Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 5

Historians have been divided over whether Rasputin belonged to a religious sect that practiced, to put it bluntly, group sex. If I remember correctly, his daughter did say that Rasputin had been associated with the sect, but that he had rejected it. There doesn't seem to be any clear evidence one way or the other whether he truly rejected this sect. Further, just as in other countries and other general religious denominations, there are sects that may have some views differing from the main religious body, and such was the case in Russia and in Russian Orthodoxy. One other sect espoused a belief that the more a person sinned, the better it was, as God forgave sinners. If anything, even if Rasputin didn't belong to this sect, he certainly seemed to embrace the general philosophy.

It was during World War I that Rasputin did the most damage to the Tsar and Tsarina, although certainly not without their participation. It has to be noted here that Nicholas tended to give in to his wife's wishes on many, if not most, occasions. There seems to be no question that many involved with the imperial couple said that Alexandra was indeed the strong and decisive partner and Nicholas the weaker and indecisive. I'll go out on a limb here and say that it has been my experience that when you have a person with a weak and vacillating personality, when they finally make a decision on something, even if that decision turns out to be wrong, that they then have a hell of a time changing their minds, and they tend to cling too stubbornly to their incorrect decision. In my opinion Nicholas was certainly in this category. On the other hand, Alexandra was strong and convinced that God would bless any decision made by the Tsar and supported, if not urged upon him, by her, and also supported, if not urged upon her, by Rasputin. To be quite honest, it is sometimes difficult to sort out whether Rasputin always, or even frequently, proposed policies to the Tsarina, and that then she in turn urged the policies upon Nicholas, or whether Alexandra had general ideas about certain policies, expressed them to Rasputin, and that Rasputin, ever the wily one, then gave his blessing to the policies and perhaps even filled in some detail, never wanting to actually contradict the Tsarina, as he well knew that his position depended upon her. It was likely something of a mixture. It bears repeating here, Alexandra believed that Rasputin had a special relationship with God and even talked with God, and that it was only through Rasputin that her son remained alive. As such, she certainly discussed matters of government with Rasputin, and even military matters. If I remember correctly, Nicholas was upset to learn that at one point, Alexandra had told Rasputin about a coming Russian military offensive in order that he would bless the attack and thus guarantee success. As I mentioned in a previous segment, she exhibited poor judgment when it came to Rasputin.

With the Russian armies beaten and bloodied, the Tsar made a fateful decision, one that was supported by Alexandra and Rasputin; that is, Nicholas was to take charge of the Russian forces himself. What this meant was, just as an American president is the overall commander-in-chief of the armed forces, it was the same with the Russian Tsar, although at times in history, certain Tsars had actually participated in military matters, even being involved in military operations. In this case, what Nicholas did would have been the same as if Woodrow Wilson, who was president during World War I, had gone to Europe to actually supervise every day military operations. So, Nicholas left for the military headquarters in central (European) Russia, hundreds of miles from the capitol. He saw this as a necessary symbol to inspire confidence in the army and the populace. His advisers were adamantly against the decision, at least at that time, as they explained to Nicholas that with the Russian armies in retreat, and with the Tsar in charge, any further military failures would now be directly linked to the Tsar himself.* Further, his advisers told him that, with the Tsar away from the capitol, affairs of state could not be easily acted upon, as in the tsarist system, virtually every government decision had to come before the Tsar. Nicholas stated that when he left the capitol, Alexandra would take over the day-to-day matters of governance, and that she would pass along any major matters to him for his consideration. Alexandra and Rasputin both supported the Tsar's decision. The door was opened even wider for Rasputin to do damage, even if not always in fact, at least in the public mind.

To be continued in "Part Six" ....

* Up to this point according to historians, the Russian people blamed the military commanders for the terrible defeats, but the Tsar remained popular and essentially unscathed, as Russians had pulled together against the common foes, Germany and Austria-Hungary.

WORD HISTORY:
Dacha-This word, meaning "a small home (often vacation home) in the country," goes back to Indo European "doh," which had the notion "give, present, offer." This gave its Old Slavic offspring "datya," meaning "give," which was passed to Russian as "dat" (give), which then produced the noun "dacha," originally a small home "given" by a noble to someone for their valued service. English borrowed the word from Russian in the latter part of the 1800s. It is related to "datum" (more commonly used in its plural, "data," meaning "something given," usually now, "information given") and "donation" ("something freely given for a cause"), two words of Latin derivation borrowed by English.