Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about the Romanovs in their grand halls, their reforms, their wars. But today, I want to focus on a figure who, in a strange way, came to represent everything that was going wrong with the dynasty in its final years. Luna: You mean Rasputin. Lucas: Exactly. Grigori Rasputin. He's been turned into a kind of cartoon villain in popular culture — the mad monk, the hypnotist, the demon lover of the tsarina. But the real story is more complicated and, in some ways, even more unsettling. Luna: So where do we start? With his origins in Siberia? Lucas: Yes. He was born in 1869 in the village of Pokrovskoye, in what is now Tyumen Oblast. He was a peasant, barely literate. As a young man, he was known to be restless, a bit of a wanderer. He claimed to have had a religious conversion around age 28, after a pilgrimage to a monastery. He then traveled widely, developing a reputation as a starets — a holy man, a spiritual elder — who could heal and prophesy. Luna: And how does a Siberian peasant end up in the imperial court? Lucas: That's the key question. It starts with the tsarina, Alexandra. She was deeply religious, and she was desperate. Her only son, the tsarevich Alexei, had hemophilia — a genetic disorder that prevents blood from clotting. The Romanovs kept it a state secret. But every minor bruise or cut could become life-threatening. The doctors were helpless. So when Rasputin was introduced to the court in 1905, and he seemed able to calm Alexei — even to stop his bleeding — Alexandra became convinced he was a man of God. Luna: Wait, how could he stop bleeding? Was it just a coincidence, or something else? Lucas: Historians have debated that for a century. The most plausible explanation is that Rasputin's presence had a calming effect on the boy, and on the tsarina. When Alexei was bleeding, the stress and panic of his mother and the doctors might have made things worse — raised his blood pressure, maybe. Rasputin would sit with him, pray, tell stories, and the boy would relax. And maybe that, combined with time, allowed the body to clot naturally. There's also a theory that Rasputin advised against giving the boy aspirin, which was then used as a painkiller and is now known to be an anticoagulant. So he may have inadvertently helped by keeping the doctors from making things worse. Luna: So he wasn't a miracle worker — just the only person who didn't make it worse. Lucas: Exactly. But to Alexandra, that was a miracle. And she came to trust him absolutely. She called him "our Friend." And that trust extended to political matters. By 1914, as World War One dragged on and Nicholas II went to the front, Alexandra was effectively running the government from Tsarskoye Selo. And who was whispering in her ear? Rasputin. Luna: That's where the term "ministerial leapfrog" comes from, right? Lucas: Yes. Between 1914 and 1916, Russia went through four prime ministers, five ministers of the interior, and three ministers of war. Alexandra and Rasputin were constantly pushing for new appointees — often incompetent sycophants who would do their bidding. Any minister who opposed Rasputin's influence was fired. The most notorious example was Boris Sturmer, who became prime minister in 1916 despite being widely seen as a German sympathizer — and a dim one at that. Luna: It must have been infuriating for the aristocracy and the Duma. Lucas: It was. They saw a barely literate peasant from Siberia dictating policy to the autocrat of all the Russias. And Rasputin wasn't exactly discreet. He threw wild parties, he slept with women — noblewomen, even — and he was often drunk. Rumors flew that he was having an affair with the tsarina herself, though there's no evidence for that. But the damage to the monarchy's reputation was incalculable. By 1916, even staunch monarchists were saying something had to be done. Luna: So the plot to kill him... Lucas: It was led by Prince Felix Yusupov, one of the wealthiest men in Russia, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, the tsar's own cousin. They were joined by Vladimir Purishkevich, a right-wing politician. On the night of December 16, 1916, they lured Rasputin to Yusupov's Moika Palace in St. Petersburg under the pretense of meeting Felix's wife, Irina — who wasn't even there. Luna: I've heard the story — the poisoned cakes, the gunshots, the drowning. Lucas: Right. And it's a mess. According to Yusupov's memoirs, they first fed Rasputin cakes and wine laced with cyanide. But he didn't die. So Yusupov shot him in the back. He fell, but then he got up and attacked Yusupov. Then Purishkevich shot him several times. Finally they tied his body and threw it into the Neva River. The autopsy later showed he'd died from drowning — meaning he was still alive when they threw him in. Luna: It's almost like a scene from a horror movie. Lucas: It is. The whole thing was grotesque. And the conspirators expected to be hailed as heroes. Instead, they were arrested — though they were soon exiled to their estates, not executed. But the murder didn't save the monarchy. It came too late. The damage was done. Nicholas II abdicated just two months later, in March 1917. Many historians argue that without Rasputin's corrosive influence, the Romanovs might have survived — at least a little longer. Luna: Or maybe he was just a symptom of a system that was already rotten. Lucas: That's the other view. And there's a lot of truth to it. But I think the real legacy of Rasputin is how he reveals the fragility of autocracy. When a system depends on the wisdom and judgement of one person — or two, if you count the tsarina — and that person is isolated, paranoid, and trusting of a charlatan, the system breaks down. Rasputin wasn't the cause of the fall of the Romanovs, but he was the accelerant. Luna: And the story that still fascinates people, over a century later. Speaking of which, if you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you might have noticed we don't have ads. That's a choice — we want these conversations to feel like we're just talking, not selling you something. But the show does have costs — hosting, research, the occasional coffee. If today's episode was worth a coffee to you, that's the link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small thing, but it really does help keep this going. And we appreciate every single person who has chipped in. Now, back to Rasputin's last days — there's a question that still bugs historians. Did Rasputin actually have any real political influence, or was he just used by others? Luna: Isn't that the big debate? Lucas: It is. Some scholars, like Orlando Figes, argue that Rasputin was largely a figurehead, a convenient scapegoat for the regime's failures. The real power lay with Alexandra and the clique of reactionaries around her. Rasputin gave them a mystical stamp of approval. Others, like Richard Pipes, say he was genuinely making decisions — that he personally chose ministers and pushed policy. The truth is probably somewhere in between. He couldn't read or write well, but he had a shrewd understanding of people. And he was certainly capable of saying, 'I won't pray for you if you don't do this.' And to Alexandra, that was enough. Luna: What about his own writings? Did he leave anything behind? Lucas: He did. He wrote a memoir of sorts, and some letters. They're not very coherent — lots of religious rambling, warnings of doom. But there's one letter he wrote to Nicholas in 1916 that's almost prophetic: 'If I am killed by assassins... you, Tsar of Russia, will not live to see your children. You will be killed by the Russian people.' And that's exactly what happened, less than two years later. Luna: Did he really foresee the revolution, or was that just luck? Lucas: Probably a bit of both. But it shows he understood the anger building beneath the surface. And he knew he was a target. The night he was murdered, he left a note saying he felt danger. In a strange way, he was more clear-eyed about the coming catastrophe than many in the court. Luna: So what's the final verdict on Rasputin? Holy man, charlatan, or something else? Lucas: I think he was a peasant who stumbled into a situation far beyond his understanding. He started as a sincere religious wanderer — I think he genuinely believed he had healing gifts. But the power, the flattery, the access to the most powerful family in Russia — it corrupted him. He became a caricature of himself. But he was also a symptom of a deeper disease: a dynasty that had lost touch with its people, that relied on a single charismatic figure to prop up a crumbling edifice. After Rasputin's death, the monarchy lasted barely ten weeks. The Romanovs didn't fall because of Rasputin. But he was the final, dramatic sign that they were already falling. Luna: And they took the whole empire down with them.