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I've been reading and looking at writings on the Pre-Communist days of Russia after watching a miniseries that made Czar Nicholas II about as incompetent as possible, and made Rasputin sympathetic yet also a heretic, sex addict etc. But I stumbled on this piece today, and thought I would post that really disagreed with the typical views of not just the Czar but also Rasputin. I did do a search on the board, and notice that Rasputin is very popular like somebody posting a thread every 12-16 months on him. It is an interesting perspective and not one I have heard before....
Rasputin
Recent Russian (= Non-Soviet) scholarship has proved that Gregory Rasputin was the object of the most awful slander and gossip. Why? Because the slanderers wanted to justify their hatred for the Monarchy through the Rasputin legend. Research by authors like A.N. Bokhanov has taken place in the archives, not in gossip and pornographic forgeries. Rasputin was purposely misrepresented in a Russia without censorship (unlike Western Europe), but also without laws against defamation. He had to be demonised by those who hated him because he was a real Christian. Russia did not fall because of Rasputin, but because of those who slandered rasputin and the government of the Tsar with him. Absurdly accusing Rasputin of virtually running the country during the War, the fantasy which they projected, most of these slanders came from degenerate aristocrats or wealthy, power-hungry bourgeois.
Rasputin had no political influence on the independently-minded Tsar; he lived in Siberia until 1914 and visited the Imperial Family only when the Tsarevich was ill. ‘Rasputin’ does not mean ‘debauched’, it means he who lives where there are no roads. He was not mad, or a mystic, or a heretic, or a horse-thief, or a monk; he was a pious married layman with three children. One daughter, Matrona, died in Los Angeles in 1977; a great grand-daughter is alive and well and lives in Paris. He was not a depraved drunkard who was very rich. True, he had peasant manners, but then he was a peasant. Money given to him by the rich, he generously gave to others and to his village church. He died, or rather was cruelly murdered, in poverty.
Rasputin was recommended by St John of Kronstadt and Bishop Theophan (Bystrov) for his sincerity. A devout Orthodox Christian, with a miraculous gift of healing, he spent much of his time in monasteries and at prayer. He was a pious peasant healer, sent by Providence to heal the Tsarevich, who performed miracles. Jealous and idle aristocrats tried to corrupt him with alcohol, and he was murdered by them. Among these aristocrats was the transvestite occultist Yusupov, and British secret agents. Yusupov, a great admirer of Oscar Wilde, was a cowardly homosexual who had shirked his military duties. He was not only a cold-blooded murder, but also a liar. Rasputin’s murder dismayed Russian peasants, of whom Rasputin had been one, for they felt that it meant that corrupt aristocrats would always stop any of them from getting close to the Tsar.
Tsar Nicholas II: Myth and Reality
Rasputin
Recent Russian (= Non-Soviet) scholarship has proved that Gregory Rasputin was the object of the most awful slander and gossip. Why? Because the slanderers wanted to justify their hatred for the Monarchy through the Rasputin legend. Research by authors like A.N. Bokhanov has taken place in the archives, not in gossip and pornographic forgeries. Rasputin was purposely misrepresented in a Russia without censorship (unlike Western Europe), but also without laws against defamation. He had to be demonised by those who hated him because he was a real Christian. Russia did not fall because of Rasputin, but because of those who slandered rasputin and the government of the Tsar with him. Absurdly accusing Rasputin of virtually running the country during the War, the fantasy which they projected, most of these slanders came from degenerate aristocrats or wealthy, power-hungry bourgeois.
Rasputin had no political influence on the independently-minded Tsar; he lived in Siberia until 1914 and visited the Imperial Family only when the Tsarevich was ill. ‘Rasputin’ does not mean ‘debauched’, it means he who lives where there are no roads. He was not mad, or a mystic, or a heretic, or a horse-thief, or a monk; he was a pious married layman with three children. One daughter, Matrona, died in Los Angeles in 1977; a great grand-daughter is alive and well and lives in Paris. He was not a depraved drunkard who was very rich. True, he had peasant manners, but then he was a peasant. Money given to him by the rich, he generously gave to others and to his village church. He died, or rather was cruelly murdered, in poverty.
Rasputin was recommended by St John of Kronstadt and Bishop Theophan (Bystrov) for his sincerity. A devout Orthodox Christian, with a miraculous gift of healing, he spent much of his time in monasteries and at prayer. He was a pious peasant healer, sent by Providence to heal the Tsarevich, who performed miracles. Jealous and idle aristocrats tried to corrupt him with alcohol, and he was murdered by them. Among these aristocrats was the transvestite occultist Yusupov, and British secret agents. Yusupov, a great admirer of Oscar Wilde, was a cowardly homosexual who had shirked his military duties. He was not only a cold-blooded murder, but also a liar. Rasputin’s murder dismayed Russian peasants, of whom Rasputin had been one, for they felt that it meant that corrupt aristocrats would always stop any of them from getting close to the Tsar.
Tsar Nicholas II: Myth and Reality
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