The Life and Murder of Grigori Rasputin
The rise and fall of the mystic holy man
Born in 1869 in the remote Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, garnering the reputation of a thief, drunkard and general trouble maker, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin lived the life of a typical Russian peasant of the time. That changed when one day in his late twenties he decided to go on a 300 mile pilgrimage to a monastery, and returned a self entitled holy man, healer, and man of God. 19 years later, as one of the most powerful and most hated men in all of Russia, his bullet riddled dead body was pulled out of the Little Nevka river. Not long after, the Russian Empire would fall.
More than almost anyone else in modern history, Rasputin’s life is distorted with myth and rumour, making an accurate account almost impossible. Think of Grigori Rasputin and many people would think of something like the fictionalised character from Disney’s Anastasia: a figure of pure evil, and a master of the dark arts hell bent on the destruction of Russia and all those around him. Is this how history should consider him as well?
To understand Rasputin, it’s important to understand the world in which he lived. At his emergence, Russia was a country in which the 300+ year Romanov autocratic dynasty was hanging perilously by a thread. Riots, violent protests and assassinations of…
