Rasputin's Importance To History, Part One

NOTE: I published this in April of 2008, but as of October 15, 2014, I have added a "Word History," as I did not always include such back then. Also I very minimally tweaked some of the text, but only a few words here and there. I will be doing the same with the rest of this series, as there are a total of nine parts.

This is certainly not an attempt to do a comprehensive biography of Rasputin, but rather I want to put some perspective to his place in history. Many Americans have probably heard the name Rasputin, but I seriously doubt that many know much, if anything, about him. Rasputin was a Russian peasant* who came to be very close with the Russian Imperial family, and especially with the Empress Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II. First a little background on the times:

Nicholas II had unexpectedly become Tsar at a much earlier point, 1894, than had ever been anticipated. His father, Alexander III, was a true "Russian bear" of a man, standing something like 6' 4" and weighing somewhere in the mid 200s. He was physically strong, but died of kidney problems at the age of only 49. Nicholas had already asked Alix of Hessen (Germany), a granddaughter of England's Queen Victoria, to be his wife, and with the unexpected death of his father, the wedding plans were moved up so that Alix (who took the Russian name Alexandra) could be in support of Nicholas as he took the throne of the vast Russian Empire. Nicholas was only 26 and stood only about 5' 7" and was on the slim side, taking after his mother, Marie, the daughter of the King of Denmark, whose wife was also a German (from Hessen-Kassel).

Russia during those times was a country undergoing tremendous change. Peasants were flocking to the cities for work in the growing industrial complexes of Russia. Working conditions were horrendous, and death, injury and disease were commonplace. Russian society was highly stratified, with the upper classes controlling most of the wealth, and only a small middle class, which was unable to give balance to the system. The vast bulk of the population was lower class (not meant disparagingly), consisting mainly of peasants and the growing working class. At the top of the system sat the Romanov Dynasty, headed by the Tsar. In what was a throwback to an earlier time in Europe, the Tsar was considered to get his power from God himself ("Divine Right"). The Tsar was a true autocrat, being the one and only ruler, and sharing power with no one. Many Russians saw the Tsar as a kind of "semi-divine" figure, and strangely for such a top-weighted system, he was seen traditionally as the protector of the "people," called the "Little Father" by much of the populace, and many a Russian peasant feeling oppression from the wealthy landlords hoped to reach the Tsar to tell him so that he could right matters for them. The Tsar had the final word on ANY matter.

Russian society was also very superstitious and full of mysticism. There may be a tendency to think that the higher up one goes in society and in education, the less superstitious that person becomes, but this was not necessarily true in Russian high society, with many aristocrats and nobles believing in all sorts of nonsense. The wives of two of the Tsar's relatives actually believed that when this one particular mystic wore a special hat, he became invisible!!! (I don't want to imply that all of high society believed such nonsense.) Alexandra was prone to believe in such things, too. She and Nicholas produced four daughters in a system that needed a male heir, and preferably several male children. Alexandra was a religious fanatic**, and she turned to mystics in the hope of producing a male heir. Finally, in 1904, she gave birth to a son, Alexei. Unfortunately, within a short time, the boy was found to be suffering with hemophilia, a disorder that caused frequent and serious bleeding. The more serious aspect to the affliction was when the bleeding was internal, and most males failed to live into their 20s, as there was no cure. (Hemophilia is caused by a defective gene that is passed FROM the mother TO the son. It is almost exclusively a disorder in males.) Alexandra, not the most emotionally stable person to start with, was devastated. The fact that she had transmitted this faulty gene to her son only served to make matters worse. Into her life stepped an unlikely "savior."

To be continued in "Part Two''....

* "Peasant" in many parts of the world doesn't carry quite the negative connotation that it does with Americans.

** She was first a Lutheran, but by Russian law had to convert to Russian Orthodoxy in order to marry Nicholas.

Special note: The last part will contain a bibliography. For my articles on a related subject, see my two part series, " 'Nicholas And Alexandra,' The Movie and History," from the following links:

Part One: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2014/10/nicholas-and-alexandra-movie-part-one.html

Part Two:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2014/10/nicholas-and-alexandra-movie-and.html

WORD HISTORY:
Mystic-This word, closely related to "mystery," and meaning, "one who interprets the mysteries of faith;" and to some, "an occultist,'' goes back to Indo European "meue," which had the notion of "close, shut," usually in reference to mouth and eyes, but with the extended figurative meaning "keep secret." This gave Ancient Greek "mustes," meaning "one who has been initiated (given access to secrets)," which then produced Greek "mustikos" (secret, having to do with mysteries), and this was borrowed by Latin as "mysticus" (mystical, of secrets or mysteries), which was passed on to Old French, a Latin-based language, as "mystique" (filled with mysteries). This was then borrowed by English in the latter part of the 1300s.