This New Year weekend marks a hundred years after the murder of Rasputin, one of the Russian Empire’s most controversial figures.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born a peasant on January 21, 1869, in the Russian Empire. Even though he never attended school and came from very humble beginnings, he rose to become one of the most controversial and hated figures of the Empire.
Rasputin was the son of a very humble household in the small village of Pokrovskoe, in the immense West Siberian Plain. He was the fifth of nine children, of which many theories suggest that he was the only one to survive. He didn’t go to school merely because there wasn’t one in his village, and just like 87.5 percent of the Siberian population at the time, he is thought to have been brought up illiterate
After he married in February 1887, Rasputin left his home, his wife, children and parents and went on to live in a monastery in Verkhoturye for months. Outside the monastery he met a hermit, who convinced him to give up tobacco, alcohol and meat, and that was the start of his journey.
When he failed to become a monk, he became a wondered and a mystic, and in after a series of events he entered the court of Czar Nicholas II because of his alleged healing abilities.
When the heir to the throne Tsesarevich Alexei had hemophilia (which was not known at the time), he was asked to heal him. With a few prayers, Rasputin was able to convince both the Czar, his wife and their son that he was working a miracle. After that, he became the Czars closest advisors.
Within the court of the Czar, Rasputin had many premonitions and prophecies, which made the Russian upper-class fall in love with his eccentric character. He had written a letter to Nicholas himself, telling him that he was in danger and so was his family. Grigori predicted that the Romanovs would be killed by the hand of government officials.
On December 29, 1916, many felt that they have had enough of Rasputin and his influence on the Czar. A group of figures, including the Czar’s cousin, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Prince Felix Yusupov, invited Rasputin to Yusupov’s palace for some wine and cakes laced with cyanide.
But cyanide was no match for Rasputin. When he became rather hazy, but did not die, he was shot multiple times, but still did not die until he was dropped into the freezing Neva River.
What makes his story even stranger, the legacy of Rasputin lived on and his prophecy became reality. 15 months later, his fear over the lives of the Russian monarchs became true when the whole imperial family was killed in a revolt.
His killers believed that his death would save the Russian Empire, but he had his way (even if he didn’t want the imperial family dead himself), even after death.
