Rasputin: The Man, The Myth, The Actual Evidence
Fact versus fiction on the 107th anniversary of his murder
Everyone knows the story of Rasputin and how he just wouldn't die...or at least, they think they do. Legend has it that Grigori Rasputin was poisoned, stabbed, beaten, and shot before finally drowning. The story is told as evidence of Rasputin's purported supernatural abilities, amid discussion of the origin of said "abilities," which some consider holy, while others say they were demonic.
It's hard to think of a more polarizing and controversial figure in all of history than Rasputin. I have heard him called a literal demon, and I have heard calls for his canonization. Both his detractors and his admirers could not be more earnest.
I've seen his wax figure in the cellar of the Yussopov palace on the Mokia, waiting for gawking tourists.
I've seen his reflection painted on the ceiling of a themed restaurant in Siberia, his spirit about to emerge to attack the Imperial family like something out of the animated film Anastasia.
I've been to his former residence in Saint Petersburg, where an artist lives and works, painting Rasputin’s visage into icons beside Tsarevich Alexei.
And I've sat in a chair in his hometown, purported to have been his, which is said to bring success and good fortune to those who sit in it. (And I signed with a literary agent just six months later, I might add.)
During his life, he was similarly enigmatic.
To the Empress, he was a trusted spiritual advisor. But to others, he was a conniving meddler with the power to destroy Russia itself.
Rasputin is a household name throughout the world, but few people have looked past the Hollywood villain to examine the origin of this character who was built by the media on a foundation of rumor and propaganda.
The story of Rasputin is, at its core, a story about how we interact with stories, a story about how the narrative of history is formed.
The facts about Rasputin are much less interesting than the prevailing narrative, which is largely fiction. That fiction was first written by the Petersburg rumor mill, embellished and popularized by revolutionary propaganda, and then gobbled up and regurgitated by Hollywood.
When the actual primary sources are examined, there isn't much evidence of anything extraordinary. Of course, there were rumors at the time. Petersburg high society was very much against the Empress, whom they saw as reclusive and holier than thou. They were unaware of the struggle going on behind closed doors, of the heir's hemophilia - and they were rather put out that a peasant had access to the Imperial family that alluded even most aristocrats.
In reality, Rasputin was more of a faith healer than a political advisor. While some speculate about the power of prayer versus the power of coincidence versus something more nefarious, it seems that Rasputin’s visits did correspond with improvements in the hemophiliac Tsarevich’s condition. Personally, I think there was a bit of old fashioned peasant wisdom at work on a few occasions, especially Rasputin’s advice for the doctors not to bother the boy too much may have allowed his bleeding to stop naturally.
Unable to understand the presence of this strannik (a wandering pilgrim who does not hold an official position in the Orthodox Church...NOT a monk, no matter what anyone tells you, Rasputin was no “mad monk”) near the Empress and her children, people invented reasons. There is no evidence of any affair between Rasputin and the Empress. There is also no evidence that he controlled the government or that the Tsar followed his advice when it came to policy. Quite the opposite - Rasputin advised against entering WWI, concerned that the consequences would be grave for Russia.
But the rumors persisted, including rumors of immoral conduct with his female followers.
They led to a failed attempt on his life, when a follower of one of his rivals stabbed him with a knife and nearly killed him.
Thirty-three-year-old Khioniya Guseva had been a follower of lapsed hieromonk Iliodor, one of Rasputin’s biggest detractors. Though she always denied it, claiming that her collapsed nose was a result of damage from medication, it is likely that she suffered from congenital syphilis, which can also cause neurological symptoms.
In 1914, she traveled to Rasputin’s hometown of Pokrovskoye, where she ambushed him and stabbed him with a knife in the abdomen. Rasputin ran from his assailant, as she screamed “I have killed the Antichrist.” He was eventually able to subdue her by beating her in the face with a shaft, but he was left with severe wounds that left him fighting for his life. But, after nearly two months, Rasputin made a full recovery.
Iliodor fled the country to evade questioning and people still speculate that he may have known of Guseva’s plans.
As for Guseva, she turned herself in to the local constable in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to an asylum in Tomsk until 1917, when Alexander Kerensky, leader of the Provisional Government, ordered her release. The last we know of her whereabouts was in 1919 in Moscow, when she attempted to assassinate Patriarch Tikhon.
But the persistent rumors about Rasputin had legs. They reached Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the sister of the Empress, all the way in her convent in Moscow. And they led her to believe that murder would be a patriotic act on the part of her nephew, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, who plotted with Prince Felix Yusupov and Vladimir Purishkevich to assassinate Rasputin by luring him to the Yusupov Palace on the Moika River, where they planned to murder him in the basement.
Stories abound about that night, not least of which is Felix’s own account of the events, which is probably the most well-known version of what (may) have happened in St. Petersburg on the night of 30 December (16 December, Old Style) 1916. According to Prince Yusupov, Rasputin was fed cakes and tea that had been laced with cyanide in the basement of the palace. When the poison seemed not to have any effect, the conspirators gave Rasputin wine, also poisoned. At that point, Yusupov shot Rasputin in the chest and left him for dead. Dmitri and Yusupov took Rasputin’s coat and dressed themselves as their victim to make it look like Rasputin had left the place alive. Later, when Yusupov returned to the basement to make sure Rasputin was dead, his victim roared to life and dove at him before chasing Yusupov out into the courtyard. He was shot again in the courtyard by Purishkevich before being thrown into the little Nevka river.
For the last 107 years since Rasputin’s assassination, people have wondered how a man could possibly survive poisoning and gunshots only to drown.
However, there isn't any mysterious aspect of the murder of Rasputin. Not really. There's just a lot of false information and a fair bit of failure to understand what it means for a wound to be "mortal" or "fatal."
Let's get the poisoning part of the story out of the way first. The answer to how Rasputin survived being poisoned is very simple – he wasn't poisoned. The most likely explanation is that the conspirator who was supposed to place the cyanide in Rasputin's food and drink decided not to do so, without telling the murderers that he'd had a change of heart.
Now we get to the gunshot wounds, of which there were three, any one of which would be enough to kill a man, at least eventually. The first two shots, to his abdomen (shot 1) and to his back (shot 2), would have indeed been enough to kill him. However, they are the kind of wounds that aren't immediately disabling, meaning that there was a time when Rasputin could (and did) fight back. The third and final shot, to the middle of his forehead at point-blank range, killed him instantly, but he was already dying.
In modern-day classes on self-defense with firearms, these two types of wounds are referred to as "timers" and "switches." A switch is a wound that neutralizes a threat immediately, while a timer is a wound that, while it may be serious or ultimately fatal, allows the wounded individual to continue to fight. Rasputin was the recipient of two timers and a switch, along with other wounds (not from gunshots).
The autopsy results are very clear – the lack of water in Rasputin's lungs indicates that he was already dead when he hit the water, meaning he didn't drown. Instead, he'd already been "finished off" by the shot to the head, done at such close range that the front sights of the revolver left a mark in the middle of his forehead.
For more information about the forensic evidence in the case of Grigori Rasputin, I highly recommend the book Killing Rasputin by Margarita Nelipa, which contains not only Rasputin’s autopsy photos but other primary sources that are published there for the first time ever in the English language.
Of course, none of the facts of the case have proven nearly as interesting to the media and to the general public as the idea that Grigori Rasputin possessed some sort of supernatural ability to evade death. But that sort of thing belongs in the realm of fiction, as the forensic evidence clearly shows that it deserves no home in the realm of fact.