a monarchist and wanted to support UM bizarre, but do we know anything more about kind

of his personal or inner motives and aims. Uh focused on Nicholas, Alexandra the royal household as he was forming and maintaining a bond with them. Well, we know the first time they met was the first November nineteen o five, when as a result of his connections with the sisters I mentioned the from Montenet grow the Black Crows who had married into the Romanov family and gotten to no Resputin, that they found a way to introduce Resputent into the

palace um. And there was a meeting that Nicholas and Alexandra had with him, and they were from the very beginning utterly beguiled by him. They were completely completely impressed with him, taken in by him, moved by him, and sat with him for for hours listening to him, to him speak. Now, it's important the timing of this. The

fall of nineteen o five Russia isn't turmoil. This is the so called revolution of nineteen o five, when the cities are burning, there's unrest all over the country and and the autocracy actually does come close to being torn down by revolution, and Resputent comes to them. And what's interesting is from the very beginning of their relationship he offers Nicholas political advice and says, don't give up the throne, don't give up power, maintain the dynasty, maintain the autocracy.

And this is just the sort of message that Nick Nicholas is looking for and especially to hear it not from some minister or general, but to hear it from a peasant from Siberia, from a man of God. It's as almost as if he becomes a a a mouthpiece for all of peasant Russia. When Nicholas and Alexander sit down with Resputant, they feel they are hearing the voice of the peasant masses that they have no other way of accessing. And from the very beginning he is giving

Nicholas political advice, and this is hugely important. It again undercuts the notion that the main attraction to Resputin was to try to keep alex a healthy and alive um, which does become huge important, but from the very beginning was was much less important, and maybe not even important

at all. And what Respute gets out of this obviously is is just, you know, to be able to bask uh In, knowing that he is admitted to the palace where no other peasant is allowed, that he has the ear of the Emperor and the Empress of Russia is uh something that obviously plays to his notions that he is a divine figure, that he is important, that he's powerful um and that it it gives him, you know,

this this aura of authority. That is something I think that he has a very um striving individual who wanted to see how far he could go with his life and career becomes a great reward in and of itself. One of the most helpful ways, as I was again reading your book, that you you frame out in terms of thinking about the nature of that relationship was through

the lens of a royal favorite. Um. Could you tell us a bit about how how Rasputin UH stacked up with with other royal favorites UH, And it may be a little bit about what that institution is, right, well, it's it's it's a way of thinking about resputing that people have generally not considered. UM. I I was immediately struck by it. As as as a functional relationship. That

is is really important to understanding the dynamic of the relationship. Obviously, monarchies UH tend to generate royal favorites, and you you know, you have them in England, you have them in France and Germany, UH and other places, and obviously you had them in Russia before one of the great periods of royal favorites in Russian history was in the reign of Catherine the Great in the second half of the eighteenth century UM where you had the arlaf Brothers, Gregory or

a law who was Katherine the Great lover who helped to you know, put her on the throne and overthrow her husband, the Czar Peter the Third. And then after she's done with Gregory Orlof, she takes another favorite, Gregory Pachomkin Potempkin as he's known in English, who becomes quite possibly her secret husband and one of her great favorites. Is it's it's it's someone who helps share the burdens

of rule. It's it's a figure that a ruler can completely open up to UM, can can help UM if you will share the emotional challenges of kingship UM and in a sense respute and fulfills that same function to Nicholas and Alexandra that the Orlof Brothers or Gregory patch Tomkin did for Kathyn the Great. One of the things though, I think that's that's similar is that outsiders always hate favorites.

So the courtiers in the time of Catherine the Great felt that an Orlof or or a pet Tompkins access to the ruler and power was not justified, that it was illegitimate, if you will. And that's the same thing that happens with with with Resputin is the ministers and courtiers and generals and aristocrats feel that that the influence that uh Resputent has, the access he has is illegitimate and undeserved and undermines the prestige of their monarchy. So

that's one thing that's similar. One thing that's different about Resputin as a favorite is favorites typically, once they attached themselves to a ruler, stay very close physically. They live in the palace, they live nearby the palace, they're always there, they're always at the side of the ruler, and they almost always typically use that access to enrich themselves with great wealth and titles and what have you. What's interesting

about Resputant is that he's very different. He never moves into the palace, He maintains his home in Siberia, and he never enriches himself. He doesn't get any any sort of noble titles, and he doesn't acquire great wealth, which in some ways is very different from what you typically see with a royal favorite. Mm hmm. Let's go follow some of those rumors and things that grew up around resputing.

Do we know if the if the raised suspicions and the primary investigation of him and his religious practices during some of those early years nineteen o seven, and did they affect his relationship with the ars Arena. Well, it's interesting is to look at how the the um criticisms against Respute and shift over the course of his life and in the early years when he after he's first sort of made connections at court Um and starts to

gain notoriety. The criticisms against him are chiefly religious based, that he's, as I mentioned, a member of this illegal sect, the polisti Um, that he has engaged in or giastic religious practices and what have you. This is the original criticism against him Um. And there are investigations that are begun into his religious practices back at home in Siberia.

And these these concerns are brought before Nicholas and Alexandra, and they basically dismissed them out of hand, and they say that, you know, whenever a great religious figure rises up out of the people, the religious powers that be tend to dismiss them and distrust them. Um and try to cast them in a harsh light, and they basically push all of this stuff away and refused to used

to listen to these criticisms. As as respuents relationship continues to develop, Um and the these these rumors start to to swirl a bit more. You know that the first serious test then of his relationship with the with the throne comes when Prime Minister's Stolepian and dress Hiv tried to banish him from the capital unsuccessfully. UM. I was curious, why were such powerful men like them unable to to do something that seemed kind of simple to banish him

from the capital, right exactly. Um. One of the things that that happens over time is that the more resputing is criticized by powerful men within the government, within the army, within the church, the more Alexandra double is down that she is not going to let them take respute and away from her. UM. I think she always regretted the fact that she had allowed members of the Romanov family and within the government circles to force her Nicholas to get rid of Monsieur Philippe, and she was she was

determined that that was not going to happen. Again, and Nicholas could not stand confrontation with Alexandra um and it's it's there's a story. It may be hippocryphal, but I put it in the book because it I think it captures a certain truth, whether or not was actually said

or not. But apparently Nicholas told steleip And that, you know, I cannot get rid of Resputing because for me, it's better to have one Resputin than you know, another hundred hysterical fits uh from Alexandra if I'm forced to get rid of this man. So you all will just need find your way to deal with his presence, with the fact that he's a part of our life, because I just can't get rid of him. My wife needs him, the Empress needs him. And this is just how it's

going to be with Nicholas saying things like that. Can you help us understand how serious monarchists who supported the czar thought they were helping him by publicly attacking Respute And when that came about, well, those who are devout monarchists come to see resputants presence and the rumors um and gossip about him as a horrible womanizer, as a member of this illegal religious sect that this is um tarnishing the reputation of the throne, this is undermining the

legitimacy of the Romanov dynasty. So they perceive it as protecting Nicholas and Alexandra, protecting the throne by trying to remove resputin um and have him banished to Siberia um and never you know, being allowed to come back into the presence of Nicholas and Alexandra. So that's kind of how they perceive their attempts to, as they understand it, open the eyes of Nicholas and Alexandra to the true character of Respute and and to the damage he's doing

to the aura um around the throne. But there's another dynamic going on. Is is is they are are very much resent Resputin because Nicholas and Alexandra allow very few people into their private world um, and that extends to the aristocracy and the upper reaches of the government. They don't even allow the great princes and princesses of the of the realm into their most private and intimate spheres of life. Yet they are allowed owing a peasant to have access to that. And this is something that rubs

them all the wrong way. That makes them angry, envious, jealous. Um, there's a good deal of sort of basic sort of class hatred where these aristocrats look down their nose at the peasant masses of Russia. And so there's an also element of that going on in their criticism, something obviously that they don't they don't say, but is very much

part of what is motivating their actions. Speaking of that, that incredibly close access that Rasputin has with the Romanovs, another of the most enduring UH elements of the Rasputin myth is that UH he and Alexandra were lovers. And you note that it was most likely that that idea came about from Eliodor, who UH published a letter from supposedly is from from Alexandra to Rasputin. Can you ascribe that letter and uh the effect that it had in

the public once it was once it was released. So Um, Alexandra, UM and Resputin exchange letters. Resputent also exchanged letters with UH with the children UM in the family, and on a visit to Pakrovskaya too Resputent's home, Resputent showed some

of these letters to Iliador. Now we don't know exactly what happened, but it appears that Eliador stole some of them, including a letter that Alexandra wrote to Resputing at a moment of extreme grief and sadness and emotional distress, and which she talks about, you know, I'm only able to, you know, feel at peace and at ease when i can rest my head on your shoulder, when I'm in

your presence, when I feel your warmth around me. Um. And Iliador basically held down to this letter as as as a well up and to use against Resputin when the time came, and he did just that. Copies of the letter were made, they spread throughout society, and it became the basis of this notion that there was a sexual relationship between Resputin and the Empress. Now nine certain

there never was any such relationship. Um. But again this information was brought before for Nicholas, and he was presented with the actual letter, and he said, yes, this is Alexandra's handwriting, took the letter, put it in his destroyer, and basically said, we will not speak of these matters further.

But again it becomes um part of the basis for the myth that not only is Resputing offering spiritual sucker um emotional comfort, but that in fact he's engaged in a sexual relationship with the empress, which then later grows metastas rises to the point that he's also sleeping with the daughters of Alexandra, in fact even gets one of them pregnant, and that there's talk that alex say, the heir to the throne, is in fact the bastard child of Resputant, and all the stuff just gets more outlandish

and crazier as the years progress. So what do we know about resputents actual relationship to the Romanov children, the daughters to Alexey from that time? What is striking? We we know that you know he was he was allowed access to the nursery um where the children were being raised. Uh, he would help put them to bed, he would rough house with them. Um. It's quite startling. Um. And you

really question the judgment of Nicholas and Alexandra. Um because there are maids present, There are nursemaids present, um, and they see this and they're they're shocked by it. Um. And they begin to then talk outside the palace and

it's and it starts to spread. UM. Again, I don't think there was ever anything un toward Uh, that happened at these moments, they were always being watched by the parents or by nurses, what have you, nurse mates, Um, But it does become the source for gossip and rumors. We have letters, um that have survived that respute and wrote to the children, and they're they're you know, they're they're very innocent, and they're very you know, they don't

suggest anything nefarious. They're they're very much you know, Tanyusha, I love you, I miss you. God loves you, God shines on you. Go out be in nature. There of that sort of nature. One of the big formative moments, it seems like, or at least an important one for for Rasped and was his his trip through the Holy Land in nineteen eleven. Can you tell a bit about, uh, what prompted that, how that affected him, and how that formed his own sense of purpose and standing as a

holy man. Well, just as you know, I mentioned that he had begun his religious life as one of these holy pilgrims, going around Russia from church to church and monastery to monastery. Um, once you've tapped out Russia, what's the next big place to go as a pilgrim? And that would be to go to the Holy Land. And it's not as exotic maybe as it first seems, that you know, a Russian in nineteen eleven would be going

to the Holy Land. There were actually packaged tours that Russians would go on that would that would take them to see the places connected to the life of Jesus. And this is essentially what he did as he went on one one of these package tours, if you will. But he was profoundly moved by the experience, and he wrote about it, and he and and he sent letters back to Nicholas and Alexandra about the meaning it had

for him. One of the things that he came back with was a renewed um conviction that the only true form of Christianity was Russian Orthodoxy. He had nothing but horrible things to say about the other branches of the Christian faith, and and he came to believe that pilgrimage to the Holy Lands should be encouraged among Russian society as a way of instilling greater faith in the church, and by extension, than by instilling greater faith and loyalty

among Russian Orthodox believers and subjects of the Crown. In the sanctity of the throne itself, that this was a way you could further bind Russians to the autocracy, was through these trips to the Holy Land, and and he would come back and speak about his experiences there, and this definitely sort of gave him a greater sense of religious authority in the eyes of his believers mhm. At

the end of that year dwenteen eleven. You note that there's this and you describe, of course in your book, this confrontation between Elidor and uh Germ again and Rasputin um, and you describe it as as one of the most bizarre and mysterious events in Rasputin's life. Um. What prompted these men to dramatically turn on Respute And as you said earlier, that the that they do this and they become, as you said, blood enemies. What happened there, well, it's

it's bizarre. There's there's conflicting accounts of of of what happened, but it was in St. Petersburg and Gerim again and Eliador summoned Respute into a meeting. Now it's possible that they sensed that resputants place alongside Nicholas and Alexandra was somehow weakened that the criticisms around him had reached such an extent that maybe Nicholas and Alexandra were thinking of cutting themselves free of Resputin, thus meaning there would be

an opening for a similar figure. And Eleador had always hoped that he would be able to take Resputant's place alongside Nicholas and Alexandra. So they confronted Resputant and basically accused him of being the devil, of being the anti Christ. Uh. There's a bizarre you know talk that they you know, grabbed at his penis and we're gonna try to you know, lop it off u and neuter him, turn him into

a eunuch on the spot, that sort of thing. That there was a fight and struggle, and they were beating him with the cross, saying out devil, out devil um. And they were trying to get him to to promise to go back to Siberia and never show his face again. They play their hand terribly, um, and in fact, it only further strengthens resputants place at court and further damages

the position of of Iliador and Gerim again. And they are basically then at that point they rupture any relationship they have with Rasputin, and they then go on and basically lose their place in the church, and especially in terms of Eliodor, who denounces his faith and becomes an

apostate and and leaves the leaves the church altogether. Around this time and shortly after, uh, you also note that there's there's souring relationships, uh kind of on a on a broader scale, and a number of different uh moments or or or factors of that. Uh. How significant were were things like Novoselov's pamphlet the Rasputin Dossier and Gutchakov's blow to the Alcove speech in souring the relationship between the Duma and the Czar and kind of a large scale, right.

So it's you know, up until this point, really all of the information people have about Resputing is oral, it's

word of mouth, it's gossip. And then in n of a journalist by the name of your Novosel publishes in the Moscow Gazette a story about Resputing as this debauched pseudo holy man who's a sex maniac and a pervert and ellegtion and a threat to society, which causes shock waves and gets repeated in magazines and newspapers throughout the country, and then of a self later tries to to publish this information in a pamphlet that is repressed, but then parts of it get leaked to the press and printed

throughout And it's one of the interesting things is is there's a certain level of freedom of the press now in Russia after nineteen o five, and Nicholas is just lived. He's so angry that newspapers are publishing these things about respute and that he tries to get it to stop. But his ministers say, look, you know, after the revolution of nineteen o five, you granted freedom of the press generally, and so we simply cannot go around censoring uh newspapers

and magazines. Um, we can try to confiscate them after the fact, but we can't beforehand tell them you can't write about this person. So this greatly increases the controversy around resputing and leads then to a figure a deputy and the dooma which is like the parliament um to get up in nineteen twelve um and denounce respute and by name, and to insist that the crown tell them and the country who is this respute? And figure what is the source of his power? Is he operating on

his own behalf? Does he represent some cabal of of mysterious figures? Uh? And is simply working to enrich them? Who is he? What is he doing? Um? And the country needs to know? This creates an enormous scandal and and introduces a rift now between the throne and the doom and the Parliament that leaves them at logger heads and only gets worse and worse in the final five years of the life of the dynasty. Really really happy to talk with that, goes. We loved his book, and uh,

we're working on the show. We're loving it. So one of the one of the things that I that that's interesting amidst the rumors that are developing around Raspute, and especially the ones that are religious based, is that he he also routine these seems like he's surprised major religious figures along the way with how just normal Orthodox he was folks like theo Fan and fa Istraumov back back home in Bishop Alexei in what ways, how how typical was Respute in terms of what an Orthodox Christian was

like at that point? Well, you know, there were so many attempts to paint him as a as a heretic and uh dangerous sectarian and all that. And they're all these actual church investigations into his practices and beliefs, and even people who wanted to sort of you know, paint him in the in the in the worst of colors, were not able to do it. I mean, he he believed in the rights and the rituals. He attended UH services regularly, He followed the prayers, he followed the UH

you know, the ritual and what have you. When he preached the word, when he spoke the Word of the Gospels, he literally was quoting directly from from scriptures and and so in this there wasn't in any sense that he was really perverting the message of the Church, was perverting the message of scripture. He was very much someone who UH ultimately tried to express the notion of love thy

neighbor as thyself, UM and what have you. Now, of course, there's also this tension between the message his practice UH as an orthodox believer and the way he you know, treated women and something like that. And there's this huge gap and we still don't fully understand, you know, all exactly that what went on with women and there were I think attempts at times, probably frequently with him to bend scripture and teaching for his own sexual uh goals. You know, he did not come up with this saying,

even though it's often attributed to him. But you know, the notion that he who does not sin uh cannot repent, and he who does not repent cannot be saved. Thus, if we give ourselves into sin, we are thus leading ourselves to repentance and redemption and and being saved. This idea did not begin with him in Russian culture, um, but it does seem fair to say that he did use it, especially when he was trying to lure some

woman into his bed. M hmmm. Can you tell us a bit about Varna and the process of his elevation to bishop. How big a part in that process did Respute and play. So one of the things that happens is, you know, originally coming up, Respute and woos the clergy. They're impressed by him, uh, they're convinced of the sincerity

of his religious expression. Um. But then as that all changes, he he acquires a great deal of enemies with in the higher echelons of the Russian Orthodox Church, which you need to understand is a very much bureaucratic top down basically government run uh institution, and so they start coming

after Resputin. So Resputents almost starts looking around for allies, defenders, and and wants to have them put in positions of power within the Russian Orthodox Church too, if you will guard him from his his enemies, and one of those is is Varnava, who was also born at peasant like him, had no real education, but was a powerful preacher um and then sort of makes his way slowly up the church, and Resputin decides that he wants Varnava to be appointed bishop,

but the bishops are strongly against it because they don't think he's worthy of the title in the position um. But the one who can ultimately push this through is the Emperor, and Resputing, you know, inveigles his way in with Alexandra Nicholas and gets Nicholas against the wishes of the body known as the Holy Synod, which is sort of the ruling body of the church, to go ahead and make Varnava a bishop, which he later becomes UM.

And again this this introduces this great rift and distrust between the official church and and Nicholas, which further undermines Nicholas and his power and authority. You know that in your book one of the especially related to Rasputin's religious mystique, um And and that persona that his reported power, his reported power to heal, is one of the most salient aspects of his enduring persona. Did Rasputin ever claim that, like himself, claimed that he had the ability to heal?

Or was that something that was attributed to him by others that some other that's a notion that was attributed to him um And. This was obviously one of the central questions I tried to to get at in my research for the book. He really doesn't go around saying I'm a faith healer. This is something that um arises, you know, out of his relationship with Nicholas. Now Alexandra and alex say the sun um and then get spread around. But people don't go to him necessarily to be healed

of something. If if they're to be healed, it's it's it's of an emotional illness, an emotional spiritual injury. Um. That's really what sort of healing he he claimed to be able to offer to people. How important were some particular healing healings for Reciptent's relationship with the royal family partic the healing. Yeah, so that's one of the crucial

moments in the relationship there. Um. It's at one of the hunting lodges and what is today modern day Poland and of Alexey goes out on a on a carriage ride and he's jostled about and this produces a bleeding episode, um in his leg and it becomes quite critical. The doctors are fussing over him. They don't know what to do. It's getting worse and worse. The boy is in excruciating pain, which is driving his parents, you know, utterly mad to

see their their beloved son hurting so terribly. Um. It gets to the point where they're about to, you know, have a priest brought in for the last rites. They don't think that that alex A is going to survive. So as sort of a last ditch effort, Alexandra sends a cable telegram to Respute and who's home in Siberia, um, you know, for some sort of intercession, and he cables back and says, don't worry, your son will not die. God will take care. Do not obsess over the child

and tell the doctors to leave him alone. I know that all will be well. And miraculously he was right, and he the boy was well. The boy does survive. And even the doctors were utterly confounded. They could not make sense of this. They could not explain it in the medical understanding that they had it at the time.

But it's something that obviously I had to try to figure out, and others have tried to make sense of his You know, what was the relationship between rispute and and and the health of the Tzarevitch, the heir to the throne, And the way I kind of come down on it and think about it is, you know, the doctors were constantly poking and prodding um the boy when he was bleeding, which would have inhibited the clouding effect, which would have only made the bleeding worse. That's one factor.

So Resputent in a sense was right by saying tell the doctors to go away and leave him alone. That was actually good medical advice for the time. And I think he also allowed Alexandra and inner calm in peace

that all would be well. And I talked about this a bit in the book The Degree to which we really are only now really understanding sort of mind body wellness, and the degree to which maybe by calming Alexandra, that calm and confidence was somehow conveyed to little Alexey as well, and in some ways maybe maybe this helped aid the healing process. But it's also important to remember that that Resputent never healed or cured Alexey of hemophilia. He he was him if eliac his whole life. He died while

still afflicted with hemophilia um. But it is true that he never did die of of a bleeding episode as long as Resputin was alive. And in the story, the speaking of wounds and healing respute, and of course is he's uh attacked many years before he's actually killed by Konya Guseva. Do we know much about how Nicholas and

Alexandra reacted in the immediate aftermath of that attack. That was one of the more bizarre and horrific moments in the life of Rasputin when he was back home in the summer of nineteen fourteen and Pakrovskaya and a strange figure came up to him, and he thought she was seeking alms, and he went to get his coin pers out and given her some money, and she plunged a fairly lengthy dagger into his abdomen, screaming, I've killed the anti christ. Um. That he survived this attack is truly miraculous.

When word reached Nicholas and Alexander, they were on the Royal yacht sailing in the Baltic Sea. And what's amazing is is we know the day that Nicholas learned of it um, but he makes no mention that he had heard this or he was concerned about it in his diary, which is truly striking. The only thing he did was a day or two later send word that the police should make every effort to keep their friend, as they

called Gregory, safe from any such further attacks. But it's it is strange that they did not express a truly grievous reaction at the time we come to. You know, the clouds are moving in right over, over bizarre and over resputing at this time, and that's the that's the term that the resputent uses in his menacing cloud letter. H What effect did that letter have on on Zar Nicholas? Unfortunately it didn't have enough of an an In fact,

on the Czar. The famous letter that you're talking about was written by Rispute and while he lay in hospital in the city of two Men in Siberia, recovering from the attack by Gusheva Um and he knew that Europe was fast approaching war, and he was determined to keep Russia out of the war. And he was determined two convince Nicholas not to listen to his generals and ministers who were pushing him to go to war against Austria UM.

And this letter is is truly remarkable. And the fact that the letter has survived and is now in the rare, rare bookroom and what the main library at Yale University is also somehow bizarre and strange. Uh. But he he foresaw it's prophetic. He foresaw that if Russia were to go to war, that it would lead to seas of blood, millions of innocent Russian peasants killed, and bloody slaughter. And he he pled with Nicholas in the most powerful and

prophetic of terms, to to not go to war. And I always think it's one of those great what if moments in the history of the twentie centuries. What if Nicholas had listened to rerispute and and and not and not agreed with his generals, how the course of history might have been different. M do you want to take a run at reading it? Let me see, dear friend. I'll say again, A menacing cloud is over Russia, lots of sorrow and grief. It's dark and there's not a

ray of hope, a sea of t years immeasurable. And as to blood, what can I say? There are no words indescribable horror. I know they all want war from you, evidently not realizing that this means ruin hard is God's punishment when he takes away reason. It's the beginning of the end. You are the czarar, father of the people. Don't allow the madness to triumph and destroy themselves and the people. Yes, they'll conquer Germany, But what of Russia?

If one thinks, then truly, never for all of time has one suffered like Russia, drowned in her own blood. Great will be the ruin grief without end? Gregory, I was I was just gonna ask if you could, uh comment on on Rasputen's general perspective on war, because uh, it seems like he he brought that up more than one. That's another side to respute, and that that was new to me, that didn't come out in the previous biographies

that I had read as that. And in this sense again, I think you can say that he really did hearken to the to the teachings of of the gospels. Is that he was He was ultimately a man of peace. Now that does not mean he was a man of good relations with individuals, but he was never someone who called for war, called for vengeance and what have you.

And uh, you know, there were wars and the Balkans before World War One that led up to World War One, and he was very vocal at that time in nineteen twelve, for example, against going to to war, that war was wrong, that it went against the teachings of of the church, that it went against the message of Jesus christ um.

And he was so vocal that there were a good many Russians who denounced him as some sort of traitor, that he was not a true patriot of Russia because he was counseling the czar against going to war against Russia's supposed enemies. Can you describe for us the scale of surveillance that was assigned to Rasputin in his later years from twelve on through nineteen sixteen, how many different agents were either watching him or watching out for him

at any given time in that period. It is amazing the amount of resources that the Secret Police, the akarana Um and other police agencies directed towards resputing in the last you know, five or six years of his life. UM. A brief aside, I was allowed access to the police files on respute in which are kept in one of the major archives in Moscow, UM and they pulled them all out for me, and they literally measured, probably close to a meat or high thousands and thousands of pages

of surveillance documents. UM. There was typically you know, dozens of agents that were tracking him at any one time. And not only were they tracking him, but they were tracking everybody that he came in contact with, and would would do investigations into his circle and his contacts and

associates and what have you. And part of it was surveillance, but part of it was also after the summer of nineteen o fourteen, when he was almost murdered, supposedly they were also charged with keeping him safe from another such attempt on his life. So they're voluminous files UM of of investigations of surveillance UM and you could almost do a whole book just on on these documents, and it

would probably make for some fascinating insights. You know that one of the UM one of one of the most UH incredible one often retold in incredible stories about Resciput, and is this this incident at the Yar, as it's called, but that it probably didn't happen the way that it's

often been told. Can you walk us through that what like what actually is likely to have to have happened at the Yard restaurant and how some such different versions of it have been have come down to us right what they The so called incident at the Yar is one of the iconic UH moments in the biography of Respute, and it's in every book on him UM and it's sometimes told in in somewhat different versions, but basically the the standard story is that UH in March of nineteen fifteen,

Rescipute and took the train from uh Petrograd as Petersburg was now called, down to Moscow, where you met with some friends and one night they went out to this famous restaurant called the Jar, which had this uh gypsy choir and chorus and everything that he got outlandishly drunk, he started chasing the girls in the gypsy choir. Um,

he started being rude and vulgar. Uh, and then it sort of culminated in him jumping up on the table, exposing himself, dropping his trousers, waiving his member around and and claiming in front of the astonished guests at the R restaurant that this was the altar at which the Empress worshiped, at which point the police were called and they dragged him, snarling and screaming and cursing out and put him into jail. Now this is the standard story

that you'll read over and over and over. Uh. Some more recent defenders of resputing in Russia have claimed that the story is a lie, that Resputant was never there, and that that effect this was a double anger, a body double that resputants enemies had sent into the R

restaurant to try to destroy him. Um. So I was obviously desperate to try to get to the bottom of the story when I was doing my research, and it was in fact in the police files in this archive in Moscow that I found the clues to sort of unlocking this riddle. Uh, once and for all. All of it is there in black and white, all of the surveillance reports. And indeed agents tracked Respute and from Petrograd to Moscow on the train in March. They followed him

around literally by the minute. And indeed he did go to the r restaurant. But what's interesting is you read the policeman's report of what happened there. There was no talk of drunkenness. There's no talk of chasing chorus girls, gypsy chorus girls. There's no talk of you know, dropping his trousers and and waving his member around, and there's no talk of any arrest. In fact, they had dinner.

He went back to someone's house. Uh. He did get drunk the next day and drove around with some friends, and then the agents followed him back to the train station and he went back to Petrograd. End of story. So the police send this report back to Petrograd, where it's read by the head of the Akarana, a man named Vladimir Junkowski, who is the devout, sworn enemy of Resputin and is convinced that he is going to bring

him down where others have failed. So he writes back to the chief of police and Moscow and says, yes, I've seen this report from the yard. Clearly this is a mistake. I'm sure something else must be missing and

must have happened now in between the lines. The police in Moscow know what is being asked of them, and so you can see them start to generate after the fact new documents that purport all sorts of bizarre and disturbing elements that supposedly happened in the our restaurant, and they send these to you, to Junkovski and Petrograd, and he says, I still don't think you have the full story, and so they literally you know, quote unquote sex it up, if you will, to make it more outlandish and add

all sorts of crazy elements to it, not only sexual stuff, but in fact that he was, you know, meeting with various uh shady uh figures who are involved in in vast graft and corruption schemes to defraud you know, the the National treasury of all sorts of millions and millions

of rubles and what have you. And so finally they create this outlandish story on official police letterhead the Chinkwowski satisfied and then takes it to Nicholas, and Uh says, with faux sincerity, of how difficult it is for him to have to open the eyes of Nicholas to this horrible incident that had happened, But it is his duty as a servant of the Czar that he speaks the truth Uh, and presents these fake documents to to Nicholas. He shows them to Alexandra, and Alexandra says, this is

this is total nonsense. And here Alexandra was right, this is a pack of lies, and I refuse to believe it. Uh. And so it again is then taken as proof that nothing can damage Resputing in the eyes of Nicholas and Alexandra, and he can go to any lengths he he wishes, and his place is secure. But in fact, he really never did anything wrong that night at the r restaurant.

So there are lots of other rumors about Resputing at the time, especially about him being a spy, that crop up with the beginning of the second of the First World War. Can you tell us about what some of those rumors about Resputing the spy were? Well, it's interesting again you know, whatever, uh, the concerns of the day happened to be. Everyone wants to sort of trace the origin inspect to to respute and if before it was religious perversion and the downfall of morality, while it's got

to be Resputants fault. Once the war gets going in nineteen fourteen, not only gets going, but gets going badly for Russia and they are not doing well in the war against German Austria, well then clearly who's to blame. And instead of, you know, looking to the obvious sources there there arises this idea and society that, aha, there must be traders in our midst who are selling out the country, selling out our war secrets and what have you,

And they trace it all back to Resputing and to Alexandra. Alexandra, as you recall, is German by birth, um is extremely unpopular in Russia and many are convinced that she is given her nationality selling out Russia, that she's a trader to Russia, she's defending Germany, and that she's doing this together with Resputin, that the two of them are line together to to sell out Russia, that they are part of what become known as the quote unquote dark forces

at work trying to undermine the Russian war effort. One of the things that I think often pops up in that regard, or a misconception perhaps, is that Respute and Alexandria were kind of Alexandra were kind of scheming to get Nicholas out of the capitol eventually when he goes

off to the stavka Um. Is there any truth to that that they were trying to get him to leave to consolidate their own power, or is there they're more going now And in fact it's it's just the opposite dynamic that's that's going on, which is again one of the falsehoods that's sort of percolated through all the history

about Respute. And is that exactly that that Nicholas um is purposely sent away to the supreme headquarters of the army known in in Russian astafka Um, so that Resputin and Alexandra, with Nicholas away, can seize the reins of government um and basically run the country at the same time as they work as traders to sell the country out to the Germans. In fact, it was just the opposite.

They did not want Nicholas to go off to headquarters because they knew how impressionable he was, and that they knew that um, if Nicholas is going to be surrounded by his generals, he will do what they tell him to do. And they want him near them because they feel that their advice, their guidance and counsel is what should matter, and so they desperately want him to stay at the palace and not go off to headquarters. So it's in fact the opposite of what the long held

view was. By nineteen fifteen nineteen sixteen, how heavily did raspute and figure, whether directly or indirectly, in a kind of a breakneck uh speed of ministerial sackings and appointments in the government. Maybe that would reinforce that idea about um Resputen and Alexander kind of pulling strings and that

kind of thing. Well, there is by the last couple of years of the of the dynasty, this this phenomenon that becomes known as ministerial leap frog, where basically like one prime minister is being sacked a new one hired every other month. There's a there's a new head of the police, there's changes at the upper echelons, of the military and other UM posts in the government, Minister of Interior and what have you. UM, And everyone starts to assume that all of this is being done at the

behest of resputing Um. It's more complicated than that, But it is true that by by those latter years risk Sputin is exercising more influence on ministerial appointments, has more opinion about these things, and Alexandra listens to him and tries to lean on Nicholas to make some of these changes. But what's important to remember is that part of the reason Resputint is doing this is he is very much

fearful for his life. There have been several attempted assassination assassinations of resputing Um, and he is terrified that the people uh In charged with keeping him safe are in fact the ones that want him dead, and so he is very much UM leaning on Alexandra to make sure that the people they hire to be, for example, the head of the police or the Ministry of the Interior are in fact allies of his and not not enemies

just waiting to do him in. You mentioned that there had been several attempts on his Resputin's life, Um, one of them came about from UH members of that he was into this kind of political troika with can you can you describe some of the outlines of that of that murder attempt? Right, So, there were several um plots and assassinations that were attempting to get against Respute in

his lifetime. And one of the more bizarre UH was put together by the sort of the so called troika, the threesome, at the head of which was the Minister of Interior, man named Huastof, who in fact got the job as Minister UH claiming to be a defender of resputing and an ally of Resputin. But he very quickly then shifts to the other side to the competing camp and starts trying to dream up ways to to do

in Resputin. He he plots to have him put on a train and sent off outside capital and then someone was going to come and pick him up and throw him off a speeding train. Um. There's attempts to put together a bottle of poison wine that he will drink and die um. And then together with a couple of others, he comes up with trying to lure iliad Or, who by this time has fled Russia for Norway to pay iliad Or sixty thou rubles if iliad Or could get some of his allies who are still in Russia to

shoot and kill Resputing. Now this plotting gets very complex, and I go through it all in great detail in the book. It's really fascinating. It's like a bizarre sort of crime story. But it all comes to light before it can happen, and Huastov claims that no, no, no, I was never trying to kill Resputin. I was trying to out a plot to kill Rasputin. But in the end of the whole thing blows up in his face.

But it it offers further proof to to Alexander and Resputing that even the people that they hire in place in positions of power to keep Resputing safe are in fact snakes in the grass who want him killed, which heightens the sense of of paranoia that is seeping through the court and Resputent's life in these final few years.

You trace what you call resputens apotheosis to his interaction with Petrograd Governor General Obolensky in nine Can you describe that interaction and what it implies concerning like the level of power to which Resputin had actually ascended at that point, right. So I call it the pathiosis because it seems to me that this interaction that he has with with Abelnski at the time signified just the degree to which he had gone in being able to manipulate uh, Nicholas and

Alexandro when he felt it was necessary. Abeliansky, Prince. Abeliansky came from one of the great aristocratic families of Russia. Um. These were the families that basically were the pillars of the Romanov dynasty. These were the families that literally ruled the country alongside the Romanovs, great wealth, great power, UH and prestige, the kind of people who never would have allowed a peasant into their into their office or room or palace. And Rasputin felt that that Abelynsky was not

doing his job. In part, he felt that Abelianski was not doing a good enough job to make sure there was a steady UH supply of food being brought to the capital. And in this Resputent was was was correct and and onto something. So he he went to Aboliansky um and you know, upbraided him for not doing his job. And Abolanski became very obsequious and basically threw himself at the mercy of respute and you know, insisting that you know he had done everything that Resputin had ever wanted.

He pulled out letters, uh that Resputent had sent him request various favors and what he han't said, I've always followed these to the law, and whatever you wanted, I've given you. Um. But the fact that he could speak this way to someone like Abeliansky, upbraid him and criticize him and then basically lead to Abeliansky's downfall a few months later shows just uh, in my opinion, the ultimate pinnacle of power that that he had reached by early

nineteen sixteen. Can you describe for us Felix Yusupov's character and personality and what his his family and upbringing were lie So, Prince Felix u super was a member of one of the great aristocratic families of Russia UH centuries of extreme wealth and power and prestige UM one of

the truly one of the richest most powerful families in Russia. UM. His parents had had doated on his older brother who was killed in a duel, and then all of their attention and devotion, especially from his mother, Princess Zinaida, were showered upon Felix. He was doated on, he was spoiled. Um, he was indulged. Uh. He was you know, sort of the worst, I would say, examples of the of debauched aristocracy in the early part of the twenty century. Nothing

was expected of him. It was a life of glamor, of Champagne. Of uh, he was a notorious um. Uh. What should I say, boy about society if you will? At the time, who really had no purpose in life until he decides that he is going to save Russia by killing Respute and putting together a plot to do him in, And this becomes, if you will, his e day fixed, this becomes his raised on Detra, and he devotes all of his energies and times to figuring out

how he's going to do away with Resputing. One of the challenges of knowing what happens, and you describe this, is that the accounts we have of Resputin's eventual murder come to us from the people involved in the deed. Um. What sort of picture of Rasputin does your soup of paint in his account of the assassination plot? How trustworthy is he has a source for information concerning Resputin or

the murder. That kind of thing. Well, that's what struck me Um working on the book, is that for so long our image of Resputing as a person, his life and experiences, and especially as death comes from books that were written not just by his enemies, people like Eliador, but from the man who murdered him in cold blood, from your soup of Um. So much of the myth of risputants murder, which is something that everybody seems to know in some sort of detail, comes from your soup

as memoirs, Um. And I always found it odd that we had taken the words of a cold blooded killer at face value and never questioned them for what they really were. Um. You sup As memoirs are sort of network of lies, the tissue of have truths and and and an attempt to bade himself in glory, if you will,

for a truly horrible deed. Like the only moment I think in his memoirs when he's ever really being honest is when you super frights that that killing Rasputin was quote unquote a cowardly crime, for that is what it was, Um. He depicts himself. He super does as like sort of Saint Michael slaying the dragon. He depicts Rasputin as a man that was impossible to kill um, that he had sort of superhuman power in him, that he was Satan himself.

And in fact, in the various versions of the memoirs that you super frights he and each one exaggerates the impossibility of killing Rasputin with each retelling of the tale that you know they beat him, they poisoned him, uh, they shoot him, he refuses to die, that they dump him in a hole in an icy branch of the Nyeva river, and even then he still breathes his last and tries to make the sign of the crossed, and

eventually only dies of drowning. I mean, this is all just a pack of lies that you soup of told to make himself feel better, to aggrandize himself, and quite frankly, to earn money, because he was now living in in exile after the revolution in Europe, and it had no way to make a living other than to keep retelling

the story of how he had killed Resputin Um. An ultimate fact, there was probably never any poison um, And in point of fact, we know from photographs uh taken at the autopsy of Resputin's body after it was pulled from the ice, that he was shot three times at close range, twice in the torso, and a third and final time at point blank rage, right into the middle of his forehead. Resputin was more than dead when they finally dumped his body into the icy river. One of

the one of the theories that has been floated. I had never heard this before until reading your book, that anybody had ever floated this was uh Um, that the murder of Resputant was in some way orchestrated or planned by the British government. Uh how is how is there

any credence to that idea? This notion that the English were involved has an old history, and in fact actually first sort of bubble up to the surface right in the first days after the murder, that um, British intelligence agents were in some way connected to the killing of Resputing.

Part of the story goes back to the idea discredited false notion but that was widely believed at the time, was again that Resputing was a spy, that Resputent and Alexandra were basically working with the German government, and we're trying to get Russia to leave the war um and and conclude a separate piece Germany. Now, obviously the English were very much worried about Russia leaving the war because they needed Russia to maintain an eastern front in the

battle against Germany. And so the theory goes was that British agents killed Resputant as a way to prevent some

sort of peace treaty between Russia and Germany. Now, there's no truth in any of this, and there's no reality that this ever happened, um, But there have been been books written about it, there have been documentaries made about it, and there's even been this theory put forward that if you look at the the bullet hole in resputants head, that the markings around the whole proved that it was a bullet fired by a British gun, by an endfield UH pistol, and that this means that whoever fired the

fatal shot was a British agent. Well, first of all, you know the whole Trader secret peace treaty is nonsense. Second of all, the idea that you can read what kind of gun killed Respute and based on the markings in his forehead is just not really supported by the facts. And third, something I found in the police files in Moscow, which was truly enlightening for me, was that not only did British officers use end field pistols during World War Two,

but so did Russian officers. They were also using them as a side arm during World War One. And in fact, one or more of the agents in the Ahran of the Secret Police who were tasked with guarding Resputin had been issued and field uh pistols as side arms. So even if it was an Endfield that fired the fatal shot, we don't know who was holding that gun. UM. I won't go into more detail. I try to unpack all

of this in the book. UM. I think the British probably wanted respute and dead, UM, but I don't think there's anything to really conclusively prove that they were in any way involved in the killing. So just a few more questions to wrap us up. UM. After Gregory was killed, his daughter Maria found another letter among his belongings, another

letter that we could call prophetic. UM. Would you want to read that for us, my dear, A disaster is threatening us, A great misfortune is drawing near the face of our lady has darkened, and the spirit is disturbed in the calm of the night. This calm will not last. Terrible will be the wrath. And whether shall we flee? Start over? And whither shall we flee? It is written, Watch for ye know neither the day nor the hour. This day has come for our country. There will be

cries and blood. In the great darkness of these griefs. I can now distinguish nothing. My hour will soon strike. I am not afraid, but I know it will be bitter. I shall suffer, and it will be pardoned to men. I shall inherit the kingdom, But you will be saved. The road of your sufferings is known to God. Men without number will perish, Many martyrs will die, Brothers will be slain by their brothers. The earth will tremble, famine

and pestilence will reign. Signs will appear to men. Pray for your salvation, and through the grace of the Savior, and have her who intercedes with him, you will be consoled. Gregory, thank you, thank you. Yeah. Just so. Of course, the question that that everybody probably asks at some point, uh to what extent uh in in uh to what extent? Was respute and responsible for the fall of the Romanovs

and the imperial and imperial Russia. Well, I came away after six years of research and writing and thinking about Respute and um, you know, seeing him as this great scapecoat, sort of one of the great scapegoats of history. And it's not to deny his faults. It's to not to deny him of responsibility for things that he did to further the demise of the of the autocracy. Um. But everyone wants to put it all on his shoulders. Um.

It was. It was strange to just read account after account after account um of people who were part of Russia at the time, in the government, meant, in the army, at court, and they all want to place it on resputing shoulders, as if as if it hadn't been resputing, none of this would have happened. There would have been no war, there would have been no revolution, there would

have been no downfall of the dynasty. And that's so utterly simplistic and incorrect that I hope, if nothing else I can, I can move us off of this simplistic way of thinking about him and his role, uh and his place in history. That's great. Our last question would have been, what do you hope that listeners and readers every book will take away? But I think you've just answered that. Um. So, Douglas, thank you so much for joining us on Unobscured Sam. Yes, thank you so much.

This has been amazing to be able to chat with you after reading your book. It's this is a great great thanks for the opportunity to talk. Um. It's uh, you know, he's one of these figures that I think will always hold out great fascination for us. Um And I've you know, devoted all these years trying to plumb his depths, and I took it as far as I could go, but I don't think we'll ever really get

to the deep dark bottom of it all. But it's it's fascinating to explore, to think about, discuss, and um, it's been great having the opportunity to talk with you. Great. Yeah, thank you. Well, we don't want yeah, we don't want to take any more time than you than you have, so um, yeah, you just you have our gratitude and uh, thanks for the book, Thanks for the talk. Thanks, let me know when it comes together. I look forward to hearing. Yeah.

We'll keep you in the loop and Zack, thanks again for your work, Thanks for doing the recording on that side. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's

in store for next week. And then there's a period of disillusionment with the people and disillusionment with the results of that revolution of nineteen o five, and many intellectuals who had been Marxists or liberals begin to but especially Marxists, begin to turn away from from materialism and they are

drawn to to idealism. They're drawn to religion. They are frustrated with the political world, and they they look for other other forms of of meaning and identity and so on as the as the political situation becomes less and less free. After nineteen o six nine seven. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in partner ship with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis,

and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials, and links to our other shows over at grim and Mild dot com. Slash unobscured and as always, thanks for listening. Four