Historys mysteries rasputin biography
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According to legend, he stopped the young boy’s bleeding after one session caring for the child, achieving what a multitude of doctors had failed to do in years of consultations.
In reality, historians have argued what’s more likely is that Rasputin prevented the boy from seeing doctors and more specifically being administered any aspirin, which was the wonder-drug for everything at the time.
Rumours circulated about Alexandra's supposed intimate involvement with the monk.
Rasputin: Biography
Gregory Efimovich Rasputin came from solid peasant stock, but drunkenness, stealing and womanising were activities particularly enjoyed by the dissolute young man.
Rasputin became fascinated by a renegade sect within the Russian Orthodox faith, who believed that the only way to reach God was through sinful actions.
Soon, he adopted the robes of a monk, and travelled the country, sinning to his heart's content.
In 1903, the infant heir to the Russian throne, Alexis, was diagnosed with haemophilia. The moment with the young boy was enough, however, to convince the Tsar and his wife that Rasputin should stick around.
Legend 3: Rasputin was a sex-crazed maniac
The truth of this one is a little blurrier than the last.
No water was in his lungs, suggesting he was dead before he hit the water. Tales of Rasputin's sexual exploits were rampant during his lifetime and whilst some are true, others are exaggerated.
Rasputin became close with the royal family at a time when their popularity was already heading in the wrong direction. Revered and reviled in equal measure during his lifetime, the so-called 'Mad Monk' started life as a lowly peasant and died a close ally of the last Russian Tsar and his wife during the early 20th century.
Such an eclectic mix of adjectives have been used to describe him over the years that it’s hard to know what’s true and what’s fiction when it comes to Rasputin, mainly due to the smear campaign unleashed by his enemies during and after his life.
We wade through and unravel six of the most enduring myths about this self-professed holy man.
Legend 1: Rasputin was a monk
Contrary to popular belief, Grigori Rasputin was never ordained as a monk and never held any official position in the Russian Orthodox Church, making this one of the easiest myths to debunk.
Legend 2: Rasputin had supernatural healing powers
Although little is known about Rasputin's early years, what we do know is he that married and fathered three children.
Within three months of Rasputin's death, Tsar Nicholas lost his throne, and the imperial family were imprisoned. He was, by the sounds of it, very easy to kill.
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He then experienced a religious conversion, abandoned his family and wandered as a pilgrim. Whilst Rasputin did visit brothels and he most likely slept with several women, including those who followed him, the description of him as a sex-crazed maniac who would often expose his reportedly large penis is almost certainly mere fabrication.Tales of his sexual promiscuity came to represent everything that was wrong with Russia at the time, so the rumour-mill went into overdrive and the enemies of the monarchy embellished the stories to all new heights.
Legend 4: Rasputin slept with the Tsarina
This rumour was so prevalent at the time that most people in the Russian Empire believed this as common fact.
Although seriously wounded, Rasputin recovered from his wounds.
However, when it comes to his murder two years later, nothing is concrete. He was then shot, stabbed repeatedly, and finally drowned in the icy Neva river.
However, the regime’s image continued to be tainted by the scandal. Under the recommendation of the Grand Duchess, Rasputin was summoned to appear before Alexandra.
Somehow, Rasputin managed to stop Alexis' bleeding, and gained Nicholas and Alexandra's undivided support.
As the monk's fortunes rose in St.
Petersburg, so did the number of his enemies. The accounts we possess come from his assassins and his daughter, sources that are hardly unbiased. As does the other, less widespread rumour, that suggested he also slept with the Tsarina’s daughters.
This perceived weakness of the Tsar and Tsarina helped to destroy the general respect for them.
In 1916, a group of aristocrats tried to get rid of Rasputin. Rasputin's lifeless body remained limp for a few minutes before rising and lunging towards his attacker who fled into the snow. Aspirin thins the blood and makes bleeding worse for those who suffer from haemophilia.
His travels eventually brought him to St. Petersburg, where he mingled with the social elite and church leaders, impressing them so much that he was eventually introduced to Emperor Nicholas and his wife Empress Alexandra in late 1905.
Their son, Alexei, suffered from haemophilia and in desperation, the Tsar and Tsarina asked if Rasputin could heal their son.
Since the royal couple kept their son’s medical condition a secret from the public, it left a gaping hole for the people of Russia to fill with their imaginations as to why Rasputin hung around court so much.