Speaker 1: Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: The road is steep and narrow. You're a passenger in
Speaker 1: the car. Next to you are the people you love most,
Speaker 1: and all of your lives are in danger. The car
Speaker 1: is careening around the turns, and one slip and it
Speaker 1: could all be over. And the worst problem is the
Speaker 1: driver is asleep at the wheel. But there is hope.
Speaker 1: You know how to drive, and so do other people
Speaker 1: in the car. You try to wake the man at
Speaker 1: the wheel and convince him to make the dangerous move
Speaker 1: of trading places with someone else. But even awake, he's
Speaker 1: hardly any better. He tightens his grip and refuses to
Speaker 1: let go. With bloodshot eyes, the driver screams not to
Speaker 1: touch him. Meanwhile, the car barrels forward toward destruction. It's
Speaker 1: too dangerous to fight for the wheel. It's too dangerous
Speaker 1: to do nothing. Both action and inaction seem to promise
Speaker 1: the same carnage. What should you you? This is the
Speaker 1: question that was asked in the Moscow Gazette on September
Speaker 1: seventeenth of nineteen fifteen. The journalist who wrote the story
Speaker 1: was a member of the Duma Russia's parliament. The passengers
Speaker 1: in the car were his fellow Russians, and the mad
Speaker 1: chauffeur at the wheel was the one who claimed divine
Speaker 1: right to steer the nation forward through the perils of war,
Speaker 1: Zar Nicholas himself, and who could blame one furious statesman
Speaker 1: for seeing things this way? Supplies, reinforcements, and hospitals for
Speaker 1: the army were planned so badly that trains filled with
Speaker 1: dying men were parked on the tracks because there was
Speaker 1: nowhere for them to unload their priceless cargo. What was
Speaker 1: Russia's experience of the war in nineteen fift It was death, grief, blood,
Speaker 1: and failure. Steel coffins slowly turning men into corpses. Was
Speaker 1: not the legacy that Zar Nicholas imagined for the Romanov dynasty,
Speaker 1: but more and more Russians were coming to see it
Speaker 1: as his stamp on the nation's history, because it was
Speaker 1: the nation's present. And who should be to blame if
Speaker 1: not for the man in charge. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to anger at the Czar, we're not just talking about peasants.
Speaker 1: The members of the Duma saw it, they felt it,
Speaker 1: and published their articles damning Nicholas and so did Russia's
Speaker 1: other aristocratic families. Their sons had also gone to war,
Speaker 1: their children had also been killed, and they wanted answers.
Speaker 1: What was the Tsar going to do about all this suffering?
Speaker 1: But if the calls were for him to put someone
Speaker 1: else at the wheel, Nicholas took the opposite course. He
Speaker 1: thought that maybe the problem was that he had shirked
Speaker 1: his duty and allowed his muscle bound cousin Nikolasha to
Speaker 1: take the lead. The job had certainly not been done right,
Speaker 1: so Nicholas decided to do it himself. He had already
Speaker 1: been spending as much time as he could at Stavka,
Speaker 1: the Russian military headquarters. The camp where battle plans were laid,
Speaker 1: was established off the Moscow Warsaw Road, nestled between the
Speaker 1: trunks of pine and birch trees and surrounded by ring
Speaker 1: after ring of centuries. Nicholas found all of that invigorating
Speaker 1: to him. It was a masculine place, a place for
Speaker 1: a rugged, disciplined life, a place where every second counted
Speaker 1: and every man was about his work. The urgency in
Speaker 1: order reminded him of his fondest memories his younger years
Speaker 1: in the cavalry, before he had taken up the responsibilities
Speaker 1: of the czar, but in the summer of nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: it was the responsibilities that he shouldered. The Czar's place
Speaker 1: was with his troops. Nicholas believed it so strongly that
Speaker 1: it was almost mystical. He even made up his mind
Speaker 1: in the church. It was while he was standing in
Speaker 1: the cathedral, with his eyes fixated on an image of Jesus,
Speaker 1: that he felt a voice speak in his mind. Maybe
Speaker 1: the reason his man had lost the war with Japan
Speaker 1: ten years before was that he had stayed in the
Speaker 1: palaces and left the work to others. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to make the same mistake twice in a time of war.
Speaker 1: It wasn't right for the Tsar to hide in palaces
Speaker 1: and float offshore in yachts. It was time for him
Speaker 1: to take action. It was time for him to bear
Speaker 1: the weight of the empire on his own shoulders. So,
Speaker 1: no matter what anyone else was shouting to the heavens,
Speaker 1: Nicolas tightened his grip on the wheel. Nikolasha was out
Speaker 1: and the Tzar was in. The move was dramatically, universally unpopular.
Speaker 1: Even the rest of the Romanov family tried to argue
Speaker 1: with Nicholas to make him reverse his decision and leave
Speaker 1: the war to others. But finally Nicholas had found a spine.
Speaker 1: When his ministers approached him at the end of August
Speaker 1: begging him to reconsider, Nicholas sat and listened, sweating profusely
Speaker 1: and clutching an icon to support his spiritual conviction that
Speaker 1: he was meant to lead, an icon he had received
Speaker 1: from his spiritual adviser and friend, Grigory Rasputin. His conviction
Speaker 1: was unshaken, and in the coming days it would become
Speaker 1: clear that the Czar wasn't the only one seizing his
Speaker 1: royal prerogative. As the wheels of war continue to turn,
Speaker 1: there was someone else who didn't fear putting their hands
Speaker 1: on the controls. The Empress herself, Alexandra, this is unobscured.
Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Manky. Felix Yusupov was an aristocrat, and a
Speaker 1: wealthy one too. His family was among Russia's richest, and
Speaker 1: while they weren't the most powerful, they were like many
Speaker 1: other oligarchs. They had their fingers in every pie, and
Speaker 1: Felix had his finger on the pulse too. When Nicholas
Speaker 1: took over the command of Russia's armies. Felix wrote down
Speaker 1: just how worried his elite friends had become. The news
Speaker 1: on the whole was badly received. He wrote, everyone knew
Speaker 1: that pressure had been brought to bear on the Tsar
Speaker 1: by Rasputin. In fact, Felix wrote that the Tsar was
Speaker 1: only going to the front because Rasputin told him to.
Speaker 1: Nicholas had caved because the Holy Man had played on
Speaker 1: the religious feelings that Nicholas had about his god given
Speaker 1: role as the ruler of his people. But if this
Speaker 1: was some kind of spiritual con game, why was Rasputin
Speaker 1: doing it? Felix thought he knew. He wrote that it
Speaker 1: was in Rasputin's interest to remove the Tsar as far
Speaker 1: from Petrograd as possible, because he said, when Rasputin had
Speaker 1: pushed the Czar out of the palace, that left Alexandra
Speaker 1: in his power. That was what Felix Usupov and the
Speaker 1: other wealthy Russians believe and what they feared. Of course,
Speaker 1: the reality, though, was far more complicated. First of all,
Speaker 1: there was the fact that Alexandra and Rasputin too, We're
Speaker 1: actually against Nicolas spending time in Stovka. Maybe no one
Speaker 1: else saw it at the time, but it was clear
Speaker 1: in the Empress's writings over and over. In her letters
Speaker 1: in the early months of that year, Alexandra was urging
Speaker 1: Nicholas to come back home. She wanted her husband to
Speaker 1: stay in the capital with her, and she told him
Speaker 1: that Resputant thought the same. In fact, the reason Alexandra
Speaker 1: was worried was the same reason that the Duma and
Speaker 1: the aristocrats like Felix Yusupov worried about Rasputin. It was
Speaker 1: all about how Nicholas would be influenced. In June of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, during one of the Tsar's many visits to Stavka,
Speaker 1: Alexandra wrote to Nicholas a letter showing her hand. She
Speaker 1: and Rasputin were worried, she said, because when Nicholas was
Speaker 1: far from the palace and far from her, there were
Speaker 1: people who could make him do things that he shouldn't do.
Speaker 1: When he was at Strafka, there were untold numbers of
Speaker 1: advisers and generals and liars to push the czar around.
Speaker 1: It would be healthier, Alexandra wrote, if Nicholas would take
Speaker 1: care of things quickly and just come home. When Nicholas
Speaker 1: made the opposite choice a few months later and took command.
Speaker 1: He made his place at Stavka all the more prominent.
Speaker 1: Alexandra's letters only became more urgent and came more often.
Speaker 1: If the Czar wasn't going to be at her side.
Speaker 1: Alexandra was determined that she would still have his ear.
Speaker 1: Here's historian Helen Rappaport to tell us more. The wartime
Speaker 1: correspondence is predominantly her long haranguing letters to Nicholas, telling
Speaker 1: him to do this, that and the other, and complaining
Speaker 1: about the girls being hormonal and argumentative, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: telling him to sack this minister and higher that minister.
Speaker 1: The war yor letters are very revealing of her controlling
Speaker 1: influence over him. But if Alexandra had a controlling influence
Speaker 1: over Nicholas, it's just as likely that Nicholas had his
Speaker 1: own influence over Alexandra. When they were together, Nicholas could
Speaker 1: bear the duties of state, the two could talk, and
Speaker 1: Alexandra was free to rest and retreat while Nicholas kept
Speaker 1: up an endless series of meetings with ministers and bureaucrats.
Speaker 1: But now with the Czar far away, pressing matters still
Speaker 1: had to be dealt with. And if it was the
Speaker 1: duty of the emperor to get his hands dirty, how
Speaker 1: much different could it be for the empress. Alexandra felt
Speaker 1: that she had to act as well, and act she did.
Speaker 1: To begin with, Alexandra didn't miss how much care was
Speaker 1: needed for the wounded men. She immediately threw herself, despite
Speaker 1: a lot of physical problems by then the scietic who
Speaker 1: was awful, she threw herself into war work. She organized
Speaker 1: hospital trains, She organized ladies at the court to to
Speaker 1: to set up collecting dressings and you know, bringing to
Speaker 1: bringing together sewing garments so the wounded. She set up
Speaker 1: various hospitals in St. Pete but Wells and Petrograd in
Speaker 1: the war, in the capital city and out at saskos At.
Speaker 1: Alexandra did far more during the war than people are
Speaker 1: aware of, many because it's not really being written about.
Speaker 1: But if it's true that Alexandra's work in the hospitals
Speaker 1: was overlooked, there was another side of her life that
Speaker 1: drew far too many eyes because she wasn't just organizing
Speaker 1: medical care. Alexandra was taking the reins of the states herself.
Speaker 1: It started at the very top, while Nicholas was away
Speaker 1: at the front, Alexandra met with the Prime Minister almost
Speaker 1: every day. It helped that he was on Alexandra's side,
Speaker 1: the side of absolute monarchy. In fact, when Nicholas left
Speaker 1: for the front, the Prime Minister even suggested that the
Speaker 1: Duma should be dissolved. What Russia needed, he believed, was
Speaker 1: to be united behind the Romanovs. Alexandra could only agree,
Speaker 1: and when things on the front lines of the war
Speaker 1: went south, it only strengthened her resolve. When members of
Speaker 1: the Duma gathered together to meet with the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: and begged him to send more supplies and more ammunition
Speaker 1: to the army, Alexandra wrote to Nicholas, these elected representatives
Speaker 1: were meddling with things above their pay grade. The war
Speaker 1: was none of their business, she said. They were merely
Speaker 1: fostering discontent. To her, it didn't matter that they had
Speaker 1: been the legislature of the empire. That's not what God wanted.
Speaker 1: No God wanted an autocrat to rule. If the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister listened to other voices, Alexandra was sure that it
Speaker 1: would only bring the Empire more trouble. So she beat
Speaker 1: back political advisors and advice from the disbanded Duma more
Speaker 1: and more she took matters into her own hands. Where
Speaker 1: supplies needed at the front were more nurses needed at home,
Speaker 1: Alexandra would decide it for herself, and she revealed to
Speaker 1: Nicholas just how much she wanted that power and just
Speaker 1: how little she could see what was coming. When she wrote, Russia,
Speaker 1: thank God, is not a constitutional country. It shouldn't be
Speaker 1: a surprise that Rasputant sent his own letter to Stavka.
Speaker 1: He said that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him
Speaker 1: in a vision. She told him to travel from the
Speaker 1: capital and visit the military headquarters. There he could help
Speaker 1: plan the fight. He had ideas about the war, He
Speaker 1: had ideas about the economy. God would speak through him
Speaker 1: and deliver Russia from the tide of violence. He got
Speaker 1: a letter back from the Tsar's cousin. The man wrote
Speaker 1: Respute in a similar note. He said that Mary had
Speaker 1: appeared to him as well. She told him that if
Speaker 1: Grigory Rasputin ever came to Stavka, Nikolasha would hang him
Speaker 1: from the nearest lamp post. It was in the months
Speaker 1: before Nicholas would relieve him of command. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: Resputant stay at home by Alexandra's side, and it was
Speaker 1: a sign of how much things had changed. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: it was Nikolasha and the sisters Stana and Melitza who
Speaker 1: had introduced Respute into the Tsar's but by now the
Speaker 1: tzar's cousin saw a real dark side to Gregory's influence
Speaker 1: over the imperial couple. For years, even decades, they had
Speaker 1: been friends, Nikolasha, Stana, Melitsa. They were the ones who
Speaker 1: had helped her the most when she was a rush
Speaker 1: young empress first stepping into her new home. But these
Speaker 1: were not those years, and as Nikolasha made it clear
Speaker 1: just how much contempt he had for Grigory Resputin, a
Speaker 1: man the Empress trusted most, she started to suspect that
Speaker 1: even her closest companions were plotting against her family. With
Speaker 1: Nikolasha now threatening Resputant's life outright, Alexandra feared betrayal. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was even scheming to take the throne. She had
Speaker 1: all the evidence necessary to have one of those bulletin
Speaker 1: boards with photos and pins and red string. It seemed
Speaker 1: that in the months before Nicholas took control of the army,
Speaker 1: Nikolasha had been meeting with the government ministers without the Czar.
Speaker 1: In fact, Alexander learned that the ministers had been taking
Speaker 1: reports to Nikolasha and not to her husband, even when
Speaker 1: the matters didn't concern the fighting on the front lines.
Speaker 1: It might not seem so strange to us now looking
Speaker 1: back on how important Nikolasha was as the man directing
Speaker 1: the war efforts, but to Alexandra it was a sign
Speaker 1: that Nikolasha was making in a play to sideline Nicholas.
Speaker 1: As much as she hated to have her husband leave
Speaker 1: her side and go to the front, she was convinced
Speaker 1: that Nikolasha needed to be crushed. I have absolutely no
Speaker 1: faith in Nikolasha, she wrote to the Czar. Having gone
Speaker 1: against a man of God, his work can't be blessed.
Speaker 1: It didn't help that Nikolasha was in fact deeply loyal
Speaker 1: to Nicholas and to Russia. He was against Rasputin, and
Speaker 1: it was no secret that he wasn't the only one.
Speaker 1: So if Nikolasha had to go, what about the others.
Speaker 1: Here's more from Helen Rappaport. Nicholas was a long way
Speaker 1: way at Army h Q, and she was always very
Speaker 1: opinionated about what kind of ministers Nicholas should appoint. Generally,
Speaker 1: a lot of toadies and yesmen were appointed during Nicholas's reign,
Speaker 1: who were often incompetent and weak and ineffectual. But Alexandra
Speaker 1: was the one who wanted to have a retinue of
Speaker 1: yes men who did as she felt, you know, things
Speaker 1: should be done. And she constantly harangued Nicholas, pressing him
Speaker 1: into sucking this minister. I don't like that, minister. You know,
Speaker 1: you should get rid of so and so. And it
Speaker 1: was normally because they wouldn't the line, the line they
Speaker 1: wouldn't tow was the one set by Alexandra, of course.
Speaker 1: And when it came to qualifications, Alexandra had at least
Speaker 1: one easy test. What did they think of Rasputin? Were
Speaker 1: they on the side of Nikolasha and so many others
Speaker 1: an enemy of the friend God put by their side,
Speaker 1: then they couldn't possibly be suitable candidates to govern the empire.
Speaker 1: No one's job was safe, not even the men who
Speaker 1: Grigory and Alexandra selected to lead the Russian government. One
Speaker 1: wrong move and they went from inside track to out
Speaker 1: in the cold. Here's Douglas Smith to tell us more
Speaker 1: this phenomenon that becomes known as ministerial leap frog, where basically,
Speaker 1: like one prime minister is being sacked, a new one
Speaker 1: hired every other month. There's a there's a new head
Speaker 1: of the police, there's changes at the upper echelons of
Speaker 1: the military and other um posts in the government, Minister
Speaker 1: of Interior and what have you. By those latter years,
Speaker 1: Risputant is exercising more influence on ministerial appointments, has more
Speaker 1: opinion about these things, and Alexandra listens to him and
Speaker 1: tries to lean on Nicholas to make some of these changes.
Speaker 1: Bizarre was still the one with the final word, but
Speaker 1: more and more Nicholas made appointments and fired officials from
Speaker 1: a distance on Alexandra's advice, and the whole time she
Speaker 1: was looking out for her friend, Rasputants enemies are like
Speaker 1: spiders around us. Alexandra wrote to Nicholas, Russia will not
Speaker 1: be blessed if we let a man of God be persecuted.
Speaker 1: She demanded that intrigues against their spiritual advisor be forbidden.
Speaker 1: She didn't even want government officials talking about him. Anyone
Speaker 1: who disobeyed should be pushed out of power. To Alexandra,
Speaker 1: with the war needed was government officials who would support
Speaker 1: the guidance that the Czar was receiving from God and
Speaker 1: from Gregory. And what better way to find the right
Speaker 1: help than to consult Resputin himself. After all, Alexander had
Speaker 1: spent her years as empress avoiding the mess of elite
Speaker 1: Russian life. Retreats after retreat to yachts, hunting, lodges, and
Speaker 1: her bed had left her with very little clue of
Speaker 1: where to turn when she actually needed help. She couldn't
Speaker 1: even rely on Stanta and Melitza, so who was left
Speaker 1: well just one man. Suddenly, the thing that resputants critics
Speaker 1: had feared for so long was coming true. For years,
Speaker 1: the rumors that Resputant was pulling the strings had been
Speaker 1: merely that, just rumors. His advice had been mostly encouragement
Speaker 1: for a troubled royal family. But now a new opportunity
Speaker 1: was presenting itself. With Nicholas away and Alexandra taking control,
Speaker 1: Grigory could finally become a real force behind the throne.
Speaker 1: And Grigory had his own reasons for wanting to grip
Speaker 1: the wheel. After all, the scar that still crossed his
Speaker 1: stomach was a testament to just how much his enemies
Speaker 1: wanted him dead. Here's Douglas Smith to remind us what's
Speaker 1: important to remember is that part of the reason Resputant
Speaker 1: is doing this is he is very much fearful for
Speaker 1: his life. There have been several attempted assassinations of resputing
Speaker 1: and he is terrified that the people in charged with
Speaker 1: keeping him safe are in fact the ones that want
Speaker 1: him dead. And so he is very much leaning on
Speaker 1: Alexandra to make sure that the people they hired to be,
Speaker 1: for example, the head of the police or the Ministry
Speaker 1: of the Interior, are in fact allies of his and
Speaker 1: not enemies just waiting to do him in. As we've seen,
Speaker 1: if Grigory was driven by his personal paranoia, so was Alexandra.
Speaker 1: They were relying on each other to see their way
Speaker 1: through the empire's dark days. Gregory relied on his empress,
Speaker 1: Alexandra relied on Gregory's insight from God. But there was
Speaker 1: little insight to be found, and in the coming days,
Speaker 1: as more power came into their hands, they would come
Speaker 1: to see clearly that Grigory Rasputin was right about one thing.
Speaker 1: At least, he had enemies on every side, and they
Speaker 1: were coming for his life, someone you can do business with.
Speaker 1: That's what they called grigory. It was obvious to everyone
Speaker 1: how things at the top were starting to change. Restputants
Speaker 1: critics were being thrown from the moving car. But if
Speaker 1: you were a political schemer and you wanted to get in, well,
Speaker 1: now there was an empty seat just waiting for you.
Speaker 1: The czar may have always been out of reach, but
Speaker 1: what about the elevated Siberian peasant with a penchant for drink,
Speaker 1: expensive clothes and nights out on the town. If other
Speaker 1: officials and ministers had tried to save Russia by tearing
Speaker 1: Rasputant down, a very different approach was now on offer. Flattery, gifts,
Speaker 1: and gossip. They were the stock in trade for many
Speaker 1: who had always been held on the outside. Now the
Speaker 1: wheelers and dealers around Petrograd saw doors opening for them
Speaker 1: as well. The opportunist with the Czarina's ear, well, that
Speaker 1: looked like an opportunity. But for men like the ones
Speaker 1: who stepped into the picture, Resputant was only valuable when
Speaker 1: he was still their route to the palace. Once they
Speaker 1: found themselves in the government's inner circle. Though, grigory respute
Speaker 1: and went from being an opportunity to a liability because
Speaker 1: anyone who wanted to use resputant to get to Alexandra
Speaker 1: soon found they would have to dispose of him if
Speaker 1: they wanted to get their own way. So the next
Speaker 1: time a call came threatening Grigory's life, it came from
Speaker 1: inside the house that he built. Here's Douglas Smith to
Speaker 1: give us the fascinating details. There are several plots and
Speaker 1: assassinations that were in the gainst for spute in his lifetime,
Speaker 1: and one of the more bizarre was put together by
Speaker 1: the so called troy Ka the Threesome, the head of
Speaker 1: which was the Minister of Interior, man named Stoff, who
Speaker 1: in fact got the job as minister claiming to be
Speaker 1: a defender of respute and an ally of Resputing the
Speaker 1: fact that he was even chosen at all, though, shows
Speaker 1: just how naive Gregory and Alexandra were, because while it
Speaker 1: was true that their new Minister of Interior was a
Speaker 1: well known and well connected man, the thing he was
Speaker 1: mostly known for was corruption. Yes, he had been a
Speaker 1: member of Eliador's right wing terrorist group, but he had
Speaker 1: also been a provincial governor. He had been elected to
Speaker 1: the Duma, but he didn't make friends there. The others
Speaker 1: called him a hooligan, a criminal, and a scoundrel. His
Speaker 1: patriotism was flamboyant and his hatred for Germans was real,
Speaker 1: but anyone who actually knew him could see that he
Speaker 1: was really just out for himself. When he was first appointed,
Speaker 1: Grigory was overjoyed resput and thought that finally he had
Speaker 1: a man in the government who would attend directly to him.
Speaker 1: After all, the new minister had made every promise that
Speaker 1: Gregory and Alexandra wanted to hear. He would crack down
Speaker 1: the press, he would help get Rasputants allies into other
Speaker 1: high positions. He would even supply Gregory with a regular
Speaker 1: allowance of money from the government coffers. When Gregory returned
Speaker 1: to Petrograd from a trip to Siberia in the fall
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifteen, he was buzzing with excitements. Things were
Speaker 1: finally going his way, but it was all too good
Speaker 1: to be true. Once he was appointed to serve in
Speaker 1: the Tsar's government as an ally to Rasputin, the new
Speaker 1: minister's true colors were on display. He very quickly then
Speaker 1: shifts to the other side, to the competing camp, and
Speaker 1: starts trying to dream up ways to to do in Resputin.
Speaker 1: He he plots to have him put on a train
Speaker 1: and sent off outside the capital, and then someone was
Speaker 1: going to come and pick him up and throw him
Speaker 1: off a speeding train. Um. There's attempts to put together
Speaker 1: a bottle of poison wine that he will drink and die. Um.
Speaker 1: And then together with a couple of others, he comes
Speaker 1: up with trying to lure Iliador, who by this time
Speaker 1: has fled Russia for Norway, to pay iliad Or sixty
Speaker 1: thousand rubles if iliad Or could get some of his
Speaker 1: allies who are still in Russia to shoot and kill Resputing.
Speaker 1: Now this plotting gets very complex. It's like a bizarre
Speaker 1: sort of crime story, but it all comes to light
Speaker 1: before it can happen. The moves that Nicholas was making
Speaker 1: at Alexandra and Rasputin's advice, of course, were turning his
Speaker 1: administration into a kind of wild West, the kind of
Speaker 1: place where, even once he was caught to the new
Speaker 1: minister thought he could simply talk his way out of consequences.
Speaker 1: Plus Stoff claims that no, no, no, I was never
Speaker 1: trying to kill Resputin. I was trying to out a
Speaker 1: plot to kill Resputin, but in the end of the
Speaker 1: whole thing blows up in his face. But it offers
Speaker 1: further proof to Alexander and Resputing that even the people
Speaker 1: that they hire in place and positions of power to
Speaker 1: keep resputing if are in fact snakes in the grass
Speaker 1: who won him killed. It was yet one more chance
Speaker 1: for the Romanovs to realize they were off track. But
Speaker 1: they had never been a royal couple to admit mistakes.
Speaker 1: With every misstep that risked their lives and that risked
Speaker 1: the empire, they only became more convinced the only people
Speaker 1: they could trust were themselves and the Siberian mystic, of course,
Speaker 1: and like Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin was undaunted. Rather than
Speaker 1: seeing just how bad he was at organizing an imperial government,
Speaker 1: Rasputin was actually emboldened. With every new minister appointed, he
Speaker 1: felt more and more powerful, He felt more and more
Speaker 1: in charge, and that feeling gratified him more than anything
Speaker 1: he had felt in a very long time. As nineteen
Speaker 1: sixteen began, Grigory Rasputin was back in Petrograd and he
Speaker 1: had come to flex his muscles. Let's remember that Alexandra
Speaker 1: was German. No one had really forgotten that either, but
Speaker 1: they were beginning to remember it in a new and
Speaker 1: all too significant way. After all, Russian soldiers were marching
Speaker 1: by the millions to fight Germans, and the German soldiers
Speaker 1: of the Austro Hungarian Empire were sending back those Russian
Speaker 1: boys in body bags. In an empire racked by fear, conspiracy,
Speaker 1: and the lust for blood, the dots were all too
Speaker 1: easy to connect, and all the more so with the
Speaker 1: next move they made to set up a government they
Speaker 1: could keep on a tight leash. Because the man that
Speaker 1: Alexandra recommended to Nicholas as the next prime minister was
Speaker 1: named Boris Sturmer. If that sounds like a German name
Speaker 1: to you, you're not alone. It seems like most of
Speaker 1: the Russian Empire felt the same too, even Nicholas for
Speaker 1: the czar. Of course, it could just have been that
Speaker 1: Boris wasn't the brightest bulb in the lamp, so to speak.
Speaker 1: He was also, like other misfires, a bit showy in
Speaker 1: society and a bit slow on anything that really mattered,
Speaker 1: a bureaucrat who was too old and too dull for
Speaker 1: even the other bureaucrats around the czar. They asked him
Speaker 1: to choose someone else, but none of the misgivings would
Speaker 1: compare to the letter Nicholas gott from Alexandra. I hope
Speaker 1: you will appoint him, she wrote, he has suited best
Speaker 1: of all for the present time. When Rasputin's own letter followed,
Speaker 1: Nicholas allowed himself to be swayed. In January of nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: Boris Sturmer became the new Prime Minister of the Russian Empire.
Speaker 1: On his very first day at the new post, he
Speaker 1: made the journey to Grigory's rooms. Boris pledged his loyalty.
Speaker 1: Rasputin gave his blessing. But if that set nerves at
Speaker 1: ease in the palace, it set off alarms throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of the Empire. Fears and conspiracies swelled into the
Speaker 1: streets like an overflowing sewer, And among the worst of
Speaker 1: it was the way that anti German fears were staining everything.
Speaker 1: In past generations, German and Slavic neighbors had settled down
Speaker 1: under the same imperial roof. There had been some growing
Speaker 1: sense of ethnic strife over the last few decades, sure,
Speaker 1: but for a long time Russian anger and fear had
Speaker 1: been turned not against the Germans but against the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: But when the dogs of war were finally loosed against
Speaker 1: Russia's European neighbors, there was a united effort to turn
Speaker 1: all of that fury against new targets. Here's Dr Joshua
Speaker 1: Sanborn to explain. The difficulty is that Nicholas himself, um,
Speaker 1: starting in nineteen fourteen become begins to play a much
Speaker 1: larger role in developing ethno politics, to encouraging the idea
Speaker 1: that you should mobilize around your ethnicity and so um.
Speaker 1: He tries to do some of that in the midst
Speaker 1: of the war as well. So and this is this
Speaker 1: is the toxic combination that explodes over the course of
Speaker 1: the war. And the thing was the shrapnel from that
Speaker 1: explosion was going to lodge in the Czar's own house.
Speaker 1: It was almost like he forgot where his wife had
Speaker 1: come from, but no one else did. And if the
Speaker 1: earliest parts of the war had allowed them to overlook
Speaker 1: that fact, things were piling up that brought it back
Speaker 1: to center stage. The recent failures on the battlefield, for example,
Speaker 1: could they be more incompetent? What about Alexandra's new energy
Speaker 1: for controlling the government, and the appointment of men like
Speaker 1: Boris Sturmer across the Empire, and especially in the offices
Speaker 1: of the disbanded Duma. People were beginning to ask, were
Speaker 1: the failures of the Russian government stupidity or treason? And
Speaker 1: maybe Alexandra was secretly more wedded to the land of
Speaker 1: her birth than to her new homeland. Those fears were unfounded,
Speaker 1: of course, but a lack of evidence had never stopped
Speaker 1: people from speculating wildly about Alexandra. That had been the
Speaker 1: stuff of popular conversations for years. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: that long runway of salacious gossip about what was happening
Speaker 1: in the palace that let the most recent, most vicious
Speaker 1: rumors take flight. The Czarina's most fervent critics were now
Speaker 1: wondering if every scandal going all the way back to
Speaker 1: monsenor Philippe and the missteps that Alexandra had made from
Speaker 1: the very beginning of her reign, we're all just one
Speaker 1: long game to undermine the romanof dynasty. But if there
Speaker 1: was a German plot to sabotage Russia, they would certainly
Speaker 1: have to look much further back than the day Alexandra
Speaker 1: and Nicholas first felt a spark at the family wedding.
Speaker 1: Here's Dr Joshua Sanborn to explain much of the Romanov
Speaker 1: family was was German. Virtually all of the stars over
Speaker 1: the course the nineteenth century had chosen brides from the
Speaker 1: German principalities and then from Germany itself. So many of
Speaker 1: them had German mothers, and this has been going back
Speaker 1: for again for generations, and this was starting to become
Speaker 1: a problem for them. Right Alexander would would eventually be
Speaker 1: sort of be criticized for being pro German because she
Speaker 1: had this German background to her critics. It was bad
Speaker 1: enough when the Empress was shuffling the deck of government agencies,
Speaker 1: the army and the police. But things really came to
Speaker 1: a head in nineteen sixteen when something even closer to
Speaker 1: Russian hearts came under Restputant's hand, the leadership of the
Speaker 1: Russian Church. Here's more from Douglas Smith. Spudents almost starts
Speaker 1: looking around for allies defenders and wants to have them.
Speaker 1: It in positions of power within the Russian Orthodox Church too,
Speaker 1: if you will guard him from his enemies, and one
Speaker 1: of those is Varnava, who was also born a peasant
Speaker 1: like him, had no real education, but was a powerful preacher,
Speaker 1: and then sort of makes his way slowly up the
Speaker 1: church and Resputant decides that he wants Varnava to be
Speaker 1: appointed bishop, but the bishops are strongly against it because
Speaker 1: they don't think he's worthy of the title in the position.
Speaker 1: But the one who can ultimately push this through is
Speaker 1: the Emperor, and resput and you know, in vegles his
Speaker 1: way in with Alexandra Nicholas and gets Nicholas against the
Speaker 1: wishes of the body known as the Holy Synod, which
Speaker 1: is a sort of the ruling body of the church,
Speaker 1: to go ahead and make Varnava a bishop, which he
Speaker 1: later becomes. And again this this introduces this great rift
Speaker 1: and distrust between the official church and nick list, which
Speaker 1: further undermines Nicholas and his power and authority. Amidst the
Speaker 1: turmoil of war, that choice erupted into its own scandal
Speaker 1: when the czar's handpicked bishop began feuding with the other
Speaker 1: leaders in the church. Because in that squabbling, the bishop
Speaker 1: visited Alexandra, he knew where to go when he needed
Speaker 1: a personal favor. He asked her to lean on the
Speaker 1: Tsar and replace the chief procurator of the church. So
Speaker 1: she did. But like the other let's call them personal
Speaker 1: choices that Alexander was making, this one was a real blunder.
Speaker 1: The man Alexandra chose was another government bureaucrats with no
Speaker 1: experience in the church. And then when she then started
Speaker 1: reassigning the bishops from city to city to bring allies
Speaker 1: of Rasputant to the post in Petrograd, the outrage was
Speaker 1: too much for pious Russians to take. Nicholas was the
Speaker 1: one who finally demanded the transfers, but the blame was
Speaker 1: placed squarely on Alexandra and Rasputin to the faithful priests
Speaker 1: and monks of the Russian Church. This shredded the fabric
Speaker 1: of Orthodox Christian faith. Yes, Nicholas was believed to be
Speaker 1: the divine autocrats, but by allowing a man like Rasputant
Speaker 1: to influence his decisions, he was now showing himself to
Speaker 1: be unworthy of that office. Somehow a serpent had slithered
Speaker 1: in and taken the crown. The wealthy elites across Russia
Speaker 1: were equally aflame with anger. Princess Zinaida Yusupov wrote to
Speaker 1: her son Felix that she was shocked by what was
Speaker 1: happening in the Czar's palace. She wished that she could
Speaker 1: leave Russia and never return. Gregory is back yet again,
Speaker 1: she wrote, and I disdain everyone who tolerates this and
Speaker 1: remains silent. She spoke for a growing number of the
Speaker 1: aristocrats who saw the empire crumbling around them. They started
Speaker 1: to call their governments the reign of Rasputin. It was
Speaker 1: Grigory's world and they were all just living in it.
Speaker 1: The pressure was growing for someone in their circles to
Speaker 1: do something. The fact that Boris Sturmer was pushed out
Speaker 1: of his office after only a few months did almost
Speaker 1: nothing to quell their fears. Putting out the spark that
Speaker 1: started the wildfires didn't save the forest, and in the
Speaker 1: flickering light of those flames, every little thing that Resputant
Speaker 1: and Alexandra had done over the past decade was being
Speaker 1: seen in a new light of suspicion. The very fact
Speaker 1: that Rasputin had counseled the Czar against war came back
Speaker 1: to bite him. He had begged Nicholas not to send
Speaker 1: Russian men like his son to the battle front. Now
Speaker 1: so many of those boys were dead, caught up in
Speaker 1: their search for a German conspiracy. The Russian public saw
Speaker 1: those doubting messages as a sign that Rasputin wasn't committed
Speaker 1: to the fight. His council had undermined the army. They thought,
Speaker 1: maybe it was even the reason that all those battles
Speaker 1: had been lost. His whispers in Alexandra's ear had led
Speaker 1: to the government being thrown topsy turvy. And now this
Speaker 1: wandering mystic who wasn't even a priest or a monk,
Speaker 1: believed that he was the man to decide who should
Speaker 1: lead God's holy Church in the heart of Russia. I
Speaker 1: hope you can see how easy it was to question
Speaker 1: all of this. Could it be that there was a
Speaker 1: secret plot laid by German agents to strangle the life
Speaker 1: out of Russia using a Siberian hand two aristocrats like
Speaker 1: Felix Yusupov Grigory was the spider at the center of
Speaker 1: a slowly constructed web, and the Czar was simply too
Speaker 1: blind to see that the Siberian peasant wasn't there to
Speaker 1: save Russia, he was there to tear it all down.
Speaker 1: His daily life was quite simple. In the morning, he
Speaker 1: would find himself in church, then It was breakfast, nothing elaborate,
Speaker 1: just something simple and nourishing. His home was five modest rooms.
Speaker 1: His furniture was sparse, a table and a few chairs,
Speaker 1: a cheap writing desk. Yes, he had a staff, people
Speaker 1: to cook and clean and care for his two daughters,
Speaker 1: Maria and Varvara. Sometimes his niece came to live with
Speaker 1: him in Petrograd too. It seems that even in nineteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: at the height of his power, there was still something
Speaker 1: in Grigory Resputant that wanted to do things the right way,
Speaker 1: to live simply to holy man. That would have surprised
Speaker 1: the people who knew about his business. It would have
Speaker 1: surprised the people paying him huge bribes to push forward
Speaker 1: their agenda behind the scenes. It would get a laugh
Speaker 1: from the people who saw him out on the town
Speaker 1: night after night, drinking Madeira wine and dancing with chorus girls.
Speaker 1: But the truth is often complicated, and Grigory Resputant remained
Speaker 1: a man with two faces. At home, Maria knew her
Speaker 1: father as the gentle and loving man who ate dry
Speaker 1: pretzels with his tea, the man who met with hundreds
Speaker 1: of followers every single day, despite his fears of being
Speaker 1: killed the man who took his huge bribes. Yes, but
Speaker 1: then gave them to the poor. That's one thing to
Speaker 1: be said for him. At least, if one of the
Speaker 1: people standing down his block came looking for money, they
Speaker 1: were actually going to get it. And what about the Empress. Yes,
Speaker 1: each month she paid his rent one and twenty one roubles,
Speaker 1: and yes she would hear his grand proclamations about how
Speaker 1: the government should be run, but much to her annoyance,
Speaker 1: even during the war years, he would come to the
Speaker 1: palace with his pockets stuffed with notes and request for
Speaker 1: the Czar. He felt duty bound to be an advocate
Speaker 1: for the Russian people, even peasants just like him. But
Speaker 1: it all feels less charming when we remember that many
Speaker 1: of the people who came to speak with him were women,
Speaker 1: and if they came on the wrong day. Grigory's attentions
Speaker 1: came with a heavy cost. He never stopped using his
Speaker 1: position and his power to force favors from vulnerable followers.
Speaker 1: There were men among his petitioners too. Of course, the
Speaker 1: secret police jotted down the many times that men tried
Speaker 1: to visit him in secret, ashamed of asking him for
Speaker 1: help with their careers. With securing promotions or with arranging
Speaker 1: shady business deals. Once he even had the governor general
Speaker 1: of the city of Petrograd groveling at his feet. By
Speaker 1: the later months of nineteen sixteen, Resputant's apartment almost seemed
Speaker 1: like its own kind of government agency. His power was
Speaker 1: no longer a matter of perception. He toppled his enemies,
Speaker 1: and the divine autocrat looked to him to speak the
Speaker 1: words of God. All of this for a Siberian peasant
Speaker 1: who never had an official government post. Yes, he became
Speaker 1: a creature of Petrograd. No matter how many nights he
Speaker 1: spent collecting gifts of wine and wealth from the Russian elites,
Speaker 1: he always seemed to hold on to his past, the
Speaker 1: light and the darkness too. In later years, Rasputin's daughter
Speaker 1: would write that Grigory wasn't just trying to use the
Speaker 1: Czar and Czarina as pawns. No, his belief in their
Speaker 1: god given place ruling the empire that was real, and
Speaker 1: over time he did come to love Nicholas and Alexandra.
Speaker 1: He loved serving them and their children. But he also
Speaker 1: loved the power that he got from that bond, and
Speaker 1: he had his own views too, of who the Romanovs
Speaker 1: really were. He believed that Nicholas was good, but painfully naive.
Speaker 1: He was a czar too far removed from the people,
Speaker 1: too wrapped in a bubble of protection, that made the
Speaker 1: Russian Empire hate and fear their ruler rather than love him.
Speaker 1: And once, it seems he even said so to Nicholas's face.
Speaker 1: And maybe in just this one instance, the czar saw
Speaker 1: things more clearly than the mystic. Nicholas told Rasputin that
Speaker 1: if he and Alexandra were to live out in the open,
Speaker 1: the people would kill him, just as they had his grandfather.
Speaker 1: Overcome by his devotion to the divine emperor, raspute and
Speaker 1: denied it. He said, the people would never kill their zar.
Speaker 1: If it would be anyone, Rasputin believed it would be
Speaker 1: the elites and intellectuals who would finally eat the Romanovs alive.
Speaker 1: But if Grigory was talking about the czar when he
Speaker 1: said those words, he got it slightly wrong. The elites
Speaker 1: of Petrograd didn't have their knives out pointed at Nicholas. Now.
Speaker 1: They were appointed at the peasant standing behind the throne.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of unobscured stick around
Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's
Speaker 1: in store for next week. She came in with the others.
Speaker 1: It was a typical day for Resputant. Petitioners were lined
Speaker 1: up outside his door. They filed in with requests for prayer,
Speaker 1: for favors, for help with something in their lives that
Speaker 1: was out of reach. Maybe they wanted healing for themselves
Speaker 1: or for a wounded son who had come back from
Speaker 1: the front, and she came in with them. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's no sign that Resputant thought she was any different
Speaker 1: from the rest, That is until she stepped up to Grigory.
Speaker 1: Something in her hand caught the light, and he asked
Speaker 1: her to show it to him. As she approached. Out
Speaker 1: from under her coat, she drew a revolver with a
Speaker 1: ferocious light in her eyes. She raised it between them
Speaker 1: and wavered. After a moment, she broke down. The point
Speaker 1: of a gun fell to the floor, and she offered
Speaker 1: it to Resputant. She had come to kill him, she said,
Speaker 1: and the secret police who were guarding Resputant hadn't seen
Speaker 1: that she was carrying a weapon to her meeting with him.
Speaker 1: She could have taken his life then and there. But
Speaker 1: instead she put the gun in his hands, and as
Speaker 1: she did, she told him it was when she saw
Speaker 1: his eyes that she realized her mistake. She simply couldn't
Speaker 1: go through with it. Unobscured was created by me Aaron
Speaker 1: Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh
Speaker 1: Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by
Speaker 1: Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis, and original music by
Speaker 1: Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials
Speaker 1: and links to our other shows over at grim and
Speaker 1: Mild dot com, slash Unobscured, and as always, thanks for
Speaker 1: listening the boo