Cover

Preface

Rasputin's legend has captivated and enthralled people for a century. Restaurants in Siberia, Vancouver, London, and Bangkok bear his name; beers and vodkas display his face on their labels. There have been musicals and operas, cartoons and comic books, as well as documentaries and more than a dozen films about his life.

A mountain of books has chronicled Rasputin's rise and fall with varying degrees of sensationalism and accuracy. Only a few are in English, and even fewer have advanced our understanding of his life. The first was by Iliodor (Sergei Trufanov), an ex-monk who published The Mad Monk of Russia, Iliodor: Life, Memoirs, and Confessions of Sergei Michailovich Trufanoff (Iliodor) in 1918. Although Iliodor began as a friend of Rasputin's and ended as his bitter enemy, he conceded that the peasant's religious quest was sincere, at least in the early years. The book remains pivotal as a firsthand account of Rasputin's rise to power, although Iliodor also invented facts and conversations: “I put in a little extra,” he later admitted, “especially at the end.”

Two important books appeared in 1928 and 1935. In 1928, the popular writer René Fülöp-Miller's Rasputin, the Holy Devil provided the first serious English-language biography. Fülöp-Miller drew on memoirs and published primary materials. His work has merit, but the many fictionalized episodes and invented conversations make the book problematic. Yet it was the standard reference on Rasputin's life for most of the twentieth century. Alexander Spiridovich, who headed the security forces guarding the Romanovs, wrote Raspoutine, 1863–1916: D'après les documents russes et les archives privées de l'auteur (Rasputin, 1863–1916, based on Russian documents and the author's private archives), in 1935. Although the book contains inaccuracies, Spiridovich was a keen and honest observer who benefited from access to police reports and official records.

Rasputin's older daughter, Maria, was in a position to speak with authority on her father and his life. She published The Real Rasputin (1929), My Father (1934), and Rasputin: The Man behind the Myth (1977), with Patte Barham. The first two books contain valuable information and insights, and they probably reflect much of what Rasputin thought about himself. The third volume is sensationalized and far less reliable, advancing theories and incidents Maria never previously mentioned.

Numerous other works appeared throughout the twentieth century, notably Elizabeth Judas's Rasputin: Neither Devil nor Saint (1942), which is based on the author's own interactions with the peasant. Colin Wilson's Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs (1964) attempted to refute Rasputin's satanic image, while Robert K. Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra (1967) offered a magnificent story of the last tsar, although its account of Rasputin was based largely on Fülöp-Miller's book.

A full English-language biography of Rasputin finally appeared in 1982, when Alex de Jonge published The Life and Times of Grigorii Rasputin. De Jonge clearly had a good feel for Rasputin. Unfortunately, he was hampered by Soviet policy that tried to control what the world would know about Nicholas II and his circle. This control denied foreign scholars access to archives that would provide vital information and answer even such simple questions as: When was Rasputin born? Did he die rich or poor? A host of errors in the text, the footnotes, and even the bibliography is disappointing.

Brian Moynahan's Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned (1997) focuses on salacious gossip surrounding the peasant and his career. As a serious biography, it failed the test of serious scholarship.

Russia held all of the documents needed to tell Rasputin's story, but for years they remained closed to foreigners. The Soviet government did publish archival documents chronicling the last years of the Romanov dynasty, the most important being Padenie tsarskogo rezhima (Fall of the Tsarist Regime), which appeared in seven volumes between 1924 and 1927 and was edited by P. E. Shchegolev. Padenie contains interrogations, depositions, and other materials gathered by the Extraordinary Investigatory Commission of the Provisional Government in the spring of 1917. The commission was interested in the public activities and private lives of key figures in the Old Regime. But documents favorable to Nicholas II, Alexandra, and Rasputin were not included in Padenie.

That material was consigned to an enormous secret “file” that was stolen from the archives when the Soviet Union collapsed. The cellist Mstislav Rostropovich purchased these documents in 1995 and gave them to his friend Edvard Radzinsky, an outstanding figure on the Russian cultural scene. Radzinsky used these documents to write Rasputin, zhizn' i smert' (2000), which appeared in English as The Rasputin File. Radzinsky's discussion of Rasputin's life is fascinating, and he shows keen insight into the man's sexuality and religious views. Impressive as the book may be, it is not a systematic biography, and its numerous fictional passages undermine its reliability.

Radzinsky is not the only Russian to explore Rasputin's life recently. In the last decade more than a dozen books have appeared in Russia by Alexander Bokhanov, A. P. Kotsiubinskii, Oleg Platonov, Oleg Shishkin, and Vyacheslav Smirnov and Marina Smirnova, each containing useful nuggets of archival information and advancing interesting theories. Some of these recent works are undisguised polemics infused with monarchist and religious sentiments. Even worse, we find a number of writers succumbing to nationalism, anti-Semitism, and a determination to expunge pages from Rasputin's life as inventions of Masonic, Jewish, and Bolshevik conspirators. Even these books are useful to the specialist, but more casual readers need to be cautious.

Two eyewitness accounts of Rasputin's murder are extremely important. Vladimir Purishkevich, the man who fired the shots that actually took Rasputin's life, published The Murder of Rasputin in 1918. Prince Felix Yusupov, the architect of the conspiracy, gave his account of the event in 1927. A shorter work, supposedly by another conspirator, Dr. Stanislaus Lazovert, is mere fiction.

Oleg Shishkin was the first to suggest that the British Secret Intelligence Service was behind Rasputin's murder. Andrew Cook developed the idea in To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin (2006). His book began a revisionist wave that argues that Yusupov was simply the front man in a plot that was concocted and carried out by British agents. Richard Cullen follows this view in Rasputin: The Role of Britain's Secret Service in His Torture and Murder (2010). Dr. Cullen, a former Scotland Yard detective, points out discrepancies in the Yusupov and Purishkevich accounts. Cullen seems to expect perfect agreement in the accounts of the main participants, and that reveals the weakness of the revisionist approach. One would think that a policeman, of all people, would recognize that honest eyewitnesses are fallible and disagreement over details does not necessarily indicate deceit. Nevertheless, Cullen is to be admired for his presentation of some very interesting ideas about Rasputin's murder.

Margarita Nelipa's The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin: A Conspiracy That Brought Down the Russian Empire (2010) is not a biography of the peasant but an exhaustive discussion of his death. This important book offers information that will interest scholars, particularly biographical details of even minor characters in the story. Nelipa argues that the tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas Michaelovich, was the driving force behind the murder. This thesis is unconvincing; it is not even supported by circumstantial evidence. A larger problem is the author's reliance on recent books asserting that the tsar was the victim of vast and fantastic conspiracies. Nelipa also insists on viewing Rasputin as a holy man, rejecting abundant evidence about his dark side and selfish motives.

Reviewers greeted my Rasputin: A Life (published in 1990) as a serious, well-researched biography of the Siberian mystic and healer that avoided exaggeration or sensationalism. The book was handicapped, however, by a lack of access to Russian and Siberian archives. There was an additional problem: the published English versions of the wartime correspondence between Nicholas and Alexandra were inaccurate and incomplete.

Foreign scholars were suddenly welcomed in Russian archives after the Soviet Union collapsed. In 1994 I made the first of what proved to be seven research trips to Moscow, Tyumen, and Tobolsk to study documents, many of which had not been available even to Soviet historians. My goal was to establish the exact nature of Rasputin's influence with the tsar and his wife. My first step was to publish all of their wartime letters (which were written in English) and telegrams (in Russian). This material is stored in GARF, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, in Moscow. I spent the summers of 1994 and 1995 transcribing these documents, which I published in 1999 as The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra, April 1914–March 1917. This large volume offers all of their 1,692 letters and telegrams, many of which had never been published.

Documents in Moscow and Siberia revealed fascinating and previously unknown aspects of Rasputin's life. This material was basic to the second stage of my work—to write a new biography of Rasputin based on archival resources. The present book is the result of these efforts, and to emphasize its originality I have called it Rasputin: The Untold Story. My goal has been to synthesize archival sources with published documents, memoirs, and other studies of Rasputin into a single, comprehensive work. This book is directed to the growing audience of general readers who are fascinated by the decline and fall of imperial Russia. My first biography of Rasputin, by contrast, was an academic study.

This is the first study of Rasputin to bring archival information to bear on a series of important problems, beginning with state records for 1639, which show “Izosim, the son of Fedor” and the founder of the family, crossing the Urals into western Siberia. I used baptismal records to fix the exact date of Rasputin's birth—a simple point, one might say, but Rasputin's biographers were not able to do that before the collapse of the Soviet Union threw open the archives. This is the first book to use the records of the church investigation of 1907 to 1908 into charges that Rasputin was a member of the heretical Khlysty, as well as a report from a new bishop that resolved the case in Rasputin's favor in November 1912. These documents yield exciting information on many aspects of Rasputin's life, including his religious teachings and followers.

Rasputin: The Untold Story uses police reports to describe Rasputin's farming activity and daily routine, as well as his religious pursuits. I also used the many large (and impressive) volumes of newspaper clippings the Okhrana, the Russian secret police, maintained on Rasputin. Forgotten police records in the marvelous archive at Tobolsk will give the reader a new and accurate account of a deranged woman's attempt to murder Rasputin in the summer of 1914. I am also the first to publish some of Rasputin's famous notes, as well as letters he received from ordinary citizens. I am grateful to Vyacheslav Smirnov, who created the Rasputin Museum in Pokrovskoye, for giving me access to materials and photographs he has collected for the display. Even the town comes to life, making its decline in the Soviet period all the more striking. The village church was torn down in the 1950s, and Rasputin's house was leveled in February 1980 while Boris Yeltsin was the Communist boss of Siberia.

The research that has gone into this book provides a pioneering account of Rasputin's relations with homosexuals. These men were out of the closet and forging public careers that would have been inconceivable anywhere else in the world at that time. Readers will be surprised to learn how rapidly Russians were coming to accept same-sex relationships at every level of society. Dan Healey has done pioneering work in this important area, and I am grateful to him for helping me in my work. Rasputin: The Untold Story is also the first book to make a very interesting point: Nicholas and Alexandra were indifferent to the private lives of a dozen or more gay men who sought their friendship. Unfortunately, these homosexuals were friends of Rasputin's—and they were scoundrels, which does not imply that they were representative of their group. The men who entered into a close relationship with Rasputin were, almost by definition, of low character—and that included heterosexuals who were likewise not typical of their group.

Although I cannot agree that British intelligence agents were deeply involved in Rasputin's assassination, this is the first biography of the Siberian mystic and healer to fully evaluate that argument. Rasputin: The Untold Story is also the first to exploit a fascinating document: the inventory of Rasputin's property that the court ordered when he died. This finally yields an answer to the old question: Did the last favorite of the last tsar die rich or poor? All the revelations are here, thanks to the Russian archives.

I hope that this book will give readers a deeper understanding of the peasant's life and role in undermining the Old Regime. Rasputin led a fascinating life that too easily passed into the realm of rumor and legend. If he ended as greedy and corrupt, he was also engaging and human. A crowd of children always greeted “Granddaddy Grisha” when he returned to Pokrovskoye, knowing that he had a bag of gumdrops and other treats waiting for them. Rasputin loved cats and was the proud owner of a stud horse worth a thousand rubles. He was charitable to the poor. He stood for peace and religious toleration; he befriended Jews and prostitutes. The furnishings of his house included an Offenbach piano, a gramophone, and Persian carpets.

An evaluation of Rasputin based on the facts will lay waste to a century of misconception and error.

Acknowledgments

I am glad finally to have the opportunity to thank in print the people who have helped me with this book. Greg King read the entire manuscript more than once and offered countless criticisms and suggestions. Greg also helped me improve my writing skills and encouraged me at times when I sorely needed it. I am greatly indebted to Janet Ashton, researcher at the British Library and the author of books and articles on the Romanovs. (Ashton maintains a website that features important research on Russian history at www.directarticle.org.) She read all of the chapters several times and offered much help. Special thanks go to David Haviland and Sam Jordison, gifted freelance editors, who also gave me valuable lessons in writing for a general audience. I thank Stephen Henley for his computer support and patience in dealing with my problems, ignorance, and frustrations.

Dr. Will Lee has been my adviser on matters pertaining to the Russian Orthodox Church. He also shared information about Dmitry Pavlovich, critiqued several chapters, and gave valuable encouragement. Terry Strieter, chairman of the History Department of Murray State University, read much of the manuscript and offered useful observations. Griffith Henniger II helped in several important ways and has been a good comrade in arms. I am grateful to Dan Healey for sharing information and insights with me on subjects of mutual interest. My agent, Andrew Lownie, knows how indebted I am to him; I thank him for believing in me at times when that must have not been easy. Particular appreciation goes to Levi J. Burkett. I have been a burden sometimes to Levi, but at least I am now able to express my gratitude to him.

All of the people I have named deserve credit for improving my work, but the errors and shortcomings that remain are entirely my responsibility.

I thank IREX (the International Research and Exchanges Board) for short-term travel grants that permitted me to work at GARF, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, in the summers of 1994 and 1995. My research at that time focused on the “Nicky-Sunny Correspondence,” that was published in 1999. Murray State University's CISR (the Committee on Institutional Scholarship and Research) provided generous support that permitted me to work with the Rasputin papers in GARF in the summer of 2000 and the winter of 2002 to 2003. Thanks to CISR I was able to work in two wonderful Siberian archives, GATO, the State Archive of Tyumen Oblast' in Tyumen, and TFGATO, the Affiliated State Archive of Tyumen Oblast' in Tobolsk, during the summer of 2005. My warm appreciation goes to three gracious Russian archivists who helped me along the way, Lyubov Tyutyunik of GARF, Olga Tarasova of GATO, and Galina Kushir of TFGATO.

• • •

It is surprisingly difficult to be consistent in transliterating Russian words into English. I have rendered Russian titles, words, and phrases in the footnotes and the bibliography according to the Library of Congress system. In the text, I use the more reader-friendly New York Public Library system. Under the NYPL system and appear as “ya,” “yu,” and “sky”; under the LOC system they are rendered “ia,” “iu,” and “skii.” Russian names that are familiar in the West are rendered in their Western spellings. Thus the tsar and his wife and their son are referred to as Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexis, while Rasputin's given name is Gregory. In other instances, a Russian flavor seems appropriate, so Rasputin's youngest daughter appears as Varvara (not Barbara), while his famous crony is Bishop Varnava (not Barnabas). Rasputin's nemesis is Feofan (not Theophanes). The names of Russians with international reputations—for example, Michael Rodzyanko and Paul Milyukov—appear in their familiar forms.

The family names of Russian women usually end in “a” or “ya.” For example, Russians would know Rasputin's wife as Praskovaya Rasputina. But Western historians omit the final vowels in such family names, and I follow that practice by referring to Rasputin's spouse as Praskovaya Rasputin. I use the Russian spellings of female patronymics. The tsar's oldest daughter, for example, is Olga Nicholaevna.

Russian titles can be confusing to foreigners. In 1547, Ivan IV, the grand prince (veliky knyaz') of Moscow, assumed the title of tsar, the Russian equivalent of Caesar or the German Kaiser. In taking this title, the man history knows as Ivan the Terrible was asserting that he ruled an empire linked, through his ancestors, to Caesar Augustus. The wife of a tsar was the tsaritsa, often rendered in the west as tsarina (which is actually not a Russian word, although it has established itself in European languages). Peter the Great adopted the Western titles of emperor and empress. Soon after he died, the old and new titles were used interchangeably, and I follow that practice in this book. The tsar's sons held the title of tsarevich; his oldest son—and heir to the throne—was the tsetsarevich. Nicholas II held that title until 1894, when he became tsar. But Russians referred to his only son as the tsarevich, and I follow that practice. Members of the Romanov family had the titles veliky knyaz' and velikaya knyagina; I refer to them as the grand duke and the grand duchess.

Unfortunately, when Peter the Great introduced the Western calendar into Russia, he chose the Julian calendar, still favored by the Protestant powers that he was cultivating. When the Gregorian calendar became dominant in Western Europe, Russia was left behind in yet another important respect. Dates in this book are “old style” (O.S.) unless identified as “new style” (N.S.). Russian dates are twelve days behind the Gregorian date in the nineteenth century, thirteen days in the twentieth. The difference is especially confusing when a source or secondary account is not consistent in using a single system, and that happens. The “godless communists” resolved these difficulties on February 1, 1918, when they introduced the calendar that Pope Gregory XIII had proclaimed on February 24, 1582.

Cast of Principal Characters, Places, and Terms

PEOPLE OF POKROVSKOYE

Gregory Efimovich Rasputin (“Grisha,” “Grishka,” “Our Friend”), surname legally changed to Rasputin-Novyi (also Rasputin-Novykh), peasant from Pokrovskoye; married to Praskovaya Dubrovina of the village of Dubrovino; their children were Dmitry, followed by Maria (also Matrëna) and Varvara

Efim and Anna Rasputin, father and mother of Gregory Rasputin

V. I. Kartavtsev, resident of Pokrovskoye, who gave information about Rasputin's early life to the Extraordinary Commission in 1917

Pecherkin sisters, Catherine (“Katya”) and Evdokiya (“Dunya”), among Rasputin's first followers; later his lovers and servants

Peter Ostroumov, chief priest of Pokrovskoye; Fedor Chemagin was his assistant

THE ROMANOVS

Nicholas II, Russian tsar and emperor, reigned 1894–1917

Alexandra Fedorovna, tsaritsa and empress, wife of Nicholas II; born Princess Alix of Hesse und bei Rhein

Alexis (the tsarevich), son of Nicholas II and Alexandra, heir to the Russian throne; his sisters were Olga, Tatyana, Maria, and Anastasia

Alexander II, Russian tsar and emperor, reigned 1855–1881; grandfather of Nicholas II

Alexander III, Russian tsar and emperor, reigned 1881–1894; father of Nicholas II

Maria Fedorovna, widow of Alexander III and mother of Nicholas II

Xenia Alexandrovna, older sister of Nicholas II and wife of Alexander Michaelovich

Alexander Michaelovich (“Sandro”), grand duke, cousin once removed and brother-in-law to Nicholas II; married to the tsar's older sister, Xenia

Olga Alexandrovna, younger sister of Nicholas II

Michael Alexandrovich (“Misha”), younger brother of Nicholas II

Nicholas Michaelovich, brother of Alexander Michaelovich; historian and man of letters

Montenegrin sisters (the “Black Princesses”), Militsa and Anastasia (“Stana”), daughters of King Nikola Njegos of Montenegro; Militsa was married to the tsar's cousin Peter Nicholaevich while Anastasia was married to his brother, Nicholas Nicholaevich (“Nicholasha”), commander of Russian armies in the west until August 1915

Elisabeth Fedorovna (“Ella”), older sister of the Empress Alexandra

PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA

Anna Vyrubova, best friend of the empress and Rasputin

Eugene Botkin, physician to the imperial family

S. P. Fedorov, one of Alexis's physicians

Philippe Nizier-Vachot (“M. Philippe”), French practitioner of occult medicine; lived in Russia, 1901–1904

Vladimir Dedyulin, commandant of the Alexander Palace, 1906–1913, responsible for the imperial family's security; succeeded by Vladimir Voeikov, 1913–1917

Paul Kurlov, assistant-minister of the interior under Peter Stolypin, 1909–1911, and under Alexander Protopopov in 1916

Colonel Alexander Drenteln, major-general of the tsar's suite; commander of the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment

Sophie Buxhoeveden, baroness, lady-in-waiting, and friend of the Empress Alexandra

Julia von Dehn (“Lili”), friend of the Empress Alexandra and a member of Rasputin's circle

Pierre Gilliard, the imperial children's French tutor and a friend of the family

Charles Sydney Gibbes, the imperial children's English tutor

RASPUTIN'S FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES

Brother Makary, a starets at the Saint Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye

Sister Maria, a staritsa at the Abalak Monastery

Ivan Dobrovolsky, corrupt ex-school inspector; Rasputin's first business manager

Aaron Simanovich, jeweler, gambler, and loan shark; Rasputin's business manager, 1915–1916

Ivan Manasevich-Manuilov, Jewish journalist, police spy, and sometime secretary of Rasputin's

Georgy Sazonov, prominent journalist

Leonid Molchanov, Rasputin's friend; his father was Alexis, bishop of Tobolsk

Dmitry Rubenstein (“Mitya”), Jewish banker

Ignaty Manus, Jewish banker; rival of Dmitry Rubenstein's

Alexis Filippov, Rasputin's publisher and friend

Pitirim, metropolitan of Petrograd and friend of Rasputin's, well known as a homosexual

Ivan Osipenko, secretary of Pitirim's and Rasputin's friend

RASPUTIN's FOLLOWERS AND ADMIRERS

Barbara Uexkuell, prominent Saint Petersburg socialite and early admirer of Rasputin's

Olga Lokhtina, Rasputin's first follower in Saint Petersburg

Akilina Laptinskaya, former nun and nurse, early follower of Rasputin's; also served as his secretary

Alexandra Pistolkors, sister of Anna Vyrubova; she and her husband, Eric, were followers of Rasputin's

Elena Dzhanumovaya, wife of a wealthy merchant; follower of Rasputin's

Vera Zhukovskaya, Maria Golovina (“Munya”), and Zinaida Manshtedt, followers of Rasputin's

RASPUTIN'S ENEMIES

Bishop Anthony of Tobolsk, investigated Rasputin as a Khlyst, 1907–1908

Khioniya Berlatskaya, early follower of Rasputin's; turned on him when he made sexual advances to her

Iliodor, born Sergei Trufanov, monk and political figure; initially an ally, ended as Rasputin's bitter antagonist

Alexander Guchkov, leader of Octobrist Party; president of the Third Duma

Michael Rodzyanko, leader of Octobrist Party; president of the Fourth Duma

M. A. Novoselov, taught at Moscow Theological Academy; played a key role in the press campaign against Rasputin in 1910

Archimandrite Feofan, inspector and later rector of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy; early friend of Rasputin's, although later became a bitter enemy

Bishop Hermogen, bishop of Saratov; friend of Rasputin's, although later became a bitter enemy

Dmitry Kozelsky (“Mitya”), deformed epileptic and religious figure

Khioniya Guseva, follower of Iliodor's; attempted to kill Rasputin on June 29, 1914

Prince Felix Yusupov the Younger, organizer of Rasputin's assassination; married to Nicholas II's niece, Irina

Dmitry Pavlovich, cousin of Nicholas II's, friend of Felix Yusupov's, and member of the conspiracy that took Rasputin's life

V. M. Purishkevich, member of the Duma; fired the shots that actually killed Rasputin

GOVERNMENT FIGURES AND AGENCIES

Okhrana, the secret police; headed ex officio by the assistant minister of the interior

Sergei Witte, prime minister, 1905–1906; admirer of Rasputin's who vainly hoped to return to power with the peasant's support

Peter Arkadievich Stolypin, prime minister and minister of the interior, 1906–1911

Vladimir Kokovtsov, finance minister; prime minister, 1911–1914

Ivan Goremykin, prime minister, 1914–1916

Boris Sturmer, prime minister, January–November 1916

Nicholas Golitsyn, the last tsarist prime minister, January–March 1917

First Troika, alliance organized by Prince Michael Andronikov, shady businessman and flamboyant homosexual, to install Alexis Khvostov and Stephen Beletsky as minister and assistant minister of the interior; they held office September 1915–March 1916

Second Troika, alliance formed in 1916 by Dr. Peter Badmaev, businessman, physician, and ally of Rasputin's; the Troika included Alexander Protopopov (minister of the interior) and Paul Kurlov (assistant minister of the interior and police director)

Alexander Mosolov, director of the Imperial Court

Alexander Protopopov, minister of the interior, 1916

Alexander Khvostov, uncle of Alexis Khvostov; minister of justice, 1915–1916

Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, assistant minister of internal affairs and police director

Alexander Makarov, minister of the interior, 1911–1912; minister of justice, 1916–1917

Nicholas Maklakov, minister of the interior, 1913–1915

Nicholas Shcherbatov, minister of the interior, 1915

Vasily Maklakov, brother of Nicholas Maklakov; member of the Duma and prominent attorney who advised Prince Yusupov in organizing Rasputin's assassination

Vladimir Sukhomlinov, minister of war, 1914–1915

Alexis Polivanov, minister of war, 1915–1916

General Michael Alexeev, replaced Nicholas Nicholaevich as chief of staff in 1915; directed military operations until the March Revolution

Michael Kommisarov, police officer; supervised Rasputin for the First Troika

Dmitry Kosorotov, Petrograd's senior autopsy surgeon; performed the autopsy on Rasputin's body, December 20, 1916

Professor Vladimir Zharov, MD, led the team of medical experts that reassessed the autopsy and its results in 1993

Provisional Government, followed the tsarist regime in March 1917; overthrown by the Bolsheviks in November 1917

Investigatory Commission, “Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry for the Investigation of Illegal Acts by Ministers and Other Responsible Persons of the Tsarist Regime,” formed by the Provisional Government in spring 1917

Alexander Kerensky, first minister of justice in the Provisional Government; became prime minister in May 1917

Maurice Paléologue, French ambassador

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, founder of the Bolsheviks (or Communist Party), which overthrew the Provisional Government in November 1917

PEOPLE AND GROUPS CONNECTED WITH THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Sergei Lukyanov, ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1911

V. K. Sabler, ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1911–1915

Dmitry Samarin, ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1915; fought Rasputin's influence in the Church

Nicholas Volzhin, ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1915–1916; fought Rasputin's influence in the Church

Nicholas Raev, last tsarist ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1916; ally of Rasputin's

Nicholas Zaionchkovsky, assistant ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1915–1916; fought Rasputin's influence in the Church

Prince Nicholas Zhevakov, assistant ober-procurator of the Holy Synod, 1916; ally of Rasputin's

Peter Damansky, Holy Synod's financial director and later assistant ober-procurator; a friend and ally of Rasputin's

John of Kronstadt, influential archpriest of the Kronstadt cathedral

Alexis, bishop of Tobolsk, cleared Rasputin of charges of heresy; father of Rasputin's friend, Leonid Molchanov

Isidor, monk and bishop; friend of Rasputin's; well-known homo-
sexual

Varnava (“Suslik”), monk and friend of Rasputin's; archbishop of Tobolsk

Georgy Shavelsky, last head chaplain of the tsar's armed forces; foe of Rasputin's

Bishop Sergei, father superior of the Alexander Nevsky Seminary and one of Rasputin's early admirers; elected patriarch in 1943

Anthony, archbishop of Volhynia; Rasputin's foe at the Holy Synod

Vladimir Vostokov, a priest, publicist, and liberal idealist who pastored a large, working-class church near Moscow

Maria, mother superior of the Balashevskaya Convent near Tsaritsyn; ally of Rasputin's

PRINCIPAL BRITISH FIGURES

British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS), predecessor of MI6

George Buchanan, British ambassador

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hoare, head of the BSIS mission in Petrograd

Oswald Rayner, BSIS agent in Petrograd; Felix Yusupov's friend, helped him write The End of Rasputin (1927)

Stephen Alley and John Scale, BSIS agents in Petrograd

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES AND PLACES

Urals, mountain range separating Russia from Siberia

Pokrovskoye, Rasputin's hometown; located on the Tura River

Tobolsk, city on the Tobol River; capital of the province (gubernaya) of western Siberia

Abalak, town near Tobolsk; important as the site of the Znamensky Monastery

Tyumen, economic center of Northwest Siberia; located on the Tura River

Verkhoturye, town overlooking the Tura River; major religious center and site of the Saint Nicholas Monastery

Kazan, city in the upper Volga basin; 760 miles southwest of Tobolsk

Mount Athos, monastic center of the Eastern Orthodox Church; located on the coast of north central Greece

Tsaritsyn, city on the Volga; later Stalingrad, now Volgograd

Saint Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire; located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea

Moscow, known as the Old Capital until 1918, when it became the capital of the USSR

Tsarskoye Selo (“Tsar's Village”); exclusive residential center fifteen miles southeast of Saint Petersburg

Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, the main residence of the imperial family after 1905

Alexander Nevsky Monastery, founded in Saint Petersburg in 1710; sixteen churches were located there in Rasputin's time, along with Russia's leading theological academy and the headquarters of the metropolitan of Saint Petersburg

Stavka, general headquarters of the Russian army on the Western front; located at Baranovichi until the German advance forced its relocation to Mogilev in August 1915

YAR Restaurant, located in Moscow

TITLES OF CHURCH LEADERS

Patriarch, heads a national Orthodox Church that is autocephalous; that is, independent of any other religious authority; Russia became a patriarchal church in 1589; Peter the Great abolished the office in 1721, but it was restored in 1918 and again in 1943

Most Holy Synod, the state bureau that administered the Russian Orthodox Church after Peter the Great abolished the office of patriarch; headed by the ober-procurator (director general); the governing council was made up of the ober-procurator and six permanent members who sat ex officio, as well as six other members appointed for terms

Metropolitan, title of the bishops who presided over Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev; the exarch of Georgia was the equivalent of a metropolitan, and his office was fourth in honor and prestige in the Russian Orthodox Church; these four sat ex officio on the governing council of the Holy Synod

Archbishop, title of a senior bishop or a bishop who presides over an important jurisdiction

Bishop, title of the church figure who presides over a diocese, usually a major town

Vicar Bishop, junior figure who assists a presiding bishop or is assigned his own duties

Old Believers, left the Russian Orthodox Church in protest against the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in the 1660s; later split into groups

Sects, had no historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and developed in opposition to it

Khlysty (“Flagellants”), a sect that believed that sin ultimately brought its members closer to God; the “Believers in Christ” (as they called themselves) blended sex with worship, and they influenced Rasputin

Starets, a man who was not necessarily a priest or a monk but was recognized by the faithful as a pious man who led a holy life; a woman with this standing is a staritsa

Strannik, a pilgrim; a man or a woman whose vocation was to travel on foot to churches, monasteries, shrines, and other places with religious significance; famous for chanting the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner”