Grigori Rasputin
1869 – 1916 Russian Peasant mystic and faith healer at the imperial court
The wandering peasant mystic whose sway over the empress scandalized Russia.
- Religion
- A Russian Orthodox peasant and self-styled holy wanderer, or strannik, who held no clerical office; investigations into claims that he belonged to the Khlyst sect were never substantiated, and much of the sexual and satanic legend around him is exaggeration.
- Affiliations
- No formal position in Church or state; gained influence over Empress Alexandra as a healer to the ailing Tsarevich Alexei.
Rasputin was a Siberian peasant and religious wanderer who won the trust of Empress Alexandra by seeming to ease her son's bleeding attacks. He held no rank in the Orthodox Church, and modern historians treat many lurid stories about him as rumor. His influence over the royal couple during the war fed public anger, and a group of nobles murdered him in 1916.
Connections
- associate of Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse) — She trusted him as a holy man who could help her hemophiliac son.
- associate of Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse) — The empress saw him as a holy healer for her son and defended him fiercely.
- associate of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia — His reputed calming of the boy's illness was the source of his power.
- associate of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia — Rasputin's apparent ability to ease his bleeding gave the mystic his hold at court.
- rival of Felix Yusupov — Organized and took part in his assassination in 1916.
- rival of Felix Yusupov — Yusupov led the conspiracy that murdered him in 1916.