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Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron

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Speaker 1: Minky the spiritual touring actor Grigory Rasputin. That's what the

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Speaker 1: Moscow Gazette called him, But that was just the headline.

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Speaker 1: Things only got worse for Grigory from there. Apparently the

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Speaker 1: writer knew all the favorite talking points from the elite salons.

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Speaker 1: He was a cunning Siberian charlatan, a predatory letcher, a hypnotist,

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Speaker 1: and a false teacher who used his ideas about holy

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Speaker 1: love to get far too up close and personal with

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Speaker 1: his followers. They called him a pseudo prophet and damned

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Speaker 1: him for teaching spiritual delusions that were opposite of the

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Speaker 1: traditions of the Orthodox Church. But the article didn't stop

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Speaker 1: at condemning Resputant's delusions and false holiness. It also attacked

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Speaker 1: other areas of his life. It accused Grigory of being

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Speaker 1: a lazy, deadbeat, a man who had abandoned his family

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Speaker 1: in Pokrovsko, whose children were fatherless and unruly, and the

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Speaker 1: thor even said that in investigating his piece, he had

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Speaker 1: spoken with a church leader who called Gregory a heretic

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Speaker 1: and a sexual predator. As far as the press goes

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Speaker 1: this was about as damning as it gets, and digging

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Speaker 1: behind the article we can see why, like so many

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Speaker 1: others in Russia, the journalist who wrote the Peace believed

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Speaker 1: that the church was in trouble and needed to be reformed.

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Speaker 1: Like our command right theo fan, the writer looked to

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Speaker 1: Russia's wandering holy men as a source of hope. In

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Speaker 1: some ways, Gregory seemed like exactly the kind of person

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Speaker 1: he was looking for, a peasant who had formed a

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Speaker 1: bridge between the Czar and the peasant class, bringing the

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Speaker 1: voice of the so called ordinary Russian to the ear

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Speaker 1: of the Czar himself. But here's the problem. Rasputant's dark

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Speaker 1: side was actually giving all of Russia's holy men a

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Speaker 1: bad name, claiming to be a holy leader while using

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Speaker 1: his position to feed on the vulnerabilities of his followers.

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Speaker 1: It's easy to see why anyone would think this left

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Speaker 1: their approach in tatters. If they were going to hold

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Speaker 1: onto the idea that Russian holy men could revitalize the

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Speaker 1: faith and life of the Empire, they had to figure

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Speaker 1: out how things had gone so wrong with Grigory. If

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Speaker 1: condemning Rasputant as a heretic and a letger sounds familiar.

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Speaker 1: That's because it was the message our command right theo

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Speaker 1: Fan was spreading far and wide. In fact, theo Fan

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Speaker 1: himself might be the churchman who worked with the author

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes. But regardless of who the hidden sources

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Speaker 1: were for the writer, the fact is that defenders of

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Speaker 1: the Church and defenders of the Czar alike swarmed to

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Speaker 1: the takedown like it fed their starving souls. Other papers

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Speaker 1: across Russia instantly copied the article and reprinted it. They

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Speaker 1: knew when there was blood in the water, and what

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Speaker 1: sells a paper better than a sex scandal at the

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Speaker 1: crossroads of the Church and the Crown. Once again, the

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Speaker 1: paper had taken the public's temperature. Letters flooded into the

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Speaker 1: Moscow Gazette. New stories of Grigory restputants bad behavior were

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Speaker 1: piled onto the first reports, and as the accusations mounted,

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Speaker 1: it led the editors of the Gazette to trumpet one

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Speaker 1: question above the clamoring throng. If Grigory Resputin was such

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Speaker 1: a dangerous conman, why didn't the Church or the Crown

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Speaker 1: rise up and do something to root him out? The

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Speaker 1: monarchist newspapers thought they might open Nicholas's eyes to the

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Speaker 1: dangers of Resputin and separate the monarchy from the mystic.

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Speaker 1: But the reformers and revolutionaries across Russia were only too

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Speaker 1: happy to point out that Resputin and the Romanovs seemed

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Speaker 1: to be inseparable. They followed the monarchist press in denouncing Rasputin,

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Speaker 1: not to save the imperial family, but to condemn it.

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Speaker 1: Their answer to the question of why Nicholas didn't do

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Speaker 1: something was that the Romanovs themselves were hapless fools and

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Speaker 1: needed to be thrown out along with their court soothsayers.

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Speaker 1: Issue after issue delved into Resputant's background, his heretical teaching,

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Speaker 1: and his violence against women. To the leftist press, all

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Speaker 1: of these were the fault of Nicholas and Alexandra. None

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Speaker 1: of these press reports got the story right, though monarchists

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Speaker 1: and revolutionaries alike layered rumor and insinuation over every kernel

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Speaker 1: of truth. But all the reporting was eaten up by

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Speaker 1: a public hungry for more news about the secret inner

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Speaker 1: workings of the Romanov's domestic world. And then there's this

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Speaker 1: deep irony to contend with. Russia at the time was

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Speaker 1: an empire divided. Not only were revolutionary groups and monarchist

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Speaker 1: brigades battling each other for the future of Russia, but

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Speaker 1: they were often fighting within their own ranks. Each faction

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Speaker 1: rarely managed to maintain their alliances for long, and yet

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Speaker 1: in Rasputin they were now finding a common cause, or

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Speaker 1: better put, a common enemy. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the attacks on Rasputin went international. If the Russian papers

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Speaker 1: thought they were cleaning house and taking down Rasputin, they

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Speaker 1: couldn't foresee just how far the stories about him would

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Speaker 1: travel and how long the legends they were creating would endure.

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Speaker 1: Within a few weeks, the splashy articles were being distributed

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Speaker 1: across Russia. The Austrian ambassador wrote back to Vienna about

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Speaker 1: the unfolding scandal, and, of course, for the royals across Europe,

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Speaker 1: the question of how Nicholas and Alexandra could take a

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Speaker 1: heretical priest into their confidence was a real puzzle, and

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Speaker 1: the ambassador offered his view. The royal couple were simply

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Speaker 1: unwilling to see that their relationship with Grigory Rasputin was

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Speaker 1: a problem. It was a real flash of insights. He

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Speaker 1: saw that in the eyes of Nicholas and Alexandra. Rasputin

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Speaker 1: was untouchable. But it wasn't just the stories about the

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Speaker 1: Romanov's spiritual advisor that slipped the borders of Russia. It

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Speaker 1: was the Romanovs themselves. In the years after the nineteen

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Speaker 1: oh five Revolution, and with all the changes that were

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Speaker 1: shaking Russian society, Nicholas and Alexandra often found time to

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Speaker 1: get away from it all. Not that this was anything new.

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Speaker 1: Hunting lodges and holiday homes were always the privilege of

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Speaker 1: the European royals. Nicholas and Alexandra were no exception, and

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Speaker 1: of course family visits double as political meetings when the

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Speaker 1: family are all heads of states. For example, ever since

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Speaker 1: their marriage began, Nicholas and Alexandra had regularly traveled back

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Speaker 1: to her old stomping grounds in Germany, and Nicholas even

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Speaker 1: had a Russian Orthodox chapel built for Alexander there. Often

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Speaker 1: they stayed with Alexandra's brother Ernie at his summer retreat,

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Speaker 1: or visited relatives in the Danish royal family, and these

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Speaker 1: visits didn't slow down as their family grew. As things

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Speaker 1: heated up at home. I can only imagine that they

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Speaker 1: were too happy to slip the troubled borders of their empire,

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Speaker 1: leave the trouble some issues in the hands of a

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Speaker 1: prime minister like stoile Epan, and try to find some

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Speaker 1: cleaner air. Of course, there was a more personal reason

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Speaker 1: that the Romana family would have wanted to retreat from

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Speaker 1: the turmoil of their empire into some sort of tranquility.

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Speaker 1: You see, Alexandra was sick, and the truth was she

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Speaker 1: had been sick for years. Here's historian Helen Rappaport to

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Speaker 1: tell us more. I think Alexandra clearly was plagued with

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Speaker 1: sciatica from her teens, because when it was announced she

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Speaker 1: was going to marry Nikki in April eighteen nine four,

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Speaker 1: one of the first things Queen Victoria arranged was to

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Speaker 1: get her treatment for this crippling scietic pain she suffered from.

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Speaker 1: So she was sent to Harrogate for a water cure,

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Speaker 1: and that was the first probably of money later on

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Speaker 1: in her life, after she'd tapped the children, they she

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Speaker 1: went more than once, I think, to bad Noihan in

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Speaker 1: Germany for again for wat cures. So she had always

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Speaker 1: had the scietica and I cannot imagine how painful her

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Speaker 1: pregnancies must have been suffering from sciatic pain and carrying

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Speaker 1: you know, ten eleven pound babies to term. She must

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Speaker 1: have been dreadfully consumed by pain at times, and she

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Speaker 1: was often had to be lying down. She genuinely had

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Speaker 1: terrible ear infections and me grains, and oh gosh, there

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Speaker 1: wasn't almost any complaints she didn't at sometime suffer from.

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Speaker 1: So that kind of colored family life, I think more

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Speaker 1: than perhaps we realize. Even when they weren't traveling for treatment,

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Speaker 1: abandoning the pressure of court, life in Russia was itself

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Speaker 1: an enormous relief, and there's perhaps no trip that the

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Speaker 1: Empress liked better than a holiday to the islands around

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Speaker 1: Finland in the Tsar's personal Yat when life in Russia

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Speaker 1: got tense or threat to the Czar made their routines dangerous,

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Speaker 1: Nicholas and Alexander would take to the water. They're surrounded

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Speaker 1: by a loyal crew, with warships from the Imperial Fleet

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Speaker 1: bobbing in formation on all sides. Nicholas and Alexandra felt

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Speaker 1: their most carefree, prying eyes were left far behind. The

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Speaker 1: naval officers who served them on board were kind and obliging,

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Speaker 1: and all the guns pointed outward. But even those floating

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Speaker 1: fantasies came back to earth, and when they did, the

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Speaker 1: troubles of Russia proved they couldn't be left behind. Take

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Speaker 1: their visit to England in nineteen o nine. Along the way,

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Speaker 1: the Romanovs stopped to see Alexandra's sister Irene and made

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Speaker 1: an appearance for the President of France. And then they

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Speaker 1: were on towards England, where their royal cousins were eager

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Speaker 1: to greet them. Not so the English people, though, you see,

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Speaker 1: word had spread of the fact that Nicholas used his

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Speaker 1: Cossacks against the Russian people in nineteen o five. The

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Speaker 1: violence of his autocratic control over the Russian Empire was

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Speaker 1: no secrets. Socialist rallies in London were held as the

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Speaker 1: Romanov's yacht sailed toward British soil. The Young British Labor

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Speaker 1: Party collected resolutions from a cross Britain condemning the blood

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Speaker 1: on the hands of the Czar, the terrorism of his

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Speaker 1: supporters like Iliador, and the actions of the Russian secret police.

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Speaker 1: And it should be pointed out if we remember the

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Speaker 1: way the Czar's Cossacks ran down protesting workers in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o five. We have to say the British workers who

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Speaker 1: rallied in Trafalgar Square had a point. Maybe that's why

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Speaker 1: everyone from schools to evangelical societies to trade unions all

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Speaker 1: signed on to condemn the Romanov's visit. Nicholas may have

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Speaker 1: been surprised by how well British radicals knew the inner

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Speaker 1: workings of Russian politics, but the creeping fear he felt

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Speaker 1: when he heard they were discussing his assassination would have

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Speaker 1: been all too familiar. It was the feeling he fled

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Speaker 1: when the family took to the sea, so Nicholas and

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Speaker 1: Alexandra made their visit a short one. The coastal towns

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Speaker 1: were flooded with English and Russian police, who choked them

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Speaker 1: to a standstill. It could have only confirmed to the

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Speaker 1: Czar's critics that Russia was ruled with an iron fist.

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Speaker 1: At night, the romanov was retreated to their floating fortress.

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Speaker 1: When they visited Sweden, Nicholas and Alexandra didn't even dare

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Speaker 1: to set foot on land. So the imperial family didn't

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Speaker 1: have the best reputation beyond the borders of their empire,

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Speaker 1: let alone among the people they held under their power

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Speaker 1: at the time, and that was all before the press

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Speaker 1: sank their teeth into the story of Grigory Rasputin. Resputant

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Speaker 1: had his defenders, of course, and maybe no one was

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Speaker 1: more energetic in his defense than the mad monk himself,

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Speaker 1: the terrorist preacher Eliodor. Not to be outdone by the

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Speaker 1: inflamed accusations of the newspaper, Eliodor began to fabricate some

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Speaker 1: stories of his own. Resputin was not a sexual predator,

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Speaker 1: said Eliodor, so much the opposite, in fact, that Gregory

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Speaker 1: had mastered his sexual urges so much that he no

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Speaker 1: longer made love to his own wife. He lived with

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Speaker 1: special holiness. He was Russia's saving grace. Anyone who wrote

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Speaker 1: attacks against Resputant should be bound and beaten bloody, that

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Speaker 1: was Eliador's message. Not a pleasant fellow, really, But Eliodora's

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Speaker 1: bloodthirsty defenses of Resputin were nearly as effective as Resputant's

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Speaker 1: own technique to disappear. Throughout most of nineteen ten, there

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Speaker 1: were several points where even the Russian secret police, the Okrana,

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Speaker 1: had no idea where Resputant was. His disappearance was all

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Speaker 1: about giving the scandal time to blow over and for

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Speaker 1: newspapers to find something else to blow up about. And

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Speaker 1: there was one man in Russia willing to oblige. That's right,

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Speaker 1: Eliodor himself. Do you remember how I told you that

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Speaker 1: Resputant had orchestrated a one on one meeting between Eliador

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Speaker 1: and the Empress. She had forced a few promises out

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Speaker 1: of the man. Maybe he agreed in the moment, but

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Speaker 1: he swiftly changed his mind. Soon enough, he was back

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Speaker 1: in his pulpit, letting fly against the Czar, the government

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Speaker 1: of the Duma, the Prime Minister, and just about everyone

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Speaker 1: else he considered a part of Russia's decline, and that

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Speaker 1: included leaders in the church. Now, obviously they didn't take

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Speaker 1: too kindly to that, and they sent an order. The

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Speaker 1: monk Iliodor was being reassigned once again. This time he

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Speaker 1: was supposed to leave his base in the city of

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Speaker 1: Tzaritsin and go where he couldn't make so much trouble,

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Speaker 1: the remote monastery of Novozil. But leaving his influential position

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Speaker 1: on the banks of the Volga River was the last

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Speaker 1: thing Eliador wanted to do. His first course of action

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Speaker 1: was a frantic message to Siberia he was calling on

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Speaker 1: help from Rasputin. Of course, after all, Grigory had been

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Speaker 1: able to arrange a one on one meeting with the

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Speaker 1: Empress the last time he got in trouble. Why couldn't

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Speaker 1: he use the same get out of jail free card again?

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Speaker 1: And while he waited for an answer, he took some action.

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Speaker 1: Gathering his closest disciples around him, Eliodor retreated into his

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Speaker 1: monastery compound and barricaded the doors. Douglas Smith writes that

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Speaker 1: Iliador even started blasting out messages in his typical bombastic

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Speaker 1: style that he wouldn't leave unless every of the monastery

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Speaker 1: was covered in his own blood, that he would see

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Speaker 1: his home become his grave before he would be sidelined

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Speaker 1: by the church, you know, the usual stuff. Now, we

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Speaker 1: don't know if Rasputin was involved in what happened next,

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Speaker 1: but it's clear that the news made its way to

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Speaker 1: Nicholas and the Tsar was having none of it. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: he sided with the leaders of the Russian Church. They

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Speaker 1: should do what they needed to do to tamp down

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Speaker 1: this violent dissenter. After all, it's not like Eliador had

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Speaker 1: been cultivating goodwill with anyone among Russia's elite. All this

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Speaker 1: back and forth made its way into black and white.

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Speaker 1: Soon enough, the papers were saying that Eliador had rallied

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Speaker 1: his terrorist followers to his cause. And it wasn't a

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Speaker 1: small movement either. By one reckoning, thousands of people had

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Speaker 1: traveled the Volga to gather around Iliador. It looked more

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Speaker 1: and more like a fight was brewing. The twists and

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Speaker 1: turns and the story were complex. It was a story

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Speaker 1: of espionage, secret agents, and back room deals. To sum

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Speaker 1: it up simply, though, a plex bargaining process began. While

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Speaker 1: Nicholas sent negotiators to hash out the situation with Iliador,

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Speaker 1: Rasputin rushed back into the Romanov's lives once again to

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Speaker 1: discuss things with them behind the scenes. The situation was explosive.

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Speaker 1: Realizing that Grigory was out of hiding, the Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: met with Nicholas. He wanted to convince the Czar that

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Speaker 1: Grigory was bad for the throne and bad for the empire.

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Speaker 1: He put all of Russia at risk. Nicholas, though, wasn't convinced.

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Speaker 1: He essentially met the Prime Minister with a shrug and

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Speaker 1: he said, why don't you just meet with Rasputin yourself?

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Speaker 1: So finally, after months of ducking the secret police, Nicholas

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Speaker 1: had to arrange it. Grigory met face to face with

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Speaker 1: Prime ministers Stoi Leepin and Stoi Lepin, came armed for

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Speaker 1: the encounter. When they faced off, he showed Grigory a

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Speaker 1: file packed with reports from the Russian secret police. He

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Speaker 1: said they proved that Rasputant was a heretic who had

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Speaker 1: betrayed the Russian Church. Stoy Leepin believed that by threatening

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Speaker 1: Grigory he could get the man to back down and

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Speaker 1: disappear from the Imperial Court, but he didn't know just

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Speaker 1: how much Resputant believed that he was on a mission

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Speaker 1: from God. Grigory dared Soy Leapin to show the file

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Speaker 1: not to Nicholas, but to Alexandra, and then when they

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Speaker 1: went their separate ways, Gregory wasted no time. He told

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Speaker 1: the Empress about the police reports himself. All that the

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister earned from the encounter was Alexander's fury raspute,

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Speaker 1: and was right. The Romanovs were on his side. This

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Speaker 1: swirl of activity around the Romanovs did nothing to shake

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Speaker 1: Iliador from his fortified monastery. The mad monk was still

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Speaker 1: sending Rasputin messages asking for help and lane plans to

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Speaker 1: grow his power. At one point he even pretended to

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Speaker 1: cooperate for a while and took to the road, but

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Speaker 1: in the end it was only just buying time for

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Speaker 1: him to gather more die hard believers to his cause.

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Speaker 1: He circled back to his headquarters with even more supporters

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Speaker 1: in tow In fact, he had gathered an army men

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Speaker 1: and women had marched to his fortress by the tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands, all of them hung on Iliador's every word

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Speaker 1: as he called for the new representative government of Russia

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Speaker 1: to be torn down in a shower of blood, and

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Speaker 1: for people like Prime Minister Stoilepen to be beaten in

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Speaker 1: the streets. And even as it got more and more hypocritical,

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Speaker 1: Eliador and his followers still held onto the idea that

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Speaker 1: all of this was actually helping the Czar. It was,

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Speaker 1: as Dr Heather Coleman puts it, a naive monarchism. Historians

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Speaker 1: have pointed to a great phenomenon of naive monarchism of

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Speaker 1: of ordinary people who who believed that the that the

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Speaker 1: government um was the problem and if only they could

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Speaker 1: get to the Tsar, that Ssar was was faithful to

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Speaker 1: the to the to the to the little guy and um,

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Speaker 1: and that you know. The problem was the bureaucrats in between.

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Speaker 1: As these ideas grew more powerful and il Door added

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Speaker 1: to his numbers, Nicholas had a choice to make turn

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Speaker 1: the full might of his imperial forces on rebellious monarchists

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Speaker 1: or give them free reign to undermine his government. The

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Speaker 1: choice he made was a fateful one, because in the

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00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,400
Speaker 1: end Nicholas backed down. He issued a full pardon for Eliador.

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Speaker 1: The mad monk had gone up against the Czar and one,

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Speaker 1: but that victory sowed the seeds of his own downfall.

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Speaker 1: In beating the Tsar, these self defeating monarchists proved once

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Speaker 1: again that the Czar could be beaten. This very public

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Speaker 1: battle between the Tsar and the terrorist preacher had distracted

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Speaker 1: the press from the story of Rasputin, but it hadn't

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Speaker 1: distracted the rest of the Romanov family. Knowing that meetings

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Speaker 1: with Grigory had happened behind the scenes, the other Romanovs

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Speaker 1: believed that Resputant was really the one behind Nicholas's decision

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Speaker 1: to fold in the face of Eliadora's growing forces. So

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Speaker 1: at one point Nicholas's mother, the Dowager Empress, decided it

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Speaker 1: was time to take her son in hand. She met

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Speaker 1: with Nicholas and al Alexandra in the palace. She gave

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Speaker 1: her boy a good tongue lashing. She demanded that Nicholas

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Speaker 1: and the scandal sever the friendship and send respute in away.

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Speaker 1: Alexandra fought fire with fire. As the Czarina, she refused

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Speaker 1: to be pushed around by her mother in law no

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Speaker 1: matter what anyone thought, and in the end the Dowager

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Speaker 1: Empress left defeated. Throughout the fight with his mother and

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Speaker 1: wife trading ferocious arguments, Nicholas, it said, sat in silence.

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Speaker 1: He put Russia behind him. After all, it was true,

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Speaker 1: the scandal did need time to blow over. So Grigory

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Speaker 1: Rasputin set out to the one place he always wanted

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Speaker 1: to go. He wanted to refresh his soul, to commune

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Speaker 1: with God, so he went to the Holy Land. But

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Speaker 1: if that conjures up stories of Grigory's early religious life,

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Speaker 1: of his wanderings and his lonely struggles on the road,

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Speaker 1: that might give us the idea, because this wasn't quite

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Speaker 1: the kind of lonely pilgrimage to Jerusalem that a holy

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Speaker 1: man might make on a shoestring and a prayer. Quite

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Speaker 1: the contrary, Resputant was doing something popular. It turns out

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Speaker 1: that the trip sounds a lot like the kind of

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Speaker 1: Holy Land tourism that people are still doing today. Here's

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Speaker 1: historian Douglas Smith to explain. It's not as exotic maybe

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Speaker 1: as it first seems that, you know, a Russian in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven would be going to the Holy Land. There

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00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,679
Speaker 1: were actually packaged tours that Russians would go on that

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Speaker 1: would take them to see the places connected to the

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Speaker 1: life of Jesus. And this is essentially what he did

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Speaker 1: as he went on one one of these package tours,

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Speaker 1: if you will. But he was profoundly moved by the experience,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote about it, and he sent letters back

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Speaker 1: to Nicholas and Alexandra about the meaning it had for him.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that he came back with was

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Speaker 1: a renewed um conviction that the only true form of

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Speaker 1: Christianity was Russian orthod docsy. That was just the kind

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Speaker 1: of message that would be welcomed with opened arms by

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Speaker 1: friends that Rasputant had left behind, and he made a

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Speaker 1: bee line for none other than Iliador awash in the

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Speaker 1: glow of victory, the mad monk welcomed Grigory to his

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Speaker 1: monastery on the Volga, and they hit the road as

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Speaker 1: a kind of double act. Soon enough, they were trailed

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Speaker 1: by supporters as they went from town to town together.

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Speaker 1: The documents tell us that sometimes it was dozens and

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Speaker 1: sometimes it was hundreds of women who followed in their wake.

359
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 1: Iliodor introduced Rasputin as his beloved brother. For his part,

360
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,200
Speaker 1: Grigory recounts his adventures in Palestine in a particularly nationalistic mode.

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Speaker 1: Here's more from Douglas Smith. He had nothing but horrible

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00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:47,080
Speaker 1: things to say about the other branches of the Christian faith.

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Speaker 1: And he came to believe that pilgrimage to the Holy

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00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:56,440
Speaker 1: Lands should be encouraged among Russian society as a way

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Speaker 1: of instilling greater faith in the Church, and by extension,

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00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 1: and by instilling greater faith and loyalty among Russian Orthodox

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Speaker 1: believers and subjects of the Crown in the sanctity of

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00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 1: the throne itself. That this was a way you could

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00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 1: further bind Russians to the autocracy, was through these trips

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Speaker 1: to the Holy Land. And and he would come back

371
00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 1: and speak about his experiences there, and this definitely sort

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Speaker 1: of gave him a greater sense of religious authority in

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Speaker 1: the eyes of his believers. When they ended their speaking

374
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Speaker 1: tour back at Eliodor's monastery, the monk gave rasput And

375
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: a lavish send off. It seemed to Grigory that their

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00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 1: friendship was secure and that he had made a successful

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00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,679
Speaker 1: return to Russian society. Maybe he even believed that the

378
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: bad press and the bad days were behind him. He

379
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:56,639
Speaker 1: was friends with Eliodor and friends with the Czar. What

380
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: could go wrong. But if he only saw smooth sailing ahead,

381
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 1: then he hadn't been paying attention to the way that

382
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,480
Speaker 1: Eliador treated his friends, So it seems Gregory didn't have

383
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Speaker 1: his guard up. A few months later, when he arrived

384
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Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg, he heard that Eliodora was also in

385
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: the capital, purchasing a printing press for his monastery. Eliodor

386
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,679
Speaker 1: invited Grigory to travel with him to meet with a

387
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 1: member of the Holy Synod, their supporter, germy Jin. Naturally,

388
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: Rasputin agreed, but he was walking into a trap. When

389
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: the pair arrived, they found that germy Jan was not alone.

390
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 1: As they stepped into the room, Gregory realized that he

391
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: was also faced by two other men, a Cossack officer

392
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 1: who was one of Eliodora's violent monarchist allies, and another man, Mitya,

393
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 1: who Gregory knew well. In fact, Resputin and Mitya had

394
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,880
Speaker 1: spent quite a lot of time together. They were fellow mystics,

395
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: fellow holy fools in the eyes of many, and had

396
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: been friends for long enough to know that they hated

397
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: each other. So when he stepped into the room with them,

398
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: Gregory finally realized what he was in for. He tried

399
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: to reach tread out the door, but they grabbed him

400
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,160
Speaker 1: and forced him into a chair, and they laid into him.

401
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: If the Prime Minister had tried to make Resputant back

402
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 1: down by threatening him with a few documents, this crew

403
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:15,200
Speaker 1: took a more direct, more violent approach. As Iliodor would

404
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:18,360
Speaker 1: later tell the story, they took turns screaming and Rasputant's

405
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,400
Speaker 1: face about his sins. He had deceived them, he had

406
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 1: fooled everyone. He was an impostor, a hypocrite, and a predator,

407
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:29,439
Speaker 1: and now he deserved to be condemned. Resputant tried to

408
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: answer back, but this wasn't a conversation. Germy Jan, dressed

409
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: in his priestly robes, grabbed Resputant by the head. In

410
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 1: his other hand he held a gold cross and he

411
00:24:40,359 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: smashed it down on Resputin. He called him a devil.

412
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: He hit Grigory again and commanded that he never again

413
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 1: entered the Imperial Palace. Another blow fell, and he forbade

414
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: Grigory to ever meet with the Empress, and the beating

415
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: went on. It's a dramatic story. Eliodor said that Resputant

416
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: left the room that night, shaking, pale and covered in blood,

417
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,719
Speaker 1: promising that he would never enter the Romanov's palace again.

418
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: He kissed an icon pressed on him by German Jin

419
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: to seal the promise, and dragged himself out into the night.

420
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 1: The Cossack officer remembered it a bit differently. He told

421
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: other government officials that Resputant had fought all three of

422
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: them before overpowering them and escaping into the street, swearing revenge.

423
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: Whether it went one way or the other, one thing

424
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: is clear. In an instant, Eliador and Resputant had gone

425
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: from allies to enemies. Iliodor was hot off the heels

426
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 1: of his very public victory. He knew he was on

427
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: the rise, and he felt untouchable all along. To this point,

428
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,679
Speaker 1: Rasputin had been the one standing between him and the Romanovs.

429
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: It seems the Iliador thought he could finally do away

430
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: with Grigory and step into his place. And powerful men

431
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: in the church, like German Jin, saw Rasputin as a

432
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: stain on their religion. They were only too happy to

433
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,479
Speaker 1: turn Eliodor against his fellow preacher. But if they had

434
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: been able to turn the tables on the Tzar, they

435
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: found that Resputant would be a tougher target. In fact,

436
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: their attack on Gregory backfired. Just a month later, German

437
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: Jin got news he was being stripped of his position

438
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: in the church after being booted from the Holy Synod.

439
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: He was exiled from the capital, and of course he

440
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: had been Eliodor's strongest ally. With him gone, the other

441
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,479
Speaker 1: members of the Holy Synod came for the terrorist preacher.

442
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: Exile orders came down, and so did the command that

443
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: he was no longer a monk. Iliodor was defrocked. On

444
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: the way out the door, both men pointed their fingers

445
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: at Grigory. All of this was retaliation for their attack

446
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: on him. It's more likely that their battle with the

447
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: Czar and the Church, the battle they thought they won,

448
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 1: was finally catching up with them. But regardless, they had

449
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: no trouble blaming their defeat on Resputin, and in his

450
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,879
Speaker 1: fury at having the tables turned on him so severely,

451
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,880
Speaker 1: Eliador decided to make his final play. He would unleash

452
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: the weapon he had kept under wraps and finally drive

453
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: a wedge between Resputant and the Czar. The letters were stolen.

454
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: They had been prized possessions, after all, they came from

455
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 1: the Empress, along with the shirt that she had sewn

456
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: for him. It was her letters that had the most

457
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: meaning for Gregory. In them, she poured out her prayers,

458
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: her fears and her joys, the struggles of her chronic pain,

459
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: the uncertainty of life in the Russian court. It was

460
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: all stitched together in the messages that she would send

461
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: to her personal friend and spiritual adviser at his home

462
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: in Siberia, built with the money given to him by

463
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: his many followers. Grigory gave these gifts from the Empress

464
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: a place of pride, and, by some accounts, in a

465
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: moment of weakness or arrogance, he would take them out

466
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: of his desk and show them off, like the time

467
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine when his friend Iliador visited him

468
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: in Pokrovsko. It was just after the first time that

469
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: Rasputin had arranged for Eliador to meet with the Empress.

470
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: With the fires of conflict burning low, Grigory had invited

471
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 1: Iliador out to his home in Siberia to retreat and

472
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: think over what came next. The precise details of the

473
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 1: visit are unclear, and the only person to describe what

474
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: happened is Iliodor. Knowing the way he later turned on Rasputin.

475
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: He's far from a reliable source, but he describes the

476
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: trip to Siberia as a revealing one. He says that

477
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: as they traveled into Grigory's hometown, Rasputin told him wild

478
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: stories of his degenerate youth and boasted constantly of his

479
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: close ties with the royal family. He bragged that his

480
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: influence went beyond the spiritual. They consulted with him about

481
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: faith and love, yes, but also about the Duma, the ministers,

482
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: the government, the future of Russia. Eliodor writes that Rasputant

483
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: got so boastful in his claims that he even said

484
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: that Nicholas and Alexandra had bowed at his feet, and

485
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: that the Czar could not even breathe without him. Now

486
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: we have to take all of that with the grainess

487
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: alt Iliodor wrote it down after he and Rasputin had

488
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: become enemies. But what does seem to be true is

489
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: that at some point on their visit, Rasputin showed Iliador

490
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: the letters. Some were from Alexandra, some were from the

491
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: Romanov children, and there were notes from other important people

492
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: there too. And somehow, when Iliodor left Pakrosco, some of

493
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: Rasputin's letters went with him, and a few years later

494
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: Eliador's change of heart about Grigory made them a powerful tool.

495
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: Here's Douglas Smith to describe what happened next. Alexandra wrote

496
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: to Rasputin at a moment of extreme grief and sadness

497
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: and emotional distress, and which she talks about, You know,

498
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: I'm only able to, you know, feel at peace and

499
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: at ease when i can rest my head on your shoulder,

500
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: when I'm in your presence, when I feel your warmth

501
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: around me. And Eliador basically held on to this letter

502
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: as as as a weapon to use against Resputin when

503
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: the time came, and he did just that. Copies of

504
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: the letter were made, they spread throughout society, and it

505
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: became the basis of this notion that there was a

506
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: sexual relationship between Resputin and the Empress. There never was

507
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: any such relationship. But again, this information was brought before

508
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: for Nicholas, and he was presented with the actual letter,

509
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: and he said, yes, this is Alexandra's handwriting, took the letter,

510
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: put it in his destroyer and basically said, we will

511
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: not speak of these matters further. But the letter and

512
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: its implications didn't stop with Nicholas. It reached the aristocratic salons,

513
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: where rumors from palace maids had prepared the way for

514
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: the worst interpretations of the letter to take hold, and

515
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: it reached members of the Duma, the Russian parliament, where

516
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: politicians who opposed the Czar saw the opportunity to revive

517
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: the outcry against Rasputin as a way of weakening the

518
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: already weak Romanovs. So once again, the truth behind the

519
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: letters almost didn't matter. What mattered was that it seemed

520
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: to confirm the worst suspicions that were already in the air,

521
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: and when it came to Alexander's private life. There were

522
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: plenty of unanswered questions and court resentments that fed the flame.

523
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: After all, Alexander had become a mysterious figure in Russian society.

524
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: To the people around her, she seemed secretive and conniving,

525
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: and in fact, she seemed to line up perfectly with

526
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: their suspicions of people from outside Russia who took up

527
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: positions of power there. Apparently none of these malicious prejudices

528
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: had gone away. Of course, looking back, we now know

529
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: that at least part of why Alexandra often retreated from

530
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: company in the Russian court was because she was in

531
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: chronic pain and suffered through the illnesses that she dealt

532
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: with year after year. We would hope for a little

533
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: more generosity and a little more mercy from people living

534
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: through the things she suffered, but there was none of

535
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: that in Imperial Russia. Here's Ellen rappaport to say a

536
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 1: bit more time and again, I you know, I saw

537
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: letters and comments or diaries from the girls or members

538
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: of court. Oh, you know, the family would do to

539
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: go to the theater or to something, and Alexandra would

540
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: either drop out or go home early because she wasn't

541
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: feeling well, and she was all the always the party pooper,

542
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: you know, the one who you know was indisposed. And

543
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: so time again you see Nicholas taking his girls to

544
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: the ballet or to the opera without their mother, and

545
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: Alexandra just wasn't a present socially at all. Alexandra, time

546
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: and time again the girls would say a little note

547
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: so in their diaries, Oh, mother couldn't come down to

548
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: lunch because she had a headache and she wasn't feeling

549
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: very well. So much of the Empress's private life was

550
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: hidden from the eyes of even those nearby. In Iliadora's

551
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: poisonous insinuations added to the rumors that filled in the

552
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: blanks of it was a weapon that didn't just strike Resputing,

553
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: even as Nicholas tried to blunt its edge, It hit

554
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: Alexandra too. It becomes part of the basis for the

555
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: myth that not only is Resputing offering spiritual sucker emotional comfort,

556
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: but that in fact he's engaged in a sexual relationship

557
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: with the Empress, which then later grows metastasizes to the

558
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: point that he's also sleeping with the daughters of Alexandra.

559
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: In fact, even gets one of them pregnant, and that

560
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: there's talk that Alex Say, the heir to the throne,

561
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: is in fact the bastard child of Resputing, and all

562
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: the stuff just gets more outlandish and crazier as the

563
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: years progress. And for someone like her who preferred to

564
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: keep her private life private, the lies were monstrous, They

565
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: were appalling, and they were absolutely crucially damaging, because not

566
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: only within Russia was she hurried, prided and demonized and

567
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: feet should in ugly sexual cartoons with rasput and some

568
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: of them quite pornographic. In fact, these were in circulation

569
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: in Russia, but of course this spread across the Western

570
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: press in Britain and America. The gossip was appalling, you know,

571
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: the talk that they were having a sexual relationship was

572
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: utterly absurd, and when people ask me about it, I'll say,

573
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: I'm just not going there because it's so ridiculous. But

574
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: the trouble is all that scandal and gossip, and it

575
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: was absolutely fetid based on the third fourth hand gossip

576
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: and rumor and innuendo. There was not a grain of

577
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,439
Speaker 1: truth in any of it, but of course that kind

578
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: of mudge if there's enough of it sticks in the end.

579
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 1: The letter it was taken as an admission of guilt.

580
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: The fiction was taken as fact. It was undoubtedly false,

581
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: but it unleashed a flood of anger and fury against

582
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: the Romanovs and against Rasputin. It became the enduring thing

583
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: that people remember umber about Grigory rest Sputin embedded right

584
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,359
Speaker 1: in the lyrics of the bony m song of his name,

585
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: that he was the lover of the Russian Queen. The

586
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: Romanovs did what they could to answer the lie. They

587
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,320
Speaker 1: tried to claw back Alexander's reputation, but Eliodora's partying shot

588
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: had struck home. The mad monk went on the run.

589
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: He disappeared into the shadows, off the stage for a time,

590
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: and yet the damage was done. Shots rang out. It

591
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: was intermission at the opera house. Nicholas had taken two

592
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: of his daughter's Olga and Tatiana, to see the Tale

593
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: of the Czar Sultan. But he wasn't the only one.

594
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,399
Speaker 1: A revolutionary anarchist had come with murder on his mind.

595
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: He meant to change the shape of the Russian Empire

596
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: with his revolver at close range, and he did it too.

597
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: The bullets struck home and killed the prime minister stoy Leapin.

598
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:59,919
Speaker 1: Nicholas later remembered that stoy Leapin had turned and made

599
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: a sign of the cross in the air. As he

600
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: grew pale, blood was smeared on the right arm of

601
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: his jacket. It took four days for the Tsar's right

602
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: hand man to die. This was one more active violence

603
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: that was laid at Restputant's feet. The papers wondered whether

604
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,240
Speaker 1: Grigory had somehow been part of the plot of the assassination.

605
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:21,280
Speaker 1: It was pure fabrication, But what tragedies weren't being blamed

606
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: on the holy man from Siberia. Nicholas was spurred into action.

607
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: Things were spiraling out of control, so he threw caution

608
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 1: to the wind. As publishers spun up the presses to

609
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 1: run articles and booklets on the mystical sex maniacs supporting

610
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: the Empress, Nicholas did everything he could to reverse the

611
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: concessions he had made in nineteen o five. In his eyes,

612
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: the freedom of the press wasn't working. The attempts he

613
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: made to allow for representative government were falling short. His

614
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: Empress was being derided, his ministers murdered, and even monarchists

615
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 1: were fighting against him. It was time to reassert his

616
00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: god given authority. It was time for violence. The Moscow

617
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: branch of the Okrana rated the printing office where a

618
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: book against Resputant was being printed. They smashed the presses,

619
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: seized the books, and shut down the operation. The author,

620
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: with his original manuscript tucked away, went on the run.

621
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,320
Speaker 1: A message was sent to the governor of the city,

622
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: silenced every mention of Restputan, not the barest whisper was

623
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: allowed to reach the page. With the secret police rampaging

624
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: throughout the city, the governor agreed. Over the course of

625
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: the next few months, stories about Resputant brought on harsh reprisals,

626
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: but the voices of Russian writers had been set free

627
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: by the edicts of nineteen o five, and it was

628
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: far too late to cage them back up again. Publishers,

629
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,799
Speaker 1: determined to hold onto their new found freedoms, continued to

630
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: print stories about Resputin, and the more the Tsar's forces

631
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: attempted to silence those stories, the more certain the people

632
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: became grigory. Resputin, the devil of lust, had his grip

633
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: on the Russian throne. That's it for this week's episode

634
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: of Unobscured. Stick around after this short sponsor break for

635
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: a preview of what's in store for next week. The

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Speaker 1: throne was in danger, the Church was in danger, the

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Speaker 1: very state of Russia itself. No revolutionary or foreign missionary

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Speaker 1: had done what rest Sputin had done. The Imperial family

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Speaker 1: was stained. A vestige of the dark Ages had risen

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Speaker 1: up and taken the Czar of Russia into his hands.

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Speaker 1: That was the message that thundered out into the Russian parliament,

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Speaker 1: the Duma, on March eighth of nineteen twelve. The speaker,

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Speaker 1: Alexander Gukov, was a politician who had been working to

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Speaker 1: reform the Russian government since the Revolution of nineteen o five.

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Speaker 1: Now he was taking direct aim at the Czar, and

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Speaker 1: Nicholas took it personally. After all, this speech was in

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Speaker 1: open defiance of his power, and in a time when

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Speaker 1: the press and the Church and even the supporters of

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Speaker 1: the Empire had gone against the crown, this was a

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Speaker 1: new low. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and

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Speaker 1: produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in

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Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty,

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00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: writing by Carl Nellis and original music by Chad Lawson.

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Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source materials, and links

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Speaker 1: to our other shows over at grimm and mild dot com,

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00:39:38,600 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: Slash Unobscured, and, as always, thanks for listening. The Boa