1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:03,960 Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,639 Speaker 1: Minky smoke filled the air. They rose from the fires 3 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:14,200 Speaker 1: of war. Russia was struggling with Japan for the eastern 4 00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:17,680 Speaker 1: edge of the empire, but Nicholas mostly left that to 5 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,159 Speaker 1: his officers, not that it didn't keep him fretting. But 6 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:23,320 Speaker 1: at the same time, there were signs that the people 7 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:26,480 Speaker 1: of Russia weren't completely in line with his divine plan. 8 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:31,080 Speaker 1: At home, workers strikes in protests were rising up around 9 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:34,680 Speaker 1: the empire, and that included right there in the capital. 10 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:39,440 Speaker 1: Some among the aristocracy placed that purely at Nicholas's feet. 11 00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:43,400 Speaker 1: For instance, even his cousins said that the turmoil rolling 12 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:46,120 Speaker 1: over the country was all about his lack of will. 13 00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:49,160 Speaker 1: Maybe he was daydreaming about the days under the rule 14 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:52,199 Speaker 1: of the last Czar. Maybe he was daydreaming about the 15 00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,600 Speaker 1: throne himself, but either way it would have been foolish. 16 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:59,840 Speaker 1: He must have forgotten the way Nicholas's grandfather died shredded 17 00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:02,120 Speaker 1: by a bomb in the streets of the capital in 18 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:05,840 Speaker 1: the seventh attempt on his life. But let's be honest, 19 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,280 Speaker 1: no stronger commitment to authoritarian rule by any single Romanov 20 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:14,040 Speaker 1: could have stemmed the rising tide. Revolution was a many 21 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:19,200 Speaker 1: headed hydra. It just kept coming back. Under Nicholas. Unrest 22 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:23,240 Speaker 1: was not the exception either. Throughout nineteen o four, factory 23 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:26,720 Speaker 1: workers across the Imperial capital went on strike, and they 24 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:30,319 Speaker 1: knew they had the emperor by his epaulets. After all, 25 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 1: Russia was at war with Japan for the Pacific coast 26 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:37,080 Speaker 1: of the continent, and Nicholas's empire needed those factories open 27 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:40,679 Speaker 1: to supply the army. Nicholas did give the order to 28 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:45,400 Speaker 1: crack down on the strikes, targeting and killing revolutionary dissenters, 29 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: but nothing silenced the protests. In the first months of 30 00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:52,680 Speaker 1: nineteen o five, things got out of hand. Nicholas got 31 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:56,160 Speaker 1: word more than one hundred thousand workers were marching on 32 00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,920 Speaker 1: the Winter Palace, led by a socialist priest. It was 33 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:03,400 Speaker 1: January eight, and the news put the Romanovs in a panic. 34 00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:08,920 Speaker 1: The infantry was called In the next day, Sunday, January nine, 35 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,520 Speaker 1: the column of marching protesters arrived. What did they want? 36 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:16,320 Speaker 1: They made it clear, A good minimum wage, an eight 37 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:21,320 Speaker 1: hour work day, a constitution, and an elected government. Some 38 00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:24,880 Speaker 1: of the government ministers even felt that these were reasonable requests. 39 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,880 Speaker 1: They asked Nicholas to consider, but he silenced them. To 40 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:31,560 Speaker 1: the czar, all of this was not a sign that 41 00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: the empire needed reform. No, to Nicholas and the rest 42 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,000 Speaker 1: of the Romanovs, it was a sign that Russia needed 43 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,760 Speaker 1: a return to an even more pure autocracy. He told 44 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:44,640 Speaker 1: them that anything less would be an affront to God. 45 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:48,520 Speaker 1: When the crowd arrived at the palace, the infantry opened 46 00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,560 Speaker 1: fire and the cavalry charged. It was a massacre. Over 47 00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:55,840 Speaker 1: one thousand of the marchers were killed, and two thousand 48 00:02:55,840 --> 00:02:59,959 Speaker 1: were left screaming in the street. Nicholas wrote in his diary, 49 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,800 Speaker 1: how sad to the rest of Russia. Though it was 50 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:06,960 Speaker 1: more than sad, it was an outrage. They called it 51 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,040 Speaker 1: their own bloody Sunday, and they rallied to the call. 52 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:15,239 Speaker 1: Riots and bombs exploded across the empire. Over one thousand 53 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:19,320 Speaker 1: government officials were killed. Grand Duke Sergey, who had married 54 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:23,119 Speaker 1: Alexandra's older sister, was hit by a blast that scattered 55 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,720 Speaker 1: his carriage over the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Was 56 00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: it enough to challenge the power of the czars. Nicholas's 57 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:33,880 Speaker 1: sister continued to see the Romanov way It was, she said, 58 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:38,160 Speaker 1: a lack of authority. But by August there was no 59 00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:42,600 Speaker 1: escaping the truth. St. Petersburg was shut down, schools were closed, 60 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:47,240 Speaker 1: everyone was on strike. Nothing was being delivered over the roads, 61 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:51,040 Speaker 1: not even food, and Moscow too was at a standstill, 62 00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:54,560 Speaker 1: except when it was thronged by marchers in the streets 63 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,120 Speaker 1: and on the rooftops, waving red flags and calling for 64 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,880 Speaker 1: the end of the imperial way of life. What choice 65 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: did Nicholas have. In the end, he decided to insult 66 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:08,800 Speaker 1: God and save his throne. But even he couldn't quite 67 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:12,240 Speaker 1: admit it. He decided that the reforms were his idea, 68 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,640 Speaker 1: and he commanded that for the first time, a parliament 69 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 1: should be established for Russia. If the Czar said it, 70 00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:23,440 Speaker 1: then maybe it was God's will. After all. Nicholas may 71 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:25,800 Speaker 1: have needed the charade that it was all still under 72 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:30,359 Speaker 1: his control. But the winds of change were blowing in Russia. 73 00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:36,919 Speaker 1: It was for a time the end of autocracy. This 74 00:04:37,160 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: is unobscured, I'm Aaron Manky. It was a time of 75 00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:07,479 Speaker 1: massive change. Even before the Revolution of nineteen o five. 76 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:10,120 Speaker 1: The turmoil that came with the modern age was making 77 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:14,080 Speaker 1: themselves known across the Romanov's empire. Yes, it was a 78 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:18,159 Speaker 1: new era of industry and transportation, and everything from money 79 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:21,200 Speaker 1: to music to the news media was taking on new 80 00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:25,080 Speaker 1: and unfamiliar forms. As the people pushed for the government 81 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:29,120 Speaker 1: itself to change, Nicholas and Alexandra struggled to imagine that 82 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:33,560 Speaker 1: something new was even possible. Here's historian Douglas Smith to 83 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:38,600 Speaker 1: tell us more. There's been three hundred years of Romanov monarchy. 84 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:43,520 Speaker 1: The later decades of the dynasty under Nicholas the second 85 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:47,720 Speaker 1: our period of dynamic change. The economy is taking off, 86 00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:53,440 Speaker 1: it's growing. You get an increasingly sizeable um urban middle class, 87 00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:57,680 Speaker 1: you get the development of of an urban proletariat. So 88 00:05:57,760 --> 00:05:59,960 Speaker 1: on one hand, what you have is this sort of 89 00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:05,240 Speaker 1: dynamism and and change going on in the economy and 90 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:09,000 Speaker 1: in society at large. And then you have this static 91 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:13,040 Speaker 1: political system that goes back to the early seventeenth century 92 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,920 Speaker 1: of you know, one ruler with all supreme power apparently 93 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:20,279 Speaker 1: handed down from God. And so there's this growing tension 94 00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:25,320 Speaker 1: between a dynamic and developing society and a rigid political 95 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:28,640 Speaker 1: system that doesn't reflect the change. It was a time 96 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:31,320 Speaker 1: in Russian life when the people living in the cities 97 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:34,600 Speaker 1: and working in the factories were seeing something new in 98 00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:39,760 Speaker 1: their lives, new possibilities, a different kind of future. But 99 00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:42,520 Speaker 1: Nicholas and Alexandra still believe they were living in a 100 00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:45,279 Speaker 1: time when the blood of thousands spilled in the streets 101 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:48,599 Speaker 1: was less insulting to God than the emperor letting go 102 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:52,080 Speaker 1: of absolute power. In some ways, it almost feels like 103 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:56,119 Speaker 1: a failure of imagination. Nicholas simply could not see things 104 00:06:56,240 --> 00:06:59,480 Speaker 1: any other way. Whatever it was that kept him from 105 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,279 Speaker 1: seeing things from the view on the street, The truth 106 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:04,240 Speaker 1: was that the only way he could think about the 107 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:07,520 Speaker 1: Russian Empire was with himself and his family at the center, 108 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,400 Speaker 1: as if the only opinion that mattered was his own. 109 00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:13,920 Speaker 1: The people, what did they know? They weren't the czar. 110 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:16,120 Speaker 1: But that tenant of faith turned out to be a 111 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:19,880 Speaker 1: major blind spot for the Czar, as Dr Joshua Sanborn 112 00:07:19,960 --> 00:07:24,800 Speaker 1: can't explain for him to recognize that politics and Russia 113 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:28,120 Speaker 1: was modern politics. That you do have things like coalescing 114 00:07:28,560 --> 00:07:31,200 Speaker 1: public opinion, that you do have pressure groups, that you 115 00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:35,200 Speaker 1: do have constituencies rather than a passive population that you 116 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:38,480 Speaker 1: run by divine right, is fundamentally something that if you 117 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 1: were to accept that it would mean, he would have 118 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:42,200 Speaker 1: to accept that he's not a legitimate Sorry, he's not 119 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:44,640 Speaker 1: a legitimate leader, and he's he's unwilling to do that. 120 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:48,400 Speaker 1: In the end, though, Nicholas did sign on two reforms, 121 00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:51,040 Speaker 1: not because he thought they were right, but because the 122 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:53,680 Speaker 1: ministers around the Romanovs convinced them that it was the 123 00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:57,200 Speaker 1: only real way to preserve the monarchy. The document he 124 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:00,520 Speaker 1: signed putting new changes into law sound is like the 125 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:03,360 Speaker 1: first principles of the modern states we live in today. 126 00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:06,640 Speaker 1: A parliament with a house of representatives called the Duma, 127 00:08:06,840 --> 00:08:09,640 Speaker 1: with a prime minister to lead them. Civil rights and 128 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:12,800 Speaker 1: voting rights granted to the people of the empire, and 129 00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: so much more, not least of all, freedom of the 130 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:20,120 Speaker 1: press for the first time in Russian history. The changes 131 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,560 Speaker 1: were greeted with massive celebration, and the reforms came to 132 00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:27,080 Speaker 1: be known as the October Manifesto. But not for Nicholas 133 00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:30,920 Speaker 1: and Alexandra. They hung their heads in shame. Nicholas would 134 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:34,120 Speaker 1: never stop seeing his choice to give into these changes 135 00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:37,599 Speaker 1: as anything other than a blemish on Russian life. He 136 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:39,959 Speaker 1: would spend the rest of his time as are trying 137 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:44,080 Speaker 1: to claw back these changes. But as much as signing 138 00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:47,600 Speaker 1: the October Manifesto brought changes to Russian government. It was 139 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:50,560 Speaker 1: really just the culmination of a long process of change. 140 00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:54,080 Speaker 1: And as everywhere else in Russian life, the changes that 141 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:57,080 Speaker 1: boiled up in the October Manifesto had been bubbling for 142 00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:01,080 Speaker 1: a long time somewhere you might not expect the Russian Church, 143 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:04,640 Speaker 1: you see, by nineteen o five Russian religion had been 144 00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:08,120 Speaker 1: experiencing its own kind of new age for quite a while, 145 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:12,559 Speaker 1: the tight geist, if you will, of of fantasy ecla. Russia, 146 00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:15,560 Speaker 1: like other parts in Europe. Actually, to be honest, at 147 00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:19,520 Speaker 1: the time, there was very much a fascination with dark 148 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,800 Speaker 1: forces at play, with a sense that they were on 149 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:26,280 Speaker 1: the verge of some sort of apocalyptic change, that it 150 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:28,520 Speaker 1: was in some ways the end of times. And there 151 00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:36,800 Speaker 1: was a profound fascination with mysticism, spiritualism, the occult seances 152 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:40,880 Speaker 1: and table turning and and all sorts of these sorts 153 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:44,720 Speaker 1: of things. Hypnotism was was quite popular at the time. 154 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,640 Speaker 1: Most of elite aristocratic society and Russia at the time 155 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:52,840 Speaker 1: was fascinated with very spiritualist leaders, with gurus and what 156 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:57,120 Speaker 1: have you. And there was this desire to seek alternate 157 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:00,800 Speaker 1: ways of connecting with with forms of re pality that 158 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:04,840 Speaker 1: traditional religion and the Church and science were unable to 159 00:10:04,880 --> 00:10:07,720 Speaker 1: explain to people who were who were seeking answers to 160 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:10,520 Speaker 1: to sort of these life's questions that seemed to have 161 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:16,559 Speaker 1: this pressing urgency. Right around nineteen hundred, the Aristocrats experimenting 162 00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:20,880 Speaker 1: with spiritualism, like Romanov's friends Stana on Melitsa, were far 163 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:23,840 Speaker 1: from the only people leaving the Orthodox Church to look 164 00:10:23,880 --> 00:10:27,760 Speaker 1: for answers elsewhere in Siberia. As we know, the old 165 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:31,520 Speaker 1: Believers were practicing their own form of religion. They claimed 166 00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:34,400 Speaker 1: to be the real Orthodox Church, But there were also 167 00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:37,800 Speaker 1: Christians who were giving up an Orthodoxy altogether, like the 168 00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:40,480 Speaker 1: number of Baptists who were growing their churches on the 169 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:43,839 Speaker 1: European side of the Russian Empire. So when it came 170 00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:46,640 Speaker 1: time to rewrite the laws of nineteen o five, the 171 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:51,400 Speaker 1: October Manifesto also included new terms of religious freedom for Russians. 172 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:55,199 Speaker 1: The Orthodox Church, governed by the Czar was no longer 173 00:10:55,280 --> 00:10:59,600 Speaker 1: the only religion allowed in Russia. Of course, the leaders 174 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:02,160 Speaker 1: who had climbed their way to power through their belief 175 00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:04,719 Speaker 1: that the Orthodox Church was the only true way to 176 00:11:04,800 --> 00:11:08,480 Speaker 1: heaven were none too pleased with this development. It led 177 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:11,000 Speaker 1: many to believe that they had taken for granted the 178 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:15,160 Speaker 1: deep ties between St. Petersburg's cathedral and the Imperial throne, 179 00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:18,160 Speaker 1: and they had an ally in the throne's current occupant. 180 00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,000 Speaker 1: Having just taken the devil's bargain for peace at all 181 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:25,079 Speaker 1: costs and sold their birthright for a massive porridge, Nicholas 182 00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:27,200 Speaker 1: and Alexandra would now be looking for a way to 183 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:31,120 Speaker 1: reconnect with the faith they saw slipping away, and there 184 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:35,200 Speaker 1: were plenty of people with plenty of answers waiting in 185 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:42,720 Speaker 1: the wings. It was another meeting over tea, as usual 186 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:46,040 Speaker 1: Melissa hosted at her villa. The days were getting darker 187 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:48,480 Speaker 1: and the Romanovs were deeply in need of a close 188 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:52,720 Speaker 1: conversation with even closer friends. No lingering ill will around 189 00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:56,640 Speaker 1: court from the scandal of Mr Philip had kept Alexandra 190 00:11:56,679 --> 00:11:59,400 Speaker 1: away from her friends, no matter what names the other 191 00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:02,800 Speaker 1: members of the Romanov family might call them. So when 192 00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:06,200 Speaker 1: Melissa's imitations went out, the friends flocked to her door. 193 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:10,920 Speaker 1: Stana and Nikolasha came, of course. Nicholas and Alexandra arrived 194 00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:13,600 Speaker 1: at four o'clock, but it wasn't just their small circle. 195 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:17,559 Speaker 1: No When Nicholas and Alexandra arrived, they found someone new 196 00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:21,160 Speaker 1: waiting for them. There. Nicholas would make a brief note 197 00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:24,080 Speaker 1: in his diary, We made the acquaintance of a man 198 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:29,000 Speaker 1: of God, he wrote, Grigory from the Tobolsk region. In fact, 199 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:32,160 Speaker 1: their visit for Tea stretched into the night. It would 200 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,240 Speaker 1: be seven o'clock with a darkness falling around them before 201 00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:38,160 Speaker 1: the royal couple broke away from conversation with their friends 202 00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:41,640 Speaker 1: and with Grigory Rasputin, and they made their way back 203 00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:45,240 Speaker 1: to the palace with the satisfaction of a surprising new encounter. 204 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,920 Speaker 1: It was a short journey, and I think it's worth 205 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:51,960 Speaker 1: noting just how high a climb that was. For Grigory, 206 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,520 Speaker 1: the simple peasant, had just made the acquaintance of the 207 00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:59,280 Speaker 1: rulers of the mightiest empire on earth. For Nicholas and Alexandra, 208 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:01,680 Speaker 1: it came at us the moment they felt most in 209 00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:05,319 Speaker 1: need of a friend. That diary entry by Nicholas remarked 210 00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:08,160 Speaker 1: the patches of ice were beginning to freeze in the canal. 211 00:13:08,600 --> 00:13:10,560 Speaker 1: He might as well have written that ice was beginning 212 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:13,840 Speaker 1: to freeze his soul only a few weeks before, when 213 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:16,360 Speaker 1: he gave into the calls for political reform in the 214 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:20,480 Speaker 1: Empire and signed the October Manifesto. He had betrayed his 215 00:13:20,559 --> 00:13:24,200 Speaker 1: deepest convictions about his place in the world, the beliefs 216 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:27,400 Speaker 1: which gave meaning and direction to his life. But it 217 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,120 Speaker 1: wasn't just Nicholas who would have been devastated by that. 218 00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:33,160 Speaker 1: In the years that they had been married, Alexandra bought 219 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:36,760 Speaker 1: into Nicholas's view. She never wavered. They believed that they 220 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:40,400 Speaker 1: were meant to rule Russia by divine right. Here's historian 221 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:45,240 Speaker 1: Helen Rappaport to tell us more. In Russia, autocracy and 222 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:51,160 Speaker 1: orthodoxy went absolutely hand in hand, that that they were 223 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:54,400 Speaker 1: the cornerstone. I mean, to be czar, you had to 224 00:13:54,440 --> 00:14:00,720 Speaker 1: be Orthodox. And they had this absolutely implacable belief that 225 00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:03,440 Speaker 1: in the divine right of the czar, pretty much like 226 00:14:03,640 --> 00:14:06,360 Speaker 1: the divine right of kings even in Britain back in 227 00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:11,040 Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, there was a god given role that 228 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:15,760 Speaker 1: Nicholas had this duty to perform, and he had to 229 00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,280 Speaker 1: perform it in the absolute traditional manner in which it 230 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:23,360 Speaker 1: had been handed down to him. And Alexandra very much 231 00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:29,320 Speaker 1: believed in this idea that they were the little mother 232 00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:33,440 Speaker 1: and little father of the nation, the martush Bartuska, as 233 00:14:33,480 --> 00:14:36,640 Speaker 1: they were called by the peasantry, and that the peasantry 234 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:43,840 Speaker 1: looked up to them unquestionably with unquestionable loyalty and devotion. 235 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,320 Speaker 1: And she believed that stubbornly, right to the very end, 236 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:51,400 Speaker 1: that the people really loved them. Recent events had not 237 00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:54,840 Speaker 1: shaken their belief for Alexandra. But if Nicholas believed that 238 00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:58,840 Speaker 1: he had insulted God by giving into the revolutionaries and reformers, 239 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,360 Speaker 1: Alexander at my To thought the same. So when Grigory 240 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:04,800 Speaker 1: met the Romanovs in the company of their closest friends, 241 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,520 Speaker 1: we can see what would make him attractive to them. 242 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:10,280 Speaker 1: He was a Siberian priest, but one who seemed to 243 00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:14,120 Speaker 1: silence any doubt about what the peasants really wanted. After all, 244 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:16,760 Speaker 1: he wasn't trying to wrest power away from the throne. 245 00:15:17,080 --> 00:15:20,040 Speaker 1: He was celebrating their power. Plus, he came with a 246 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:23,040 Speaker 1: sheaf of recommendations in hand from the people Nicholas and 247 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:27,080 Speaker 1: Alexandra trusted the most, the authorities in the Russian Orthodox Church. 248 00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:31,080 Speaker 1: Here's more from Douglas Smith. Well, what helps sort of 249 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:35,000 Speaker 1: open the doors of the capital for resputing, chiefly are 250 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:40,240 Speaker 1: his contacts with higher ups within the Russian Orthodox Church. 251 00:15:40,400 --> 00:15:43,720 Speaker 1: Through his years as a holy pilgrim, he had come 252 00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:48,000 Speaker 1: to impress a great many priests and then bishops and 253 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: archbishops within the church as a true man of God, 254 00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:56,760 Speaker 1: as a true holy man who has risen up from 255 00:15:56,800 --> 00:16:00,240 Speaker 1: the depths of Russian peasant society. And he literally league 256 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:04,440 Speaker 1: gets letters of recommendation from priests and bishops as churches, 257 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:07,240 Speaker 1: at churches and monasteries as he goes along. And it's 258 00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:11,560 Speaker 1: with these letters of recommendation that he shows up in St. Petersburg, 259 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:15,200 Speaker 1: probably some time around nineteen o four and is immediately 260 00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:18,600 Speaker 1: accepted in at the Alexander Dievsky Monastery, one of the 261 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,600 Speaker 1: great seats of Russian holiness within the Russian Orthodox Church. 262 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:27,760 Speaker 1: And originally, these these church members are amazed at this figure. 263 00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:31,479 Speaker 1: They have never seen someone quite like him, the energy, 264 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:35,520 Speaker 1: the fervor with which he praised the and preaches the 265 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:37,880 Speaker 1: word of God. He's referred to as a as a 266 00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:41,800 Speaker 1: burning torch, as a taught string. They sensed this sort 267 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:45,360 Speaker 1: of electrical charge that comes from him as he speaks 268 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:49,480 Speaker 1: the word of God. And then through his connections in 269 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:55,280 Speaker 1: the church, he then is introduced into aristocratic society. And 270 00:16:55,320 --> 00:16:58,120 Speaker 1: what made Grigory all the more trustworthy to Nicholas and 271 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:02,120 Speaker 1: Alexandra was that this has Wanderer had been introduced to 272 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:06,479 Speaker 1: Stana and Melitza by their personal confessor, a powerful Russian 273 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:10,520 Speaker 1: churchman named Theo Fan. He was a brilliant and intense 274 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,320 Speaker 1: monk who had recently taken over the training school for 275 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:17,000 Speaker 1: priests in St. Petersburg. That made him the our command right, 276 00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:21,520 Speaker 1: a figure of tremendous authority governing an important monastery in 277 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,000 Speaker 1: the empire's capital, And like so many others in his day, 278 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:28,080 Speaker 1: theo Fan was wondering what the Orthodox Church needed to 279 00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:31,480 Speaker 1: do to rekindle its faith. They thought maybe they needed 280 00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,760 Speaker 1: the burning torch of men like Rasputant. While he served 281 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:40,119 Speaker 1: as confessor to occultist aristocrats like Meliza, theo Fan was 282 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:43,440 Speaker 1: also doing some searching of his own. Neither among the 283 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:47,040 Speaker 1: dead bureaucracy of the church authorities, nor in the flickering 284 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,560 Speaker 1: shadows of European gas lights. No, theo Fan was looking 285 00:17:50,600 --> 00:17:54,119 Speaker 1: for holy men with Russian dirt under their fingernails, and 286 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:57,160 Speaker 1: when he met Rasputin, he knew he had found his man. 287 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,760 Speaker 1: So it was theo Fan who opened the doors to St. 288 00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:04,600 Speaker 1: Petersburg's salons for Grigory Rasputin. The two men would go 289 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:09,159 Speaker 1: together to those swirling symphonies of gossip and inquiry. Aristocrats 290 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,400 Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg were skeptical and cynical about the Church, 291 00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:16,359 Speaker 1: but the deep interest in superstition and the spiritual hunger 292 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,720 Speaker 1: behind so many eyes meant that they were ready to 293 00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:22,760 Speaker 1: sample what Resputant was serving. The same was true, of course, 294 00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:28,560 Speaker 1: with the Romanovs themselves. Four days after meeting Grigory, Nicholas 295 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:31,560 Speaker 1: got a letter from this wandering preacher, and it drove 296 00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:34,560 Speaker 1: home that he was just the flavor of religious patriot 297 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:37,919 Speaker 1: they had been looking for. He called Nicholas a great 298 00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:41,720 Speaker 1: emperor and the autocrat of all Russia. And his note 299 00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:45,040 Speaker 1: is full of praise, we might even call it flattery 300 00:18:45,080 --> 00:18:48,160 Speaker 1: for the crown. It was also full of reassuring comments 301 00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:51,720 Speaker 1: that the Romanovs were the masters, and the peasants like 302 00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:55,280 Speaker 1: Rasputin merely their subjects. Don't worry too much about the 303 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:57,920 Speaker 1: strange turn at the times had taken. He told them 304 00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:00,840 Speaker 1: they were doing their best, and sooner God would come 305 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:05,040 Speaker 1: to their aid. Here's more from Douglas Smith. What's interesting 306 00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:08,680 Speaker 1: is from the very beginning of their relationship. He offers 307 00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:12,879 Speaker 1: Nicholas political advice and says, don't give up the throne, 308 00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:17,680 Speaker 1: don't give up power, maintain the dynasty, maintain the autocracy. 309 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,120 Speaker 1: And this is just the sort of message that Nick 310 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:23,240 Speaker 1: Nicholas is looking for, and especially to hear it not 311 00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:27,160 Speaker 1: from some minister or general, but to hear it from 312 00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:30,840 Speaker 1: a peasant from Siberia, from a man of God. It says, 313 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:36,359 Speaker 1: almost as if he becomes a mouthpiece for all of 314 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,760 Speaker 1: peasant Russia. When Nicholas and Alexander sit down with Rispute 315 00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:43,040 Speaker 1: and they feel they are hearing the voice of the 316 00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:47,000 Speaker 1: peasant masses. It was exactly the kind of thing Nicholas 317 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:50,440 Speaker 1: and Alexandra wanted. If they feared that they had disappointed 318 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,680 Speaker 1: God by giving up their unquestioned rule over the empire, 319 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:56,959 Speaker 1: they now had this holy man, this rough and tumble 320 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,760 Speaker 1: traveler with piercing eyes and prophetic words, to tell them 321 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:03,520 Speaker 1: that all was not lost. In fact, they had come 322 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:07,200 Speaker 1: through it all, war, with Japan, revolution across the capital, 323 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:10,480 Speaker 1: a new representative government, and all the changes of the 324 00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:13,440 Speaker 1: modern age. They had come through it all, and they 325 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:18,439 Speaker 1: would be okay. God would still help them Resputant didn't 326 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,040 Speaker 1: stay in the capital. Soon enough he was on his 327 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,720 Speaker 1: way again, back on the road, but he had certainly 328 00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:27,119 Speaker 1: made an impression. In fact, Nicholas and Alexander were so 329 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:30,320 Speaker 1: pleased that, even with Resputant gone, the people who had 330 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:33,920 Speaker 1: brought the peasant into their presence were in royal favor. 331 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:37,480 Speaker 1: Take for example, the ar command right theo Fan. Two 332 00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:41,120 Speaker 1: weeks after Nicholas and Alexandra met with Resputant, they sent 333 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:43,920 Speaker 1: a request of theo Fan come to the Royal Palace 334 00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:46,880 Speaker 1: to discuss an important matter, and of course he did 335 00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:50,600 Speaker 1: as he was told. We can only imagine his anticipation 336 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:53,080 Speaker 1: as he neared the palace. He had worked his way 337 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:56,879 Speaker 1: into Stana and Melitz's trust, he had learned their interests, 338 00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,919 Speaker 1: He had even brought them exciting new teachers like Grigor 339 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,800 Speaker 1: a Resputin, and it seemed like they had been pleased. 340 00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:05,880 Speaker 1: He must have felt like everything was going according to plan. 341 00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:09,080 Speaker 1: All the more so when he arrived at the palace. 342 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,080 Speaker 1: When he met with Nicholas, the Czar honored him with 343 00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:15,919 Speaker 1: a new request. Do for Nicholas and Alexandra what he 344 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:19,760 Speaker 1: did for Stanna and melitza serve at the throne as 345 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:25,600 Speaker 1: the Romanov's personal confessor for Fia Fan. Knowing Grigory Rasputin 346 00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:32,600 Speaker 1: was starting to pay off, he was decked out in finery. 347 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:35,720 Speaker 1: It was strange for a poor wanderer, but it seems 348 00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:39,000 Speaker 1: the contradiction didn't hold Grigory back. He arrived home in 349 00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,800 Speaker 1: Pokrovsko with stories to tell, man to show. In fact, 350 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,240 Speaker 1: the first impressions he made were the most flamboyant. His 351 00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,600 Speaker 1: wealthy followers and admirers and big cities like Kazan and St. 352 00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:53,119 Speaker 1: Petersburg had showered him with new clothing. Now that he 353 00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:56,040 Speaker 1: was back in his hometown, he wore them proudly. If 354 00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,439 Speaker 1: he had been known as something of a troublemaker before, 355 00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,600 Speaker 1: and maybe even a old life, well he should show 356 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,680 Speaker 1: them how high he had climbed the Imperial letter. No 357 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:07,360 Speaker 1: one would look down on him now. And then there 358 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,240 Speaker 1: was the money. He came back home with a lot 359 00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:13,480 Speaker 1: of it, and he started throwing it around. First, it 360 00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:15,959 Speaker 1: was time for a new house for himself and his family. 361 00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:19,240 Speaker 1: Right on Main Street was a good spot, right across 362 00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:23,080 Speaker 1: from the place where carriages would stop and resupply, exchange horses, 363 00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:26,520 Speaker 1: and give travelers a chance to gossip. Not that you 364 00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,159 Speaker 1: need outsiders for that. Folks at home were more than 365 00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,040 Speaker 1: capable of whispering down the lane all on their own, 366 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:36,120 Speaker 1: and whisper they did. The news went around that Gregory 367 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,080 Speaker 1: had gotten all his money from some of the most 368 00:22:38,119 --> 00:22:42,200 Speaker 1: powerful people in Russia, for instance the Black Crows, those 369 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,240 Speaker 1: sisters who were close to the Czar, or maybe even 370 00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:49,919 Speaker 1: the Czar himself. Whatever the case, Gregory made no effort 371 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:52,879 Speaker 1: to hide the triumphant parade of his family and belongings 372 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:56,400 Speaker 1: into the large two story house, with its expanse of property, 373 00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:02,159 Speaker 1: bath barn, flower boxes, and elaborately pain did window frames inside, 374 00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,200 Speaker 1: he made it his own. His parents, his wife, and 375 00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:09,080 Speaker 1: his children moved into rooms on the first floor, though 376 00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,080 Speaker 1: one of the rooms was reserved for devotion and filled 377 00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,560 Speaker 1: with icons. The Kazan Mother of God stood out from 378 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:19,160 Speaker 1: the rest. The second level Resputant set aside for guests 379 00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:24,320 Speaker 1: and for Grigory's work. His desk, his comfortable chairs, his piano. 380 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,280 Speaker 1: They all seemed better suited to the cities he had 381 00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,719 Speaker 1: left than to the home he was moving into, and 382 00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,359 Speaker 1: new decor moved in as well, including photos of Resputant 383 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:39,119 Speaker 1: posing with the people he had met. Priests, students and aristocrats, 384 00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:42,040 Speaker 1: and no one would miss the portrait of Rasputin with 385 00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:46,760 Speaker 1: the Czar and Czarina of Russia. Even with Resputant at home, 386 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,600 Speaker 1: more and more of these luxuries came into town, with 387 00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:53,600 Speaker 1: each new baggage train passing through packages from the capital, 388 00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,119 Speaker 1: gifts of money. All of them came to him from St. 389 00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,959 Speaker 1: Petersburg's wealthy and well known set in, seeing that resputants 390 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,399 Speaker 1: claims of friends and high places was more than just bluster. 391 00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,880 Speaker 1: And of course there was a train of visitors too. 392 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,399 Speaker 1: Once they knew who Grigory Resputin was and where he 393 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:14,679 Speaker 1: could be found, they arrived hot on his trail. No 394 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,600 Speaker 1: wonder Resputin wanted all of this expensive furniture. He wanted 395 00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,960 Speaker 1: to receive them in style. Priests and friends of theo 396 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,639 Speaker 1: fan were first in line. People around Prokovsko remembered that 397 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,800 Speaker 1: these guests that most of their time closed up in 398 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,040 Speaker 1: the new Resputant house. The colorful windows didn't keep the 399 00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:35,000 Speaker 1: neighbors from hearing the sound of resputants piano jangling along 400 00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:38,080 Speaker 1: as the household and their guests sang hymns. And when 401 00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:41,000 Speaker 1: these visitors did speak to someone local, what did they 402 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,800 Speaker 1: have to say about Grigory's life in the capital, well, 403 00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,120 Speaker 1: it only added to his prestige. He was known in St. 404 00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,520 Speaker 1: Petersburg as a miracle worker. We can only imagine the 405 00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,560 Speaker 1: sideways glances this may have provoked among the people who 406 00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,439 Speaker 1: knew his humble origins. Not that Resputin made no effort, 407 00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 1: though far from it. In fact, one of the things 408 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,760 Speaker 1: he always said was that his original idea for going 409 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,600 Speaker 1: to St. Petersburg was to raise money to build a 410 00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,280 Speaker 1: new church in Pekrosco. While no new church was in evidence. 411 00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,040 Speaker 1: As the years went by, some of the money Grigory 412 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,199 Speaker 1: received did reach the local priests, and it was no 413 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,640 Speaker 1: small potatoes. In fact, he handed over five thousand roubles 414 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,280 Speaker 1: to them, and if that wasn't enough, he said, this 415 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,240 Speaker 1: was a gift from the Czar himself. We can almost 416 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,040 Speaker 1: see the glint in his eye saying to the local priests, 417 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:31,320 Speaker 1: never say I didn't do you any favors. But of 418 00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,160 Speaker 1: course this wasn't the only glance the locals would see 419 00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:37,560 Speaker 1: in Grigory's face. Everyone could see that while he may 420 00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,840 Speaker 1: have gone to the capitol and worked some miracles, there 421 00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,720 Speaker 1: was still a bit of the scamp in Grigory's scamper home, 422 00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:46,920 Speaker 1: and that was nowhere more clear than in the group 423 00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:56,879 Speaker 1: of followers that Grigory called his little ladies. Olga was 424 00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,639 Speaker 1: a respectable woman. She was beautiful too, The daughter of 425 00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,640 Speaker 1: a Kazan nobleman, she had married an engineer and made 426 00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,080 Speaker 1: her move to the capital city, where she had her 427 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,600 Speaker 1: children and made friends among her husband's connections. So it 428 00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,520 Speaker 1: was in St. Petersburg that her trouble started. Because Olga 429 00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,479 Speaker 1: had an illness that refused to go away, something with 430 00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:19,879 Speaker 1: her digestion that caused her enormous pain, not to mention 431 00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,879 Speaker 1: personal embarrassment, especially when she couldn't keep it from her friends. 432 00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,600 Speaker 1: Once they knew, though, they started to make suggestions, and 433 00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,800 Speaker 1: one of them, a well connected priest, had a slightly 434 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,400 Speaker 1: unusual idea. Not a doctor, what use had they been 435 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,960 Speaker 1: so far, but something else. The priest had recently been 436 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,080 Speaker 1: in the company of the archimandright theo Fan, and theo 437 00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,119 Speaker 1: Fan had introduced him to someone who might help, a 438 00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:50,160 Speaker 1: wandering preacher named Resputin. With the priest's recommendation, Olga decided 439 00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:53,400 Speaker 1: to give the faith healer try. The thing is, when 440 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,199 Speaker 1: Resputant prayed over her, she felt the illness vanish, the 441 00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:01,840 Speaker 1: pain disappeared. She was free. After an encounter like that, 442 00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,280 Speaker 1: maybe we can understand why Olga would become a resputant fonetic. 443 00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,840 Speaker 1: She invited Grigory to stay with her family in St. Petersburg, 444 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,639 Speaker 1: and in time her devotion to him would reach the 445 00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:14,920 Speaker 1: level of the bizarre, and she was just the first 446 00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,960 Speaker 1: of his little ladies. Soon she was joined by a 447 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,000 Speaker 1: widow who carried a crushing guilt for her husband's death. 448 00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,920 Speaker 1: Her meeting with Resputant helped her lift the blame she 449 00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,200 Speaker 1: had placed on herself. She fell in line behind Olga 450 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:30,400 Speaker 1: or Take the nurse who had worked through the violence 451 00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,480 Speaker 1: of the Russia Japanese War. She was intrigued by the 452 00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,120 Speaker 1: stories and asked Olga to introduce her to Resputin. When 453 00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,560 Speaker 1: she met him, she fell head over heels. He has 454 00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,679 Speaker 1: such a simple way with people, she said. He is 455 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,000 Speaker 1: so full of goodness and pure love for others, unlike 456 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,880 Speaker 1: anything I have encountered. After witnessing the violence of war, 457 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:55,320 Speaker 1: Grigory's teaching on love and suffering must have offered enormous relief. 458 00:27:56,200 --> 00:28:00,919 Speaker 1: Of course, others followed, women who had tried and discarded hypnotism, 459 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,000 Speaker 1: women who had given up on their own parade of 460 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,040 Speaker 1: doctors and medications, women who had given up on the 461 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,840 Speaker 1: power of the church or the love in their marriage. 462 00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,080 Speaker 1: When they finally came face to face with Grigory Resputin, 463 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,880 Speaker 1: they saw something different in his eyes, his stare. They 464 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,480 Speaker 1: could see something new looking back at them. But it's 465 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,960 Speaker 1: not like Resputin was the only one gathering a tight 466 00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,679 Speaker 1: knit following around him, of course. After all, it was 467 00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,480 Speaker 1: his own pilgrimage to the hermit Macquarie that got Grigory 468 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,399 Speaker 1: started on the life of a religious wanderer. And in 469 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,919 Speaker 1: those days when Resputin started to get religious visitors of 470 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,760 Speaker 1: his own, well, he was far from the most well known. 471 00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,400 Speaker 1: For example, take Father John of Cronstone, a deeply charismatic 472 00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,640 Speaker 1: and widely popular preacher in the late eighteen hundreds. He 473 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,480 Speaker 1: became such a popular figure in the Russian church that 474 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,840 Speaker 1: some historians today have even called him the first modern 475 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:56,400 Speaker 1: religious celebrity in Russia. Here's Dr Heather Coleman to say more, 476 00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:02,120 Speaker 1: Father John of Cronstadt, who was truly the Billy Graham 477 00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,840 Speaker 1: of late Imperial Russia. He was a priest who had 478 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:10,680 Speaker 1: a church outside of Petersburg and craunched At, where he 479 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:17,880 Speaker 1: emphasized a kind of a charismatic, participatory form of Orthodoxy. 480 00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,000 Speaker 1: It had quite a sort of mystical side. People would 481 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,720 Speaker 1: travel to his parish, they would write to him, people 482 00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,280 Speaker 1: would carry posters and cards about him. He was he 483 00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:33,200 Speaker 1: was a huge religious figure, and he was within the church. 484 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:38,520 Speaker 1: But then he had groups of followers who who sort 485 00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:43,120 Speaker 1: of went beyond and sort of idealized him and turn 486 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,000 Speaker 1: him into a sort of a mystical figure that they 487 00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,959 Speaker 1: admire in and of himself. Like all other churches, the 488 00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,160 Speaker 1: Orthodox Church had trouble keeping up with the growth of 489 00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:58,320 Speaker 1: of working class suburbs in cities, and and so sometimes 490 00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,800 Speaker 1: you know, there's a lack of available ability of a 491 00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,600 Speaker 1: church right there in the neighborhood, and so people make 492 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,800 Speaker 1: their own fun for crounch dots followers. That fun meant 493 00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,480 Speaker 1: the things you might expect, mystical healings and other miraculous 494 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,000 Speaker 1: powers that made it clear that he had the ear 495 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,760 Speaker 1: of God himself. And like Resputent, he was known for 496 00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,440 Speaker 1: having a close following of religious women. Some writers called 497 00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:25,440 Speaker 1: them Janites, the most intense and fanatical of them, but 498 00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,360 Speaker 1: they were intense for a reason. They thought Father John 499 00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:32,240 Speaker 1: was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ himself. If the stories 500 00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,720 Speaker 1: about them can be believed. They were known for throwing 501 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,320 Speaker 1: their bodies on Father John, even biting him until he bled. 502 00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,280 Speaker 1: It gives a new meaning to the words rabid fan. 503 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,680 Speaker 1: And when he died, several of the women who followed 504 00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,160 Speaker 1: him broke into his apartment and rated it for his 505 00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,360 Speaker 1: personal items, relics of his holiness and healing powers to 506 00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:55,400 Speaker 1: take home. Not that Father John encouraged any of this. 507 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,040 Speaker 1: It said he refused to give communion to the women 508 00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,640 Speaker 1: who attacked him out of zeal but there's no question 509 00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,240 Speaker 1: that he put some care into cultivating his reputation, and 510 00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,640 Speaker 1: his followers came from all parts of Russian life, including 511 00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,760 Speaker 1: the highest echelons of Russian society. In fact, in the 512 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,240 Speaker 1: days when Nicholas's father had fallen ill, Father John had 513 00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,600 Speaker 1: been summoned in the hopes that his prayers would bring 514 00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,160 Speaker 1: the czar's health back. The prayers, of course, were unanswered, 515 00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,840 Speaker 1: and the weight of ruling Russia fell to Nicholas and 516 00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,719 Speaker 1: his new wife. But when the Czar died, it was 517 00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,080 Speaker 1: Father John and not any other official in the Orthodox 518 00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,680 Speaker 1: Church who administered the last rites. So when the stories 519 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,600 Speaker 1: of Grigory rasputants growing legion of followers, and his close 520 00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,640 Speaker 1: ties to the Imperial court started to grow, no one 521 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,480 Speaker 1: really had to look far from some point of comparison. 522 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,560 Speaker 1: Maybe it was a little odd, sure, but people do 523 00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,600 Speaker 1: odd things all the time. Just look at Father John. 524 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,800 Speaker 1: In the life of a preacher, being a royal favorite 525 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,840 Speaker 1: could mean a lot. Soon, though, the stories being whispered 526 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,480 Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg about Rasputin didn't be so easily dismissed 527 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,800 Speaker 1: through glib comparisons to other preachers. Had Father John's followers 528 00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,840 Speaker 1: ever sewn his fingernail clippings into their clothes as if 529 00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: they were holy relics? Because they were doing that for Grigory, 530 00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,200 Speaker 1: Where was the religious wanderer who would criss cross Russia 531 00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,240 Speaker 1: on foot begging for food. Well, these days he was 532 00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,760 Speaker 1: coming up the river on an expensive luxury steamer, clinking 533 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:27,520 Speaker 1: glasses with the wealthy. But if Grigory liked it that way, well, 534 00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,280 Speaker 1: he was about to find himself navigating some rough waters. 535 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:38,080 Speaker 1: The bishop was going on the offensive. He was in Tobolsk, 536 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,560 Speaker 1: the city closest to Rasputin's home, village, and he had 537 00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,360 Speaker 1: received letters from a number of women who had visited 538 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,360 Speaker 1: this religious wanderer in Pokrovsko, and what they reported had 539 00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,760 Speaker 1: the bishop deeply disturbed. One letter was from a woman 540 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,320 Speaker 1: who said that she had first met Gregory respued In 541 00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,440 Speaker 1: in nineteen o three. It was her sister's funeral, and 542 00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,320 Speaker 1: while she was grieving the loss, Grigory had approached to her. 543 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,480 Speaker 1: He said he was looking for some young women to 544 00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,040 Speaker 1: go with him to the bath house. What they were 545 00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,120 Speaker 1: going to do there, well, he said they were going 546 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:11,040 Speaker 1: to learn to temper their passions. He assured her that 547 00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:13,960 Speaker 1: he meant nothing immoral by this, but that smelled of 548 00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,920 Speaker 1: protesting too much. She declined, but looked into it, and 549 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:20,800 Speaker 1: what she found took her from skeptical to dead set 550 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,360 Speaker 1: against him. Apparently, Rasputin was traveling from village to village, 551 00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,600 Speaker 1: warning that some traveling holy men were really seducers in disguise. 552 00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,040 Speaker 1: But he offered a solution. He could help the town's 553 00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:37,120 Speaker 1: young women defend themselves from those hungry wolves by desensitizing 554 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,920 Speaker 1: themselves to the sin of lust. All they had to do, 555 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,200 Speaker 1: he said, was come with him to the bath house 556 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,120 Speaker 1: and subject themselves to him. After they felt his kisses, 557 00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,840 Speaker 1: their passions would be conquered. They would be free of 558 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,680 Speaker 1: sin and safe from predators. She took her daughter and 559 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,600 Speaker 1: followed Resputant to Pokrovsko. There they found him surrounded by 560 00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,360 Speaker 1: his little ladies, the high society women from St. Petersburg, 561 00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,600 Speaker 1: who pampered him and showered him with hugs and kisses, 562 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,800 Speaker 1: all in front of his wife and family. She wrote 563 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,240 Speaker 1: it all down and sent it off to the bishop. 564 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,520 Speaker 1: Another letter said even more that these women following Resputant 565 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,600 Speaker 1: had taken to wearing black dresses with white head scarves, 566 00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,080 Speaker 1: that they had taken to calling him father Grigory, and 567 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,239 Speaker 1: that he himself was now spending his days dressed in 568 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,239 Speaker 1: a black cassock with a large cross hanging down on 569 00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,560 Speaker 1: his chest. In other words, he was dressed like an 570 00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,720 Speaker 1: Orthodox priest, and he was being treated like one too. 571 00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,239 Speaker 1: To be a religious pilgrim was no bad thing, but 572 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,440 Speaker 1: to pose as a priest and take advantage of hurting women, 573 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,600 Speaker 1: this was a bishop who wouldn't brook that kind of behavior. 574 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,439 Speaker 1: He gave the word, and soon enough church investigators were 575 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:52,200 Speaker 1: swarming Pokrovsko. Of course, their first port of call was 576 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,319 Speaker 1: the local priest, the real one. I mean, we don't 577 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,319 Speaker 1: know where they met him, perhaps in his newly renovated church, 578 00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,360 Speaker 1: but whatever the case, he prized them with a good report. 579 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,160 Speaker 1: Gregory resputant. Oh, yes, he was a good man. His 580 00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,000 Speaker 1: family came to church just as they were expected. They 581 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,880 Speaker 1: were good Orthodox people. In fact, if anything, he was 582 00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,040 Speaker 1: more devoted to prayer than anyone else in town. That's 583 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,800 Speaker 1: when the team arrived at Grigory's house. His welcome wasn't 584 00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,879 Speaker 1: so warm, though, not that he was aggressive. In fact, 585 00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,359 Speaker 1: if anything, he seemed terrified when he opened the door 586 00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,800 Speaker 1: and brought them inside the church, investigators separated and swept 587 00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,120 Speaker 1: the house. They were looking for signs of occult activity 588 00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:36,000 Speaker 1: or heresy. In fact, they were most worried that Gregory's 589 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,640 Speaker 1: group of followers was part of an insidious cult that 590 00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:42,000 Speaker 1: had broken away from groups of the Siberian Old Believers 591 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:46,240 Speaker 1: and had gone even further from the Orthodox Faith. Here's 592 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:51,000 Speaker 1: Dr Coleman again. This was a Russian religious movement that 593 00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,120 Speaker 1: really began life in the late seventeenth century as a 594 00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:58,600 Speaker 1: branch of the Old Belief, and like certain other branches 595 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:04,840 Speaker 1: of the Old Belief, the Pistoian demanded celibacy from its adherents, 596 00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,520 Speaker 1: and they didn't have different doctrines or any sort of 597 00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:12,080 Speaker 1: systematic doctrine. These were groups of believers who met together 598 00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,959 Speaker 1: regularly at night for long prayer meetings, where they would 599 00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:22,440 Speaker 1: sing spiritual verses and church hymns and recite the Jesus Prayer, 600 00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,279 Speaker 1: a central Orthodox prayer that is is recited in a 601 00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:30,760 Speaker 1: meditative format. Lord Jesus, Christ, Son of God, have mercy 602 00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,760 Speaker 1: on me, a sinner, and you recite it over and over, 603 00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:38,040 Speaker 1: and these meetings would The goal was to have the 604 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,920 Speaker 1: Holy Spirit descend on certain of the members these leaders, 605 00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,120 Speaker 1: who were known as Christ's or as Mothers of God, 606 00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:49,000 Speaker 1: and then and then they would dance and they would prophesy. 607 00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:52,280 Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, anyone who went looking for Christie 608 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:57,440 Speaker 1: was left chasing shadows. Very early, their enemies started calling 609 00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:03,280 Speaker 1: them not Christie or christ but Clisti, which means whip 610 00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:08,520 Speaker 1: or flagolence um. They were accused of sexual immorality, of 611 00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:13,480 Speaker 1: having orgies. The American historian Eugene Clay has shown that 612 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,520 Speaker 1: there is in fact no evidence of this, and that 613 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:20,520 Speaker 1: you know already in the early eighteenth century the term 614 00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:25,279 Speaker 1: Clistie really doesn't have any any meaning. It's it's it's 615 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:30,120 Speaker 1: applied to a whole range of unrelated sort of charismatic 616 00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:35,759 Speaker 1: religious movements. Um. There's no religious group that claims to 617 00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,680 Speaker 1: be clisti. Um. There are certainly some evidence of networks 618 00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:44,160 Speaker 1: of these charismatic groups, but they saw themselves as being 619 00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:48,480 Speaker 1: within Orthodoxy. So maybe it's no surprise that when the 620 00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,880 Speaker 1: bishop's men followed the suspicion that Restputan and his followers 621 00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,640 Speaker 1: were Clysti, they came up empty. They sat down with 622 00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,360 Speaker 1: Restputant and grilled him about his practices, but everything he 623 00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,240 Speaker 1: stammered out matched up with the word of the local priest. 624 00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,120 Speaker 1: Yes he was a sincere Orthodox believer. He had taken 625 00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,239 Speaker 1: many pilgrimages and now accepted pilgrims in his own right. 626 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,200 Speaker 1: He had given up meats and alcohol. And yes he 627 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,320 Speaker 1: was sometimes a sinner, but who wasn't. He was always 628 00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,480 Speaker 1: working to change his guilty ways. But when they turned 629 00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,920 Speaker 1: their eyes on the women Gregory's most devoted followers, they 630 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,160 Speaker 1: got only the slimmest of testimonies. When they pressed for 631 00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:28,120 Speaker 1: these salacious details, the most they got was that, of course, 632 00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,040 Speaker 1: Grigory kissed them. There was the natural way of greeting, 633 00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,239 Speaker 1: and it was done in a pure and spiritual way. 634 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,439 Speaker 1: There was nothing strange about it. The investigators went back 635 00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,000 Speaker 1: to the bishop into Bolsk and put their heads together. 636 00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,640 Speaker 1: What could they do? The country now permitted religious freedom. 637 00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:47,000 Speaker 1: If this wanderer was starting his own group of spiritual meditation, 638 00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,720 Speaker 1: of sacred kisses or anything else, it was hardly something 639 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:53,359 Speaker 1: they could crack down on. They had their doubts about 640 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,000 Speaker 1: Grigory's motives, but what could they do if they had 641 00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,640 Speaker 1: concerns to pass along. There's only one place they could 642 00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:03,520 Speaker 1: have gone up the ladder to St. Petersburg. That's where 643 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:06,560 Speaker 1: our command right, theo Fan and the Czar waited to 644 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,120 Speaker 1: hear any concerns. We don't know if those questions were 645 00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,719 Speaker 1: ever raised, but if they were, they were met only 646 00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:17,040 Speaker 1: with silence. But in Grigory's life this was something of 647 00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:20,040 Speaker 1: an omen because this was far from the last time 648 00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:28,640 Speaker 1: that concerning letters would put rasputin in hot water. He 649 00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:31,560 Speaker 1: boarded a train for the capitol. It was the spring 650 00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:33,960 Speaker 1: of nineteen oh seven, and Grigory knew that he was 651 00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,399 Speaker 1: still welcome in St. Petersburg. The caravan of devotees who 652 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,440 Speaker 1: had visited him in Pokrovsko kept his flame alive when 653 00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,560 Speaker 1: they returned home to their cities and their social circles 654 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,960 Speaker 1: in the East. The stories of his miraculous healings and 655 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,360 Speaker 1: the relief he brought to the women in his entourage 656 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,400 Speaker 1: meant that no one had forgotten about Resputin, even if 657 00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:54,920 Speaker 1: they hadn't caught wind of the concern among the priests 658 00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,359 Speaker 1: and bishops in Siberia. So he was finally heading back 659 00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,120 Speaker 1: for another rendezvous with a pee he was most eager 660 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:03,920 Speaker 1: to be friend. He was headed back to the palace 661 00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,239 Speaker 1: of the Czar, and not too soon. After all. Their 662 00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:09,759 Speaker 1: deepest concern, and the thing that troubled them more than 663 00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,240 Speaker 1: any of the turmoil agitating the Empire, was the lifelong 664 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,279 Speaker 1: worry over the health of the little boy in their 665 00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,600 Speaker 1: own house, and the fact that Alexei's hemophilia meant his 666 00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,000 Speaker 1: life was constantly on a knife's edge was only too 667 00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,120 Speaker 1: plain to Alexandra. You see, Alexei was three at the time, 668 00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:28,880 Speaker 1: and one day that spring, when he was playing outside 669 00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,239 Speaker 1: in the garden at the family's royal home, he took 670 00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:34,480 Speaker 1: a fall. Any fall was dangerous to the boy, but 671 00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,359 Speaker 1: this was a bad one. He started to bleed internally, 672 00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,920 Speaker 1: and the pain was excruciating. His aunt, who was staying 673 00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,799 Speaker 1: at the palace, remembered the scene. The poor child lay 674 00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,319 Speaker 1: in such pain, she wrote, with dark patches under his 675 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:53,239 Speaker 1: eyes and his little body all distorted. The bleeding, you see, 676 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,840 Speaker 1: was in his leg, and she recalled that the swelling 677 00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,800 Speaker 1: was horrible. It was terrifying for the entire family. What 678 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,279 Speaker 1: about the doctors, she wrote that they were useless. The 679 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:06,280 Speaker 1: Royal physician was there, yes, but his team stood around 680 00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,480 Speaker 1: looking helpless. None of them had anything they could do 681 00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,480 Speaker 1: to help. But Alexandra knew that Rasputin had arrived in 682 00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,440 Speaker 1: the capitol, so she sent for him. It was the 683 00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:20,520 Speaker 1: call he had been waiting for. Grigory arrived at the 684 00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,120 Speaker 1: Royal Palace and was ushered into the room where Alexei 685 00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,680 Speaker 1: lay on the bed. He was in unbelievable pain. So 686 00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,880 Speaker 1: what did Resputant do? He prayed. We can imagine him 687 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,880 Speaker 1: at the boy's bedside, with the eager parents and maybe 688 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,640 Speaker 1: a doctor or two, leaning forward, willing the healing to work. 689 00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,160 Speaker 1: And here's the thing. By the next morning, Alexei was 690 00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,000 Speaker 1: feeling better. In the eyes of the household, it was 691 00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,239 Speaker 1: a miracle. The swelling had gone down and the pain 692 00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:51,879 Speaker 1: had faded away, and it created one of the most 693 00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,759 Speaker 1: enduring aspects of Rasputant's legend, that the stories about his 694 00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,480 Speaker 1: miraculous healings were true. It's certainly left even the most 695 00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,879 Speaker 1: skeptical Romanovs, like Nicholas's sister, with something to puzzle over, 696 00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:07,600 Speaker 1: and we've been puzzling over it ever since. Here's more 697 00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:12,960 Speaker 1: from Helen Rappaport. They had this incredible auto suggestive power, 698 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:18,400 Speaker 1: an ability to calm and one of the most important 699 00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:22,400 Speaker 1: things when a child, or a patient, or the mother 700 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,560 Speaker 1: of the child is stressed and anxious as Alexandra was 701 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:32,440 Speaker 1: when Alexey had these terrible attacks of leading, was to calm, 702 00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:37,200 Speaker 1: calm her, and through calming her, that was transmitted to 703 00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:40,439 Speaker 1: the child and it calmed alex Say, and I think 704 00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:45,080 Speaker 1: this is one of the key points in understanding how 705 00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,880 Speaker 1: what he did work. But it did work, and that 706 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,800 Speaker 1: miracle did more than just heal the boy. Its strengthened 707 00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:55,319 Speaker 1: the bond between Grigory and the Romanovs. Before he was 708 00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,440 Speaker 1: a religious teacher that they trusted, Now he was a 709 00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,759 Speaker 1: welcome guest, not us to the afternoons in council with 710 00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:05,480 Speaker 1: Nicholas and Alexandra, but to the nursery where the children played. 711 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,319 Speaker 1: Not that all the romanof children knew what to do 712 00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:12,000 Speaker 1: with this bearded peasant, though Alexey kind of laughed at 713 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,960 Speaker 1: rasps and a bit behind his back and found him 714 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,200 Speaker 1: a bit odd and weird. But then Anastasia did too, 715 00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,160 Speaker 1: and they sometimes giggled because he was a bit strange 716 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,680 Speaker 1: with that deep sonorous voice and those huge, mesmerizing blue eyes. 717 00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,560 Speaker 1: So but I think towards the end Alexey could recognize 718 00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,319 Speaker 1: that Rasputin was their friend. You see, they referred to him. 719 00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:38,000 Speaker 1: All of the children predominant and the parents as well 720 00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:42,400 Speaker 1: referred to him as their friend. Not that this friendship 721 00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,480 Speaker 1: silenced all doubts, though Alexandra was too protective of Alexei 722 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,360 Speaker 1: and her girls for that. No, when word of the 723 00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:52,840 Speaker 1: church inquiry finally did reach the palace, Alexandra knew what 724 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,520 Speaker 1: to do. She turned to her personal confessor, the archimand 725 00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,120 Speaker 1: right theo Fan he had introduced her to Rasputin. After all, 726 00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,640 Speaker 1: what did he know about the man? When field Fan 727 00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:06,239 Speaker 1: couldn't answer, Alexander gave him a task of his own. 728 00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:10,160 Speaker 1: Go to Pakrosco himself and come back to report what 729 00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,880 Speaker 1: he learned. So soon enough, the ar command right of 730 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,000 Speaker 1: the St. Petersburg Monastery was on his way to Siberia 731 00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,960 Speaker 1: on a personal mission from the Empress. He spoke with 732 00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:22,400 Speaker 1: the priests there and followed in the footsteps of the 733 00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,319 Speaker 1: bishop's investigators, and when he returned to St. Petersburg, his 734 00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,400 Speaker 1: reports set Alexandra at ease. Yes, the peasant was perhaps 735 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,440 Speaker 1: getting a tad big for his bridges. The elegance of 736 00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,520 Speaker 1: his new house was a bit awkward, a bit tasteless. 737 00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,839 Speaker 1: He was maybe trying a bit too hard to live 738 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,840 Speaker 1: out his idea of a rich lifestyle. But what was 739 00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:46,920 Speaker 1: the harm in that tastelessness? Was no sin. Plus, they 740 00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,400 Speaker 1: all knew Gregory's ways. He was a rough peasant. You 741 00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,120 Speaker 1: could hardly expect more. We don't know if Alexander considered 742 00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,080 Speaker 1: the fact that theo Fan's own reputation was at stake. 743 00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:00,880 Speaker 1: It's certainly true that he was the one responsible for 744 00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,920 Speaker 1: bringing Raspute into the royal couple. There was maybe what 745 00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,799 Speaker 1: we might call a conflict of interest in fia Fan 746 00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:11,960 Speaker 1: investigating Grigory's background. Too much of theo Fan's position in 747 00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,680 Speaker 1: the capital and his own access to Nicholas and Alexandra 748 00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,879 Speaker 1: was at stake all the same. It seems Alexandra took 749 00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,840 Speaker 1: his words to heart. She had begun to hear nasty 750 00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:27,000 Speaker 1: rumors about Rasputant, but her personal confessor assured her that 751 00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,400 Speaker 1: they were no more than hearsay. It was an important moment, 752 00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,880 Speaker 1: Alexandra's first inoculation against the criticisms of her new friend, 753 00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:42,040 Speaker 1: and in the coming years she would need it. Czar 754 00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,319 Speaker 1: Nicholas was trying to get a handle on things to 755 00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,000 Speaker 1: deal with the changes in Russia. To make sure that 756 00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:50,880 Speaker 1: he rigged the new parliament, the Duma, to his liking, 757 00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,080 Speaker 1: Nicholas knew what to do. He put his own people 758 00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,360 Speaker 1: in charge, starting with his finance secretary, who became the 759 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,799 Speaker 1: first Prime minister. After all, Nicholas had made sure that 760 00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,600 Speaker 1: even though the parliament was going to be elected, he 761 00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:05,719 Speaker 1: would have the power to pull the strings as he 762 00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,279 Speaker 1: saw fit. That way, he could at least try to 763 00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,560 Speaker 1: ensure that they would keep the government obedient to his wishes. 764 00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,920 Speaker 1: It didn't go well, though. On the eve of the 765 00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:19,040 Speaker 1: Douma's first meeting, Nicholas demanded his hand picked man's resignation, 766 00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,759 Speaker 1: and then he flailed for someone else to step in. 767 00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:24,640 Speaker 1: With all of that on his mind and the peace 768 00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,400 Speaker 1: of the country still tenuous at best, it can be 769 00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:29,600 Speaker 1: no wonder that he didn't have time for the rumors 770 00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,320 Speaker 1: that kept cropping up that there was something wrong, something 771 00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:36,600 Speaker 1: scandalous about Grigory Rasputin. Plus he had the word of 772 00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,080 Speaker 1: his personal confessor to go on. Just like Alexandra. He 773 00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,960 Speaker 1: called fia Fan into give an account of Grigory. What 774 00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,719 Speaker 1: he heard wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement, though he has 775 00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,759 Speaker 1: many sins, fia Fan told the Czar. But on the 776 00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,480 Speaker 1: other hand, he actually repented for the things he had done, 777 00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:56,880 Speaker 1: and fia Fan vouched for him personally. Each time he repents, 778 00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,759 Speaker 1: the man said, he becomes pure. In fact, just to 779 00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:02,960 Speaker 1: drive the point home, fia Fan even went to the 780 00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,920 Speaker 1: trouble of going out to the hermit's hut and finding Maccarie. 781 00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,000 Speaker 1: He picked the man up, grab resputant along the way, 782 00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:11,040 Speaker 1: and brought them both back to the capital to meet 783 00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,120 Speaker 1: with Nicholas. It was as if to say, see, the 784 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,319 Speaker 1: holy men of Russia are on your side. You can 785 00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:21,040 Speaker 1: trust us for now. Fia Fan and others in the 786 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:23,279 Speaker 1: Russian Church were just glad that they had rid the 787 00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:27,200 Speaker 1: nation of men like Monseigneur Philippe. Better to have Russian 788 00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:31,399 Speaker 1: old believers in the Tsar's ear than European spiritualists. All 789 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:33,920 Speaker 1: of that was enough to set Nicholas's mind at ease, 790 00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,759 Speaker 1: and he turned to other matters. After all, his son 791 00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,520 Speaker 1: was alive, his wife was comforted. What more could he 792 00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,000 Speaker 1: ask for? He took for a fan at his word. 793 00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,400 Speaker 1: In the future, though Fia Fan would come to deeply 794 00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,560 Speaker 1: regret just how much he had defended Grigory Rasputin from 795 00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,600 Speaker 1: the witnesses against him. His later testimony was filled with regret. 796 00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,239 Speaker 1: The empire was at a crossroads, and Rasputin, he said, 797 00:47:56,719 --> 00:48:00,360 Speaker 1: was on a false path, but Nicholas and Ella Xandra 798 00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,879 Speaker 1: would follow it all the way to the bitter end. 799 00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:09,880 Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around 800 00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:13,160 Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's 801 00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:22,040 Speaker 1: in store for next week. Despite how incredibly uncomfortable she 802 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,680 Speaker 1: had gotten, Anna was eventually lulled to sleep by the 803 00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,799 Speaker 1: rocking of the train. Until that is, something woke her 804 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,000 Speaker 1: up in the darkness, something scratchy against the skin of 805 00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,719 Speaker 1: her face. It took her a moment to realize what 806 00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,480 Speaker 1: it was a man's beard. Shocked, Anna rolled off the 807 00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:42,520 Speaker 1: bunk and spun around. There was Grigory Rasputin on her bed. 808 00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,160 Speaker 1: Anna was ready to defend herself. She screamed a furious 809 00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,879 Speaker 1: question at him. If he was such a holy man, 810 00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:52,799 Speaker 1: how could he possibly justify what he was doing? He 811 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,360 Speaker 1: said nothing in silence. He simply crawled back up onto 812 00:48:56,400 --> 00:49:00,840 Speaker 1: the top bunk, where Yelena lay waiting. Anna stayed alert 813 00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,319 Speaker 1: the rest of the night. In the morning, Elena gave 814 00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,279 Speaker 1: Anna a talking to. She said resputant was only trying 815 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,000 Speaker 1: to commune with her spirit. It was a divine act, 816 00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,000 Speaker 1: she said. But Anna knew a covering lie when she 817 00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:15,400 Speaker 1: heard one. There was nothing holy or divine about what 818 00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:32,319 Speaker 1: Grigory had tried to do. Unobscured was created by me 819 00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:36,160 Speaker 1: Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and 820 00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:40,080 Speaker 1: Josh Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio, with research 821 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:44,120 Speaker 1: by Sam Alberty, writing by Carl Nellis, and original music 822 00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:49,040 Speaker 1: by Chad Lawson. Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials, 823 00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,880 Speaker 1: and links to our other shows over at grim and 824 00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:57,520 Speaker 1: Mild dot com. Slash Unobscured and as always thanks for listening, 825 00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:00,120 Speaker 1: M