The Provisional Government investigation into Rasputin, which was opened after the revolution of February 1917 and closed by the Bolshevik coup d’état in October of the same year, is recorded in “Materials of the Extraordinary Investigating Commission of Inquiry of the Provisional Government into the Decay of Autocracy,” published in Padenie tsarskogo rezhima [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime] (7 vols., Moscow, 1924–1927).
Nicholas II’s diary, and his correspondence to and from his wife and his mother, was seized and published after the revolution. His diary appeared as Journal intime, 1914–1918 (Paris, 1925) and as Dnevnik Nikolaya vtorogo in Krasny Archiv (vols. 20–22 and 27). His letters to Alexandra were published as The Letters of the Tsar to the Tsaritsa (New York, 1929) and hers to him as The Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar (London, 1923). His correspondence with the dowager empress was published as The Secret Letters of Tsar Nicholas (Edinburgh, 1938).
Of the early biographies of Rasputin, René Fülöp-Miller’s Rasputin: The Holy Devil (New York, 1928) is the most powerful. Alex de Jonge’s Life and Times of Gregorii Rasputin (New York, 1982) is the most thorough of more recent works. The Fall of the Russian Monarchy by Bernard Pares (New York, 1939) remains an excellent general history, benefiting from the author’s own experience of Russia. Two more recent books by W. Bruce Lincoln, In War’s Dark Shadow (New York, 1983) and Passage through Armageddon (New York, 1986), place Russia in fine context for the period from 1891 to Rasputin’s murder.
Sergei Witte’s Memoirs provide firsthand insight, sometimes farcical, often snide, but always compelling, into the unstable and dangerous world of Russian political life. Harrison E. Salisbury’s Black Night, White Snow (Garden City, N.Y., 1977) gives a graphic account of Russia’s descent into political and social chaos between 1905 and 1917. Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra (New York, 1967) remains the most compelling account of the Romanov tragedy.
The atmosphere in Petrograd in the fall of 1916, described in Chapter 1, in “Proshchaitye, Papa,” is drawn from accounts by eyewitnesses of differing perspectives. Most of these were published abroad. The Bolsheviks reintroduced censorship almost immediately after they seized power in the fall of 1918; it did not suit their purposes to permit the publication of non-Marxist interpretations of events, nor to allow that Rasputin had individual importance in the preliminaries to a revolution supposedly caused by the impersonal forces of materialism and class warfare. The only leading Communist to deal with the Rasputin phenomenon at any length was Leon Trotsky, whose vigorous History of the Russian Revolution (3 vols., London, 1932–33; reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1957) was itself banned by the Bolsheviks.
The description of refugees “blown away like gossamer” is by Zinaida Gippius, a tall, striking, red-haired poet and philosopher who kept a vivid diary over this period, published in Sinyaya kniga: Petersburgsky dnevnik 1914–1918 in Belgrade, 1929. With her husband, Dmitri Merezhkovsky, a critic and novelist, and their friend Dmitri Filosofov, she created a “mystic union.” They hoped for a religious revival, a “Third Revelation” that would reconcile the Russian intelligentsia with spiritual values. Insight into the writings of this intriguing and sensitive woman is provided by A Difficult Soul: Zinaida Gippius, edited by S. Karlinsky with an introduction by V. Zlobin (Berkeley, 1980). The observation that Rasputin had become “a dusk enveloping all our world” was made by the sister of one of his murderers, V. M. Purishkevich, whose own record of the times was published as Dnevnik in Riga in 1918.
The ballerina Tamara Karsavina, who found Rasputin’s eyes “the eyes of a maniac,” was one of the original members of Diaghilev’s company and created roles in ballets by Fokine and Nijinsky. She moved to London with her husband, a British diplomat, in 1918 and included her reminiscences of wartime Petrograd in her autobiography Theatre Street (New York, 1931). She became vice president of the Royal Academy of Dancing and died in 1978. Meriel Buchanan, who noted the irritations of society hostesses and the talk of “Dark Powers,” was at the time the eighteen-year-old daughter of the British ambassador; her fresh and youthful impressions of Petrograd were published as The City of Trouble (New York, 1918), and later in Dissolution of an Empire (London, 1932). Like Karsavina, Buchanan came across Rasputin by chance in the street and knew instantly who he must be. Tolstoy’s description of the “tormented” city is from W. Bruce Lincoln’s Passage through Armageddon (New York, 1986).
Mihkail Rodzianko, who was horrified to recognize Rasputin’s “worshipers from high society,” was the Duma chairman, a powerful man of three hundred pounds whose voice could “be heard for a kilometer” on a still day; he was a leading moderate during the revolution. He left Russia and died in Yugoslavia in 1924; his book Krushenie imperii was published posthumously in Leningrad in 1927 and Memoirs: The Reign of Rasputin appeared in London the same year. Boris Pasternak, later obliged to refuse a Nobel Prize for his novel Dr. Zhivago, was twenty-six at the time of Rasputin’s death; his account of revolutionary Russia was published as Safe Conduct in New York in 1958. Vasily Shulgin, a whiskered and patrician conservative who found people “dancing a ‘last tango,’ ” escaped to Belgrade after the revolution; he published his reminiscence, Dni, in 1925; he was arrested by the Red Army when Yugoslavia was liberated from the Germans in 1944, spent twelve years in Soviet prison camps, and was ninety-eight when he died in Russia in 1976.
Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, ashamed of his “puerile and reprehensible” conduct when he visited Petrograd, wrote his account in 1932 in Memoirs of a British Agent. Reports by Russian secret police agents are included in A. T. Vassilyev’s The Ochrana (Philadelphia, 1930), Alexander Spiridovich’s Raspoutine (Paris, 1935), and Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. The French ambassador who complained of Jews “wandering over the snows” was Maurice Paléologue in An Ambassador’s Memoirs (New York, 1924–25), the most vivid of diplomatic memoirs. Paléologue had an inquiring and lively mind and made a point of seeking out Rasputin. He found Stürmer “shallow and dishonest”; his colleague the American David Francis recorded his experiences in Russia from the American Embassy (New York, 1921). Shulgin found Stürmer “absolutely unprincipled,” while Rodzianko added, “a complete nullity.” Alexander Guchkov, the leader of the right-wing Octobrists, told Bernard Pares that Protopopov was thought queer in the head. Gen. Alexei Brusilov, a caustic commander who had driven the Austrians out of Galicia, ridiculed Grand Duke Paul and his fellow corps commander in Moi vospominaniya, published in Moscow in 1963 and quoted in W. Bruce Lincoln’s Passage through Armageddon. The observer who found the troops “just men who were going to die” was the remarkable Marina Yurlova, who masqueraded as a man to enlist and whose book Cossack Girl was published in London in 1934. The condition of the Russian army is covered in this author’s book Claws of the Bear (Boston, 1989).
Alexander Blok, another acute weathervane of Petrograd opinion, was a Symbolist poet and seducer who supported the Bolsheviks but died of exhaustion and venereal disease in 1921, his poems suppressed. His remarkable life is told in Avril Pyman’s Life of Aleksandr Blok (2 vols., New York, 1979). The letters from Robert Wilton, the Times correspondent in Petrograd, to the newspaper’s London office are from the archives of The Times.
The account of Rasputin’s farewell to his daughter is from Rasputin by Maria Rasputin and Patte Barham (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977). Some of the accounts that Maria Rasputin gives of her father, including this, clash with other evidence. The Moscow newspaper Russkoye Slovo, for which Alexander Yablonsky was an obituarist, suggested that Rasputin shared the peasant dream to “eat fat all day long” in its issue of December 21, 1916, while Petrograd’s Svoboda (no. 1, 1917) wrote of photographs and claimed that Rasputin had slept with “ladies of the ‘best’ aristocratic families.”
Background material on Siberia during Rasputin’s lifetime, used in Chapter 2, “Grischa,” is included in two excellent histories of Siberia, Benson Bobrick’s East of the Sun (New York, 1992) and W. Bruce Lincoln’s Conquest of a Continent (New York, 1994). Leon Trotsky wrote of his experiences in Siberian exile, and the midge problem, in My Life (New York, 1970). The investigation into Rasputin, including the evidence of village witnesses of his childhood, is recorded in “Materials of the Extraordinary Investigating Commission of Inquiry of the Provisional Government into the Decay of Autocracy.” The recollections of Anna Egorovna and Efim Aklovlevich Rasputin are recorded by their granddaughter Maria in her book Rasputin; the alleged pseudo-rape at the hands of Madame Kubasova and the Stepanova incident come from the same source.
Rasputin claimed to have been “dreaming about God since early childhood” in an interview published in the newspaper Novoye Vremya on February 18, 1912. The article was written by Ivan Manasevich-Manuilov, a journalist and bribe taker who became a significant member of the Rasputin clique after the outbreak of the First World War. Yablonsky’s references to “drinking and leading a depraved life” were published in Russkoye Slovo.
E. I. Kartavtsev gave his evidence on fence poles to the Commission of Inquiry. Pierre Gilliard’s reference to Rasputin wishing to “abandon his dark and dissolute life” is made in Thirteen Years at the Russian Court (New York, 1921).
Dostoyevsky’s great novel The Brothers Karamazov, quoted in Chapter 3, “Monastery Man,” affords considerable insight into the psychology of the starets, the career chosen by Rasputin, and his clients. Mikhail Rodzianko’s perceptive character sketch of Rasputin—“remarkable intelligence … in search of some unknown religious path”—is made in his book Krushenie imperii. Podshivalov gave his account of Rasputin as “a madman” to the Commission of Inquiry.
Of Rasputin’s time as a wanderer, the secret police chief Vassilyev aired his views on stranniky in The Ochrana. The monk Iliodor, to whom Rasputin described his feelings on the road and his “comfort in daily readings from the Gospel,” later attempted to have Rasputin murdered, was defrocked, and reverted to his original name, Sergei Trufanov. His book Rasputin: The Holy Devil was first published in Russian as Svyatoy chort in Moscow in 1917. Rasputin’s daughter Maria claims that her father found “nothing but dirt, vermin, and moral filth” at Mount Athos and describes the “absent look” with which he told of his adventures.
Villagers complained to the Commission of Inquiry that it was “impossible for a stranger” to take part in the meetings in the “chapel under the floor.” The claim of Rasputin urging his devotees to “test your flesh” was made in the first issue of Svoboda (Petrograd, 1917). Material on Russian sects was collected by Vassilyev, Paléologue, and Pares, and the chant of “I whip. I whip. I search for Christ” is recorded in Spiridovich’s Raspoutine.
Rasputin’s descriptions in Chapter 4, “Breakthrough,” of the Kiev catacombs—“the silence seems to breathe”—were recorded by Aron Simanovich in Rasputin i evrei, reprinted in Moscow in 1991 and translated by Igor Bogdanov for this book. Yablonsky’s account of Rasputin’s meeting with Bashmakova is given in Russkoye Slovo. Chavelski, who discovered of Rasputin that “you couldn’t not notice him,” gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry. The horror of the Kazan worthy—“I do know of a most respectable lady”—is recorded by Spiridovich. The description of provincial Russia’s “torpidity of peace” is from the novelist Ivan Goncharov, creator of the heroically idle character Oblomov. Lively insights into life in the provinces are also offered in Maxim Gorky’s Fragments from My Diary (1940; reprint, New York, 1972) and from a Western viewpoint, in Maurice Baring’s What I Saw in Russia (London, 1927). Bassett Digby’s portrait of trains as “stables on wheels” is quoted in an excellent and amusing traveler’s anthology, The Trans-Siberian Railway, edited by Deborah Manley (London, 1988), which includes details of first-class travel, Rasputin’s preferred method of transport.
The facilities of St. Petersburg, together with nostalgic and long-superseded details of restaurant and hotel prices described in Chapter 5, “Peter,” are included in Karl Baedeker’s Russia (Leipzig, 1914). The origins of the great city are covered in Robert K. Massie’s Peter the Great (New York, 1980). An excellent account of literary life in the city, and much else, is given in W. Bruce Lincoln’s In War’s Dark Shadow. Hugh Walpole’s The Dark Forest (New York, 1916) provides a Western impression of the city.
The description of Rasputin on his arrival in St. Petersburg is from Iliodor. Fyodor Chaliapin’s Autobiography (London, 1968) records the singer’s impressions of the city. Valery Bryusov was a leader of the Russian Symbolist movement, influenced by the Europeans Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Maeterlinck, whom he translated. He became a Bolshevik after the revolution. Count Alexis Tolstoy was to join the Whites against the Reds in the civil war but returned to Soviet Russia in 1923 after a period as an émigré in Paris, a dangerous move but one that he survived. Siberian exiles—leaving “not only home and country, but life itself”—are the subject of George Kennan’s influential Siberia and the Exile System (2 vols., New York, 1891), which did much to turn Western opinion against the autocracy.
Rasputin’s relations with churchmen are covered in Voprosy Istorii [Leningrad], no. 2 (1965) and his introduction to Feofan in Spiridovich and Pares. Maria wrote that Ioann of Kronstadt found “the divine spark” in her father. Iliodor described his meeting with Rasputin and Hermogen. Vassilyev mentions his being apolitical in The Ochrana. Kazakova and the Berlandskaya and Manchtet letters were subjects of the Commission of Inquiry. The observation that Berlandskaya was typical of “nervous women with wretched souls” is made in Voprosy Istorii, no. 10 (1964). Sergei Witte excoriates the Montenegrin sisters and their father—“cupidity and lack of scruples”—in his Memoirs. Simanovich describes their tea parties with Rasputin in Rasputin i evrei.
Alexandra’s childhood, described in Chapter 6, “Blood Royal,” is covered in great detail in Greg King’s The Last Empress (Secaucus, N.J., 1994). Nicholas’s diaries were published as Dvevnik imperatora Nikolaya II (Berlin, 1923) and in Nikolaya II materialy dlya kharakteristiki lichnosti i tsarstvovaniya (Moscow, 1917). The autocratic system Alexandra so ferociously upheld is described in many books, of which Russia under the Old Regime (New York, 1974) by Richard Pipes is an outstanding example. Social life in Russia is splendidly captured in Henri Troyat’s highly readable La Vie quotidienne en Russie au temps du dernier tsar (Paris, 1959). The pleasure that Alexandra was leaving Hesse—“how lucky we are”—was recorded by Witte. Sandro, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, to whom Nicholas admitted that “I know nothing of this business of ruling,” wrote his memoirs, Vospominaniya (3 vols., Paris, 1932). Rasputin made his remark that Nicholas had “no insides” to Simanovich.
Prince Sergei Volkonsky, who thought of Alexandra that “sociability was not in her nature,” wrote My Reminiscences (London, 1945). The experiences of Dr. Eugene Botkin, the personal physician to whom Nicholas criticized his ancestor Peter the Great for “too much admiration for European culture,” were recorded by his son Gleb Botkin in The Real Romanovs (New York, 1931). Constantine Pobedonostsev, who held Alexandra responsible for the tsar hurling a “threat at the head of the entire nation,” expressed his anger to Sergei Witte. General Spiridovich examines the relations between the Montenegrin sisters and Dr. Philippe in Raspoutine. Philippe’s career is related by P. Encausee in Le Maître Philippe de Lyon (Paris, 1955). Sergei Witte recorded the machinations to replace the unfortunate General Rachovsky in Paris. Prince Elston Yusupov’s bizarre encounter with the sisters and the “doctor” in the Crimea was recorded by his son Felix in Lost Splendor (New York, 1953).
An account of the doomed naval expedition in Chapter 7, “A Man of God from Tobolsk,” is given by Donald W. Mitchell in A History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power (New York, 1974). The reference that God “required some mission” of Rasputin is made by his daughter, who also recorded that her mother thought he had had another vision. Witte recorded the start of Bloody Sunday, while Maxim Gorky includes his experiences of events in Untimely Thoughts (New York, 1968). Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich’s observations of Rasputin’s appearance in St. Petersburg society and the “phosphorescent light” that sparkled in his eyes appear in Voprosy Istorii [Leningrad], no. 10 (1964). Bonch-Bruevich was an expert on sectarians who in 1899 went with members of the Dukhobor sect to Canada to study their life and belief at first hand. An early Bolshevik, he wrote for Pravda from 1912 on and was arrested several times before the revolution. He was the Bolshevik commander in the Smolny district of Petrograd during Red October in 1917 and, with his wife, was a significant figure in early Soviet farm and health policies. Alexandra’s anger at the weight of “my poor Nicky’s cross” is recorded by Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden in The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Fedorovna (London, 1928).
The diary of A. A. Polovtsev, who found the imperial couple to “constantly vacillate, now doing one thing, then another,” is included in issues of Krasny Archiv [Moscow], vols. 3–4 (1924–25). Sergei Mintslov’s diary—“Peter is now cut off from the rest of Russia”—is quoted in W. Bruce Lincoln’s In War’s Dark Shadow, which includes a striking account of 1905. Witte’s Memoirs give a devastating if perhaps one-sided picture of Nicholas and Alexandra during the crisis. Rasputin’s family idyll in Siberia in the fall of 1905 is described by his daughter. Marc Chagall recollected the traumas of the pogroms—“I feel panicky … my legs weak”—in My Life (New York, 1960). The artist, whose whirling, dreamy paintings with their references to Russian folklore are said to have led Apollinaire to coin the word Surrealist, left Russia after the revolution to settle in France. The British ambassador so concerned over the tsar’s lack of activity, Sir George Buchanan, wrote My Mission to Russia (Boston, 1923). Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich’s conviction that the tsar’s concessions were “torn from him by force” is included in Krasny Archiv, no. 40 (1931) and is quoted by Lincoln. Spiridovich details the interest of the palace security service in Raspoutine: the code name Blue Shirt was later changed by Okhrana agents to the Dark One. The account of Madame O’s experiences with Rasputin is from Spiridovich, who, writing while several of Rasputin’s acquaintances were still alive, granted some of them anonymity.
Anna Taneeva, the central figure in Rasputin’s dealings with the imperial couple, who is introduced in Chapter 8, “The Heir,” wrote her Memories of the Russian Court (New York, 1923) under her married name, Anna Vyrubova. She also appeared as a witness for the Commission of Inquiry. Both Spiridovich and Witte deal with her marriage to her naval lieutenant; apart from her own reminiscence, Vyrubova was examined by a doctor on the orders of the Commission of Inquiry in 1917 and found to be a virgin. The journalist G. P. Sazonov, whose servants found that Rasputin “didn’t sleep at night but prayed,” gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry. The affectations of tryntrava, “the inconsequence of consequence,” are well dealt with in Lincoln’s In War’s Dark Shadow. The French ambassador to whom a lady admitted that Rasputin “disgusts me physically.… I admit he amused me” is Maurice Paléologue. Spiridovich noted that Rasputin attended church only when it was essential.
Gilliard’s accounts of Alexis’s hemophilia—“how I realized the secret tragedy …”—are included in his Thirteen Years at the Russian Court. Bernard Pares describes Alexandra’s lack of sociability; he said that she gave guests the impression that she was always thinking, “When are you going to get out of my house?” Young Alexis’s taste for protocol was recorded by Gleb Botkin in The Real Romanovs. The invitation to the tsar’s sister to meet Rasputin—“Will you come to meet a Russian peasant?”—and its aftermath are recorded in The Last Grand-Duchess: Her Imperial Highness Duchess Olga Alexandrovna by Ian Vorres (New York, 1964). V. A. Teliakovsky’s conversation with Korovine—“Who is this Rasputin?”—is recollected in his memoirs, Vospominaniya (Paris, 1924).
Spiridovich noted Rasputin to be “full of self-confidence” on his return to St. Petersburg in Chapter 9, “The Go-between.” Simanovich discusses Rasputin’s lack of financial acumen in Rasputin i evrei. The characterization of Vyrubova’s childish mind is made by the tutor Pierre Gilliard; she herself described her relations with the imperial couple to the Commission of Inquiry. The entries in the Kammerfurier are noted in Voprosy Istorii, no. 10 (1964). A. A. Mosolov’s At the Court of the Last Tsar (London, 1935) includes details of protocol. Madame Bogdanova is cited in Alex de Jonge’s The Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin (New York, 1982). Maria Rasputin and Simanovich provide similar evidence of Rasputin’s family relationships. Prince Dzhevakov related his experiences with Rasputin to Spiridovich and in his memoirs, Vospominaniya (2 vols., Munich, 1923). The description of Rasputin’s eating habits—“big pieces he tore like an animal”—is by Simanovich and accords only too well with other accounts. Spiridovich notes that Rasputin represented to Nicholas “his people of whom he is ignorant.” Olga’s discovery of “kindness, magnanimity, and an unbreakable faith in God” is from her Memoirs. Sablin gave his recollection of shipboard conversations with the empress to the Commission of Inquiry.
Berlandskaya’s seduction on the Trans-Siberian, recounted in Chapter 10, “Testing the Flesh,” is quoted in Alex de Jonge’s Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin. Lili von Dehn, who found Rasputin “a typical peasant from the frozen North,” wrote The Real Tsaritsa (London, 1922) and gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry. Olga’s astonishment at her nephew’s recovery—“I just could not believe my eyes”—is recorded in her Memoirs. The accounts given by Vyrubova and Spiridovich of the former’s trip to Siberia differ in almost every respect other than that the visit took place.
The text of the report filed by Robert Wilton on his visit to see Iliodor is from The Times’s archives. Rasputin’s boastful account of his interview with Nicholas, “You are the tsar … act like one,” is from Iliodor. Rasputin was certainly as blunt as this to others, but other evidence suggests that he was normally deferential if also familiar with Nicholas. The fact that Father Pyotr risked Rasputin’s rage by telling Iliodor that the starets was “nothing but a drunk and a troublemaker” suggests that it was already clear to an outsider that relations between Rasputin and the monk were deteriorating. This is confirmed by Iliodor’s account of his interview with the novice Xenia.
Dmitri Merezhkovsky, who described “murders and adultery, blood and mud” as the hallmarks of the Romanovs in Chapter 11, “Friends and Enemies,” was married to Zinaida Gippius. Andrei Bely was the pseudonym of Boris Bugayev, the leading Russian Symbolist, whose novel The Silver Dove was followed in 1913 by his masterpiece, Petersburg, which revolves around a bomb disguised as a can of sardines. The disillusioned Feofan gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry, as did Tyutcheva, who gave testimony of her audience with the tsar and her subsequent dismissal. Yusupov wrote of his early acquaintance with Rasputin in Lost Splendor. The devotion of Akulina to Rasputin is recorded in Fülöp-Miller. Witte and Simanovich, among others, describe the odious Prince Andronnikov—the description of his flattering letters of introduction was given to his fellow fixer, Simanovich—who himself, with the prince’s valet Kilter, gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry.
The incident of the Tansin photographs and the droshky ride to Tsarskoye Selo is from Maria Rasputin. General Kurlov, who thought Rasputin a “downright maniac,” was examined by the Commission of Inquiry. Rasputin’s alleged attempt to hypnotize Stolypin was related by the latter to Rodzianko. Mandryka’s mission to Tsaritsyn and its sequel are covered by de Jonge in The Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin.
Anna Vyrubova gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry that Rasputin’s volume on his visit to the Holy Land, described in Chapter 12, “Pilgrim,” was dictated, and printed by the publisher Filippov, but she did not say who prepared the draft. The claims of the vision in the Garden of Gethsemane are made by Maria Rasputin. Robert Wilton’s account of Iliodor in Tsaritsyn is from the archives of The Times. The strange affair of Rasputin and Sazonov’s approach to Witte is included in the former prime minister’s Memoirs. Rasputin’s dealings with the eccentric Bishop Varnava were investigated by the Commission of Inquiry and are detailed in Voprosy Istorii, no. 2 (1965). Vyrubova claimed that Rasputin foresaw the murder of Stolypin, in which Bogrov’s sinister role is examined by Bernard Pares. Rasputin’s host in Kiev relates entertaining him there in Shulgin’s Dni (Days). Vladimir Kokovtsov, appointed to follow Stolypin in such bizarre circumstances, and accorded such an acid audience by the empress, recorded his experiences in Mémoires (2 vols., Paris, 1933) with an English edition, Out of My Past (London, 1935).
Bishop Hermogen gave the interview cited in Chapter 13, “Scandal,” to the newspaper Russkoye Slovo after Rasputin’s murder. Iliodor included his account of the beating in The Mad Monk of Russia (New York, 1918). Rodzianko noted the fancy prices paid for copies of Novosyolov’s attack, printed in Moscow as Grigorii Rasputin i misticheskoe rasputstvo. Kokovtsov described the political fallout and his cold reception by the tsar. The letters from the empress and her daughters to Rasputin were widely distributed in pamphlet form and are included in the context of the Commission of Inquiry in Voprosy Istorii, no. 10 (1964). Laptinskaya gave evidence to the inquiry. Rodzianko detailed the reaction to the scandal. Rasputin’s version of his rift with Iliodor, as recounted by his daughter Maria, is no more (or less) reliable than that given by Iliodor.
The baleful glare Rasputin fixed on Kokovtsov in Chapter 14, “Miracle at Spala,” which the prime minister recalled in Out of My Past, is almost identical to what Stolypin described to Rodzianko. It is striking that two premiers should have felt Rasputin was attempting to hypnotize them; lesser politicians did not make such claims. Rodzianko, who describes his interview with the tsar in Krushenie imperii, was no admirer of the tsar but was nonetheless as loyal as circumstances permitted and an acute observer. Guchkov’s stinging attack on Rasputin was the more powerful for being delivered by an instinctive conservative. Dumbadze’s rough treatment of Rasputin in Yalta is in Bernard Pares. The traumatic events at Spala were recounted by Vyrubova and Gilliard.
General Mosolov also includes a description in At the Court of the Last Tsar. He was present with the physician Eugene Botkin, the surgeon Professor Fedorov, and the pediatrician Rauchfuss. Since it was Mosolov’s duty to prepare medical bulletins, he was kept informed of the crisis as it worsened. Fedorov told him the tsarevich was at the point of death without the other two medical men being present. “In my opinion, more energetic measures should be taken,” Fedorov said. “Regrettably, they are rather dangerous. However, were I the only one to be treating him, I’d use them.” Mosolov agrees that the bleeding stopped soon after receipt of the telegram from Rasputin. When he asked Fedorov whether he had used the dangerous treatment he had spoken of, the professor waved his hand and said, “If I used it, I wouldn’t confess to it under the present circumstances!”
Rasputin’s sudden alarm while walking on the riverbank in Pokrovskoye—“It is the tsarevich … he has been stricken”—was claimed by his daughter. The effect of his telegrams on the empress is stated by Vyrubova and by Mosolov. “Thanks to the mystical nature of the empress,” the latter commented, “she was forced to believe in anything Rasputin said to her. The sly muzhik told her that the life of Alexei Nickolayevich and the existence of the house of the Romanovs—and the wealth of all Russia—depended on his prayers: after his death everything will go to wrack and ruin. This was told me by the lower staff in the service of the empress. I do not think that the tsar believed in it, but I admit that [after Spala] a kind of superstitious fear crept into his soul as well.”
In Chapter 15, “Before the Storm,” Rodzianko described Rasputin’s behavior in the cathedral—surely calculated to enrage him—and Meriel Buchanan noticed the empress’s nervousness during the tercentenary celebrations, while Kokovtsov noted the indifference that accompanied the imperial couple on their progress on the Volga. Simanovich described Rasputin’s behavior in the Villa Rhode; his sympathetic account of Rasputin’s virtues—here the absence of warmongering—is confirmed by Rasputin’s press interview. Anna Akhmatova, the pseudonym of Anna Gorenko, was a fine poet, the wife of a naval officer later shot by the Bolsheviks, whose collections of lyrical poems include Evening, Beads, and White Flock. Count Paul Benckendorff, who remarked that the tsar “neither wanted nor expected” his new premier to do anything, reminisced in Last Days at Tsarskoye Selo (London, 1927).
Dostoyevksy’s Idiot describes Rasputin’s street in 1868, the year the novel was published; his Crime and Punishment, published two years earlier, magnificently evokes a city that still retained echoes when Rasputin became a resident. Rasputin’s “erotic exercises” with Laptinskaya, noted by secret police agents, appear in a long archive of Okhrana material, “Rasputin in the Eyes of the Okhrana,” published in Krasny Archiv, no. 24 (1924). The experiences of the provincial lady Zhukovskaya are recounted by Fülöp-Miller.
The official account of the murder attempt in Chapter 16, “ ‘I’ve Killed the Antichrist!’ ” which is used here, is from Omskaya pravda (November 13, 1990). It corresponds in most details with that given by Maria Rasputin but makes no reference to Davidsohn. The journalist’s own account, however, makes it clear that he was present in Pokrovskoye. The account of how the news was treated aboard the Standart—“people whispered no end”—is from Gilliard. Maurice Paléologue was present at the major celebrations of the Poincaré visit.
The outbreak of the First World War, the climactic event and nemesis of the thrones of Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, is related in The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (New York, 1962). Serge Sazonov wrote an account of Russian involvement in Fateful Years, 1909–16 (New York, 1928). Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914 (New York, 1972) gives wonderful insights into Russia’s first days of war in novel form. The war minister, Vladimir Sukhomlinov—“I know few men who inspire more distrust at first sight”—survived the war, despite being charged with treason; even more remarkable, he survived the revolution and the Bolsheviks, and fled to Berlin to write his Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1924). The catastrophic Russian advance into East Prussia is the subject of Tannenberg by Sir Edmund Ironside (Edinburgh, 1925).
Mosolov gives his account of Rasputin’s intervention at the bedside of Vyrubova, in Chapter 17, “Party Time in Moscow,” in his At the Court of the Last Tsar. The secret police agents who guarded and observed Rasputin are a reliable source for his day-to-day movements. Their reports are included in “Rasputin in the Eyes of the Okhrana,” published in Krasny Archiv, no. 24 (1924). Elena Djanumova’s reminiscences of Rasputin are published in “My Encounters with Grigory Rasputin” in supplements to Ogonyok, nos. 47–49 (November 1992), translated for this book by Dr. Igor Bogdanov. Robert Bruce Lockhart’s description of events at the Yar—“wild shrieks of a woman …”—are included in his Memoirs of a British Agent.
With the Russian Army by Maj. Gen. Sir Alfred Knox (2 vols., London, 1921) gives a vivid picture of Russia’s war effort. Knox was a British observer and spent much time at the front. Pares also writes powerfully of the unfolding tragedy, as does W. Bruce Lincoln in Passage through Armageddon. The memoirs of Gen. V. T. Gurko, War and Revolution in Russia, 1914–17 (New York, 1919), give a Russian perspective; Field Marshal Erich von Ludendorff’s Meine Kriegserinnerungen (Berlin, 1919) does the same from a German viewpoint.
Both Simanovich and Maria Rasputin mention Pkhakadze’s threat to the starets, described in Chapter 18, “Vengeance.” General Brusilov notes his experiences in A Soldier’s Notebook (London, 1930). The details of Rasputin’s daily life in Petrograd—“he pestered the caretaker’s wife”—were recorded by Okhrana agents. They also followed him to Siberia. Vassilyev gives his account of the Sukhomlinov affair—“it’s raining in Carlsbad”—in The Ochrana. Rasputin’s relations with Varnava were investigated by the Commission of Inquiry. The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky—“You can’t/Simply cannot/Bury him alive”—had set out to shock; when he was eighteen years old, in 1912, his work was included in a miscellany called A Slap in the Face of Public Taste. His passion for Bolshevism gave way to disillusion, and he shot himself in 1930.
Vassilyev’s account of Rasputin’s confession of immorality and its excuse—“Who is innocent before God is also innocent before the tsar”—is interesting, since the secret police chief was sympathetic to Rasputin and ridiculed the idea that the starets had khlyst leanings. The war minister General Polivanov—“the army is no longer retreating—it is simply running away”—wrote his recollections in Memuary (Moscow, 1924). The diary of Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich—“It was not my dear boy who did this!”—is published as Dnevnik (Leningrad, 1925). Robert Wilton’s private letter—“the loathsome Rasputin”—is from the archives of The Times.
The extraordinary saga of the beatification of Ioann Maximovich in Chapter 19, “ ‘God Opens Everything to Him,’ ” was a subject of the Commission of Inquiry. It is detailed at length in Voprosy Istorii, no. 2 (1965) as “The Impact of Irresponsible Forces upon Questions of Church Governance.” Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich details the public reaction in Dnevnik. Rasputin’s own state of mind—“Sometimes there’s peace in my heart for a couple of hours”—is recorded by Okhrana agents, as is the row with his father. Prewar Mogilev is described in Karl Baedeker’s Russia. Brusilov’s anger at Alexandra and Rasputin—“no better than criminals”—is recorded in A Soldier’s Notebook. Elena Djanumova’s fascinating descriptions of Rasputin are from Ogonyok.
The ensign’s wife in Chapter 20, “The Idealists”—“Undress and go in here”—reported her conversation with Rasputin to the Okhrana agents. Vassilyev’s The Ochrana contains much information on the training of the agents who shadowed Rasputin, including both External and Internal agencies. The Okhrana was of natural interest to the Bolsheviks, who imitated it while infinitely extending its repressive powers in their own Cheka secret police. Vassilyev’s Okhrana documents were published in Petrograd in 1918 in V. K. Agafonov’s Zagranichnaya okhranka. Wilton’s description of the fighting west of Riga—“more terrible than anything we knew or even suspected”—was sent by letter to avoid the censors and is from The Times’s archives. Norman Stone’s The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 (New York, 1975) gives a strong account of the crisis in supply and its eventual resolution.
The description of Manasevich-Manuilov—“stool pigeon, spy, sharper, swindler”—is by Maurice Paléologue, as is that of Rasputin’s “piercing and caressing” gaze. Pares notes that Manuilov, “one of those parasites who moved about with confident dexterity on the fringes of the Press and the secret police,” realized that “Rasputin was the one sure source of favor and ingratiated himself with him.” The description of Rasputin’s liberalism—“Life stops in the villages … noblemen have too much”—is from Simanovich. Although Simanovich had an interest in portraying his friend in a kindly light, there is strong evidence from other sources—notably comments by Okhrana agents on his treatment of petitioners—to show Rasputin’s humanitarian streak. The tsar’s dislike of Jews is from Witte.
The sources for Chapter 21, “Two Weeks in the Life of Grigory Efimovich,” are Elena Djanumova and the Okhrana archive. The records of the secret police agents confirm Djanumova’s visit with Filippova. Where possible the agents noted the age and social rank of Rasputin’s visitors, here “wife of a hereditary honorable citizen,” a rank below nobility. It is clear that they had informants within the apartment, most probably a maid, as well as the block’s concierge and gatekeeper. Rasputin’s dramatic intervention at Tsarskoye Selo is confirmed by Gilliard, no admirer, as well as Vyrubova. Galina Filippova, “Lyolya,” told Djanumova of her experience with Rasputin—“a moment of love”—after her return to Moscow. The threatening incident in the Villa Rhode is recalled by Simanovich; the Okhrana agents in Petrograd did not accompany Rasputin to parties or into nightclubs, but they often kept watch outside.
The reference to diminishing powers in Chapter 22, “ ‘They Are Certainly Going to Kill Me, My Dear’ ”—“The Lord has taken my power from me”—is made by Maria Rasputin. From a Western viewpoint, Pares found Stürmer “a shallow and dishonest figure, without even the merits of courage.” Ignatev was so angry about Stürmer’s secret fund—“What’s this?”—that Pares reports he told the tsar, “Such scandals were not to be tolerated in Russia.” Pares records reports of Rasputin’s heady sense of power—“I begat Pitirim and Pitirim begat Stürmer”—and the bizarre affair of the poisoned cat. Shavelsky, the chaplain who complained of “Rasputin’s closeness to the tsar’s family,” gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry. Vera Zhukovskaya’s accounts are included in Fülöp-Miller. General Knox’s observations on Polivanov and the supply situation are included in his With the Russian Army. Blok’s comments are in Avril Pyman’s Life. The hostile incident between Rasputin and Sazonov over Madame Lippert is recorded by Simanovich. It appears from Djanumova’s account of the incident at the Strelna that Moscow Okhrana agents, unlike their Petrograd colleagues, made sure that they remained in sight of Rasputin during his nightclub outings. The synod clerk Blagoveshchensky’s accounts of his neighbor’s goings-on are from Krasny Archiv, no. 5 (1924).
Rodzianko recalls his abortive visit to the tsar recounted in Chapter 23, “ ‘For Their Sakes, Go.’ ” Lili von Dehn records her impressions at this period in The Real Tsaritsa. Simanovich records the Rubinstein affair. The potential for harming the empress was clearly enormous; transferring funds to Germany in wartime was a treasonable offense. There are no references to this from other sources, and the Commission of Inquiry had no wind of it. Simanovich’s relations with the empress have an element of boasting about them; he was close enough to Rubinstein to have known details of transactions, although there is no proof that any took place. The anti-German hysteria is recorded, and dismissed, by Vassilyev. Paléologue found Protopopov like an “excitable seal.” Gen. P. G. Kurlov includes a sympathetic picture of Badmaev in The Fall of Imperial Russia (Berlin, 1923; reprint, Moscow, 1992). Protopopov gave evidence of his relations with Rasputin to the Commission of Inquiry. The outraged Pavel Miliukov—“a man who works with Stürmer”—wrote his memoirs, Vospominaniya, 1859–1917 (2 vols., New York, 1955).
The atmosphere in Chapter 24, “A Tragedy Played in a Brothel,” is powerfully invoked in Harrison E. Salisbury’s Black Night, White Snow. Konstantin Paustovsky, who was sent to discover what provincial Russia was thinking, wrote The Story of a Life (New York, 1964), and Ivan Bunin is the author of Memories and Portraits (Garden City, N.Y., 1951). Pares credits Purishkevich with coining the phrase “ministerial leapfrog.” The journalist N. A. Teffi, who describes “the most talked about man in Russia,” wrote her memoirs, Vospominaniya (Paris, 1932), and is quoted by Alex de Jonge. The Okhrana political reports—“the industrial proletariat … is on the verge of despair”—were remarkably accurate. The censors kept such pessimism out of the press (including the foreign press, as Wilton of The Times frequently complained), but Nicholas received regular for-his-eyes-only reports of intelligence data, so there was no excuse for the blindness of the rulers. Protopopov, who complained that the throne “became the prisoner of stupid influences and stupid forces,” of which he himself was a leading example, gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry.
Details of Felix Yusupov’s family, early life, and meetings with Rasputin in Chapter 25, “ ‘Vanya Has Arrived,’ ” are included in Lost Splendor. The account of the hypnosis attempt is similar to those of Stolypin and Kokovtsov. Purishkevich is an intriguing figure in his own right; Pares thought he had “a sparkling intelligence and a fearless spirit.” Shulgin recollects his meeting with him—“Remember December sixteenth”—in Dni. Simanovich’s claim to have had early warning of a murder attempt is confirmed by Okhrana reports of an atmosphere in which assassinations were expected. Although Simanovich says that he deposited several thousand rubles in Maria Rasputin’s name, she denied receiving any significant sums after her father’s murder.
The policemen who were first aware of a disturbance at the Yusupov palace on the night of the murder, in Chapter 26, “The Dead Dog,” made full statements. These were passed to Vassilyev, who details them in The Ochrana. An outline was soon obtained by reporters from Novoye Vremya, but Vassilyev had access to the original depositions. The interview with Maria Rasputin—“soon after I went to bed”—suggests that her account of watching her father leave the apartment is incorrect. Yusupov’s attempt to create an alibi—Rasputin’s telephone call “insisting that I go with him to the Gypsies”—is noted in Vassilyev. The excuse that Purishkevich was “very drunk” is feeble; he was known not to drink.
The versions given by Yusupov and Purishkevich of the actual killing of Rasputin and their part in it in Chapter 27, “Confessional,” correspond broadly with each other and with the autopsy. They do not, however, mention the presence of women in the palace. Constable Yefimov’s description of a cry “as if uttered by a woman” appears in his deposition as recorded verbatim by Vassilyev. Wilton’s unpublished notes on the affair, which he wrote up the day after the murder, were mailed to Wickham Steed, foreign editor of The Times, on December 20, 1916 (Wilton typed the Western calendar date January 2, 1917, on his letter). They are from The Times’s archives. General Kurlov’s account of the willingness of the conspirators to protect those involved is from The Fall of Imperial Russia.
Simanovich claims that the coffin described in Chapter 28, “Finis,” had a glass panel, through which the embalmed face of the dead Rasputin could be seen. He says that an officer named Belyaev discovered that an icon signed by members of the imperial family was buried with the body. Belyaev knew that this would have great value for collectors and exhumed the body and stole it after the revolution. Simanovich also claims that the empress intended to turn Rasputin’s apartment into a chapel-museum and gave him twelve thousand rubles to find a new apartment for Rasputin’s daughters. He rented one at 13 Kolomenskaya Street from a Pole. It was well furnished and cost him twenty-five thousand rubles; when Vyrubova discovered that he had added thirteen thousand rubles of his own to Alexandra’s money, she repaid him. But the girls were not happy at their new address and returned to Gorokhovaya ulitsa.