Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 4

So what was it that Rasputin did that earned him a bad reputation? He had periodic bouts of heavy drinking, seemingly more so beginning not long after the start of World War One. Rasputin didn't lack ego, and when the drink took over, so did his boasting, or his sexual appetite. By all accounts, when he made visits to the Imperial family, has was totally sober, and it seems that he did forgo alcohol for various periods of time, but the fact that he was associated with the Tsar and Tsarina made any public drunken spectacle a cause for news stories. He was also known for his blunt sexual advances to the ladies. He frequented prostitutes, but it was his advances to other women that earned him the scorn of many in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even "accused," at one point, of having raped a nun. During his drinking binges, he was prone to boast about his sexual conquests, and during one outing, he kissed a woman in one of the bars, only to add that he did the same with the Tsarina herself!*

During one drinking session in Moscow, he reportedly unzipped his pants and exposed himself to the crowd. As his association with the Imperial family grew, people from all walks of life sought his aid in getting an audience with the Tsar or Tsarina, or in getting help from some government official. There seems little doubt that he took bribes, earning quite a sum of money by some accounts.** People lined up at Rasputin's apartment in St. Petersburg*** in order to try to get help. There were so many people, that instead of scribbling a note with his signature, as he had been doing, he had cards printed up to expedite the process. (Rasputin was what most people would say was "semi-literate.") While he took money and gifts of various kinds from many people, he also gave away a great deal of money to peasants and workers who came to him with hard luck stories, and his concern for the poor seems to have been genuine.

Once World War I started, the pot really began to boil. Fairly early on, the Russian armies suffered staggering defeats at the hands of the Germans, with hundreds of thousands of casualties. Rumors began to spread that Rasputin was in the pay of the Germans. As the Russian armies retreated, the rumors became even more caustic, claiming that the Tsarina was passing information on to her first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm (Alexandra and Wilhelm were grandchildren of Queen Victoria). Her German birth and what the public saw as her dislike of Russia (her limited use of Russian and her rare public appearances) only fed the rumors. Rasputin did associate with some surly characters supposed to be German sympathizers during this time period, and again, perception was reality to the public. Even some who supported Rasputin felt that in his drunken state of mind at times, that he might indeed say things to German agents (of the female variety). Some Russian military personnel also chose to associate with Rasputin, simply because they felt he had influence with the Tsarina and, therefore, the Tsar. Most mainstream historians have basically sided with Rasputin, saying that while he used poor judgment, he was always a patriotic Russian. Again, Rasputin's ego was his own enemy, as he boasted about being privy to important information that supposedly the Germans would have loved to have. How much information he actually had is perhaps another matter. Again, most historians have basically concluded that Rasputin was just boasting and that he had no such valuable information.**** The public didn't know this. People thought that he genuinely was an advisor to the Tsar and Tsarina, and as such, he had lots of important information. With Rasputin known to take bribes, the public felt that he would do anything for money, including selling information to the Germans. The stories about Rasputin are almost endless, and I don't intend to go into all of them, as many come from poor sources, but again, many in the public believed ANYTHING about Rasputin, no matter how sensational.

After the fall of Communism, Russians had a more open discussion about Rasputin's part in their history. One television documentary had an interview with an elderly St. Petersburg resident who claimed that she and her husband had been walking down a street one night in like about 1915 when a strange weakness came over her and she dropped to the ground. When she looked up, there a short distance away stood Rasputin. She claimed that he had that kind of evil power!!! Now, this is a lot of nonsense, but again, what people believe to be true is more important than the truth at any given moment. In more than a decade of association between Rasputin and the Imperial family, the drip, drip, drip of scandalous stories had taken a toll on the Romanov reputation. The many scandalous stories invigorated the revolutionary movement, kept the newspaper business hopping, and made the public question the capabilities and even the loyalty of those at the top.

To be continued in "Part Five" ....

* Revolutionary elements, long a part of Russian life (they assassinated Nicholas's grandfather, Tsar Alexander II), loved Rasputin's antics and never missed an opportunity to spread even more salacious stories about him. They especially targeted the Tsarina, displaying drawings of Rasputin and the Tsarina in various sexual situations. In one famous incident, a letter from Alexandra to Rasputin gained widespread circulation. In the letter, Alexandra wrote several loving expressions, only adding to the growing public belief that Rasputin was the Tsarina's lover. Later, after the Tsar had abdicated, a special board of inquiry was convened by the then provisional government. It found no evidence that the Tsarina had had any physical relationship with Rasputin. Alexandra's closest associates noted that she wrote to all of her friends in "flowery" language, and her letters to Rasputin were no exception. Things got so bad in the mainstream press, too, that the government forbid the use of Rasputin's name in the newspapers. (The Tsar's manifesto had granted basic freedom of the press in 1906, but not anywhere near like what we Americans have; therefore, the Russian government did still exercise a degree of censorship.) The newspapers got around the censorship by simply NOT mentioning Rasputin by name, but by alluding to Rasputin with statements like, "A well known peasant," "A supposed holy man," and such. The public knew EXACTLY to whom the stories were referring, and newspaper sales soared even higher!

** I must also add that Rasputin may not have had to openly ask many people for some sort of compensation (bribe), as they seem to have brought money and other items to give to him for helping them.

*** He eventually rented in St. Petersburg for his long stays there, while still maintaining his home in Siberia.

**** This is one of those difficult to determine items of Rasputin's life. Military information was, by its nature, secret, although I think he had at least some basic military information, but likely not much detail. Alexandra's judgment regarding "our friend," as she usually referred to Rasputin, was highly suspect, and if I remember right, Nicholas, in a letter to his wife from the military headquarters, once related some information to her, followed by the caution that the info should not be revealed to anyone, not even "to our friend." While Alexandra herself likely did not know many details of the military matters, even basic information could have been damaging to the Russian cause, as just imagine if Hitler had had the basic information that Normandy was going to be the site of the Allied invasion in 1944. No detail, but highly important, and likely decisive, info!

WORD HISTORY:
Babushka-This word, generally known in American English as a word for a "headscarf," goes back to Old Slavic "baba," which meant "old woman," and apparently came from baby talk. This gave Russian "babushka," an endearment term meaning "grandma, granny." The word came to America with Russian and Ukrainian immigrants and was borrowed by American English in the post World War One era. The "headscarf" meaning came from the fact that many older Russian and Ukrainian woman (including the immigrants) wore such a scarf, and the meaning thus transferred to that apparel.