The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin by Margarita Nelipa

A new book, The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin by Margarita Nelipa looks set to be 'the one to read'. The research is sure to be meticulous and I am sure there will be so much new information and insights in it. It's wonderful when something refreshingly new appears!

Please click on the link to read more about it.

"The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin"

Grigory Rasputin

On this day (or yesterday if he died before Midnight) according to the Old Russian calendar, 93 years ago, Grigory Rasputin was murdered in a madcap plan to save the Romanov dynasty. To this day the exact details of his death remain sketchy and Prince Felix Youssoupov's claims to have fired the fatal bullet seem somewhat far-fetched. Nevertheless, the man was killed in vain. It was too late to save the dynasty and it was probably too late for Rasputin to claim to have any influence in anything that was going on in Russia. Events were moving too quickly and Rasputin had already gone beyond his capacity to be of any assistance to anyone.

These are only my thoughts about him and they might be mistaken. Rasputin, to my mind, was a simple peasant with a remarkable gift. He cannot be dismissed as simply a charlatan because the Tsarina Alexandra was far too astute and spiritual a being to be conned by someone so superficial. The driving force behind the Tsarina was the natural desire to end her son's suffering and her sense of responsibility in supporting her husband, Tsar Nicholas, and ensuring that he was able to adhere to his Coronation Oath and maintain the stability of the country. Alexandra was first and foremost a wife and mother. She had no personal desire for power but she had married - out of love - one of the most significant players on the world stage: the Tsar of all the Russias, who, likewise, had no personal desire for power, only the sense of having to carry that burden to the best of his ability. As any loving wife would do, she supported her husband in his work. Their only son suffered from haemophilia - a condition which, at the time, meant the slightest knock could leave him in excruciating pain and even prove fatal. Moreover, that beautiful child, was being groomed to one day rule the mighty Russian Empire and Alexandra's role was so ensure that he was capable of so doing, but the poor boy was often laid low by his illness and, like any mother, Alexandra would have done anything to ease his pain.

Into this scenario stepped the rough peasant Rasputin with his mystical gifts of being able to alleviate suffering. He was certainly successful on one level and he was also able to give Alexandra the hope and support she craved. Naturally, he appeared to her as a holy 'Man of God' - and perhaps he was, in the beginning. Alexei (the Tsarevich) felt better when Rasputin assured Alexandra that all was well. Nowadays, when so much information is available about the power of the mind, such things make a lot of sense, but then it was simply 'miraculous'. Unfortunately, I think, Rasputin came to associate himself with his own power and, becoming arrogant in his complacency, completely lost sight of his gifts. He began interfering and, like a petulant child, became angry when he wasn't appreciated, and his anger was often followed by deep remorse. He was simply 'too big for his own boots'. He couldn't cope with his gifts and they began to fail him. There was no way he could have averted the war (interesting, considering the power of the mind, that he absented himself at the time its outbreak, by drawing to himself (unconsciously) an attack from a fanatical opponent); nor could he have prevented the Russian Revolution and he made his convenient escape by opening himself to being murdered only months before it all fell apart.

The truly mystical part of Rasputin is, to my mind, his way of thinking. A gifted man who could have done so much good, but he became so self-absorbed and incapable of using his gifts wisely that it led only to disaster for him and for a dynasty. I was taught in school that Rasputin was a major factor in sparking the revolution. I don't think that is true. I think he was merely an excuse, among many other excuses, for leading Russia into the chaos that followed. Alexandra and her children respected him and, for that reason alone, I think he needs to be remembered tonight.

The Glamorous Grand Duke

Legend has it that Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch and Chanel met on a beach, although they may have been introduced to each other by Dmitri's sister, Marie Pavlovna. One wonders what the dark and handsome Dmitri and the petite Chanel first said to each other! They soon became lovers.

The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess certainly had a strong influence on Chanel's fashion career. Dmitri introduced her to the former perfumier to the Tsars, Earnest Beaux, and Marie made gorgeous embroidered clothes for the business before becoming a designer herself. Beaux created the celebrated Chanel No.5.

Dmitri was the son of the Tsar's uncle, Grand Duke Paul, and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Greece, who died giving birth to him. After Paul made a morganatic marriage and was sent into exile by the Tsar, Marie and Dmitri were looked after by the Tsaritsa's sister, Grand Duchess Ella and her husband, Grand Duke Serge. Ella was beautiful but rather cold and Serge was greatly disliked. Although they were surrounded by splendour and played with the Tsar's children, it must have been a strange childhood. Ella was obsessed with Serge, who was secretly gay. Serge was rather cruel, but apparently he was kinder to the children than Ella. He was regarded as a petty tyrant and assassinated in 1905.

Dmitri had many lovers before he met Chanel, including the ballerina, Vera Karalli and his cousin's morganatic wife, Natasha. The greatest scandal involving the grand Duke occurred when he and the flamboyant Felix Youssopoff had an affair. Dmitri was considered as a husband for Grand Duchess Olga by the Tsaritsa at one stage.

When he and Felix got fed up with Rasputin's evil influence over Alexandra and the Tsar, they decided to murder him. They thought that this would solve the many problems of the royal family and the country. Rasputin was very difficult to get rid of. His killing involved poisoning, shooting and drowning. The Tsar was horrified when he found out that Dimitri was involved and sent him into exile. This, of course, saved his life.

Dmitri always had money problems and his love affair with Chanel didn't last. However, he eventually married a wealthy American heiress, Audrey Emery, moved to Florida and had a son, Paulie. Paul eventually became the Mayor of Palm Beach.

They eventually divorced and Dmitri died young of tuberculosis in Switzerland during the Second World War. He was reburied in the palace chapel on the island of Mainau in Lake Constance in southern Germany. Marie's son owned the property there and she wanted him buried there.

Rasputin

Black magician? Holy healer? Saint or sinner? Saint and sinner? Who was Rasputin? Does it all depend on one's own beliefs?

These are just my thoughts. Nothing is really black and white and only when we live in a black and white world do we narrow people down to a category. Often, religions express saints and sinners to extremes. Women saints in particular, have been either plaster-cast virgins or wanton temptresses. Those who err towards the 'supernatural' have been seen as either witches or demons, or supernaturally holy and blessed.

Supposing, if you will, that there is only One Life, One Force in the universe, and that is the Force of Love. Some call it God, some call it Goddess, some call it Allah, some call it Life or Beauty. Humanity, all humanity, is an expression of that Beautiful power, which is far greater than a human brain can imagine. Being expressions of the power, what we think, what we believe with all that we are, is what we become and what we experience in our day to day lives. If we believe - on the deepest level - that we are failures, we fail. If we believe we are martyrs, we die a martyr's death. If we believe we are miraculous, we are miraculous.

Rasputin, I think, came to believe he was miraculous. He was. He did stem the blood flow in the little Tsarevich and healed him. He knew he could. He tapped into that power, which is in all of us. But, eventually, he became so puffed up on his own power that he forgot he had simple tapped into something that is in all of us. His arrogance was his undoing; the same power, which had healed Alexei, recoiled on him.

Before the discovery of electricity, no one would have believed that it would be possible to do the things we take for granted today. Imagine if Edison had thought that he was electricity!! I think that is what happened to Rasputin. Rather than knowing he had a gift and had tapped into a mighty force, he thought he was that force. He was not a black magician, nor a saint, nor a sinner. He was simply a man who became bloated on something that wasn't his, and it backfired on him.

True Beauty

The most striking aspect of Grand Duchess Elizabeth has always been for me, her natural inclination to create beauty in everything. Renowned as 'the most beautiful princess in Europe', far from being possessive about that gift, she used it to the full both for herself and for others. When young, she paid great attention to her appearance; as time passed, that beauty went deeper and deeper and culminated in bringing beauty into the most 'ugly' places - into slums and hovels, into lives devoid of dignity, and into a world thrown into confusion by murder and war.

Now, more than at any other time in history, I believe that message is vital. We have made such advances in technology and science - wonderful advances, bringing people together - but I cannot help but feel sometimes that, along the way, we have forgotten the true meaning of beauty. One only need browse the shelves of video shops to see how many films are made about destruction and violence - 'action films' they are called. One only need glance at billboards or watch a couple of adverts to see how beauty is narrowed down to some designers' ideas of how we should all look, what we should wear....what beauty means.

I live near a wood filled with ancient trees, beside which is a new wood planted for the millennium. To see the young trees growing so quickly is amazing! To see the ancient trees with their gnarled roots, their twisted and heavily-laded branches, the marks in the bark, the intertwining of their limbs is truly breath-taking. Not one tree quite resembles another. Yet, there they all stand having absorbed centuries of wisdom and their beauty is ineffable. They don't fit a pattern. They don't do anything in the way of 'action'. But, strong and solid, they sometimes seem to me to have watched and listened and absorbed centuries of thoughts of passers-by, like me, and they are truly uplifting.

There is, I think, a beauty that doesn't ever try to be anything other than itself at its very best. I think Ella knew that so deeply and, unlike Rasputin, who felt a need to debase people in order to destroy their pride, she simply drew that loveliness from others.

In the midst of financial crises, toppling of governments and ending of empires; in the midst of turmoil in politics and the power-seeking scare-mongering of some politicians, true beauty cannot be destroyed. It is. And, like the ancient trees growing happily beside the newer woods, it simply continues because it is real. And reality is eternal.

2nd Excerpt from "Most Beautiful Princess"

....“Murder?” she thought, “Can murder ever be justified….Thou shalt not kill….” And yet, when the whole of Europe was engaged in such bloody slaughter, the removal of one dangerous man, one source of evil, seemed so small a thing. Had all this bloodshed and horror hardened her heart, she wondered. Five, ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to even entertain such a notion but now…desperate times, desperate remedies. She flicked through the pages of her Bible to the Gospel of St. John: “It is better that one man should die for the people, rather than that the whole nation should perish…”
“Matushka,” Mitrophan gently tapped her shoulder, “forgive me, but you look so troubled.”
“I am troubled, Father, deeply troubled.”
He knelt down beside her, “Is there anything I can do?”
“It is better that one man should die for the people, rather than that the whole nation should perish…” she read aloud. “That’s what they said of Christ. Those who killed him believed they were acting for the common good. Do you think that the death of one man could prevent the destruction of a nation?”
“Every nation chooses its own scapegoats. It is easier to lay the responsibility for all our ills at the feet of someone else than to accept that we have brought calamity onto ourselves.”
“But if one man were truly destroying the country and…”
“Could one man do that without the tacit consent of all his fellow countrymen? Evil is like a plant - it can’t flourish unless it is fed and watered.” He gazed towards the infant in the crib, “By our carelessness and selfishness, we all contribute to its growth and then when we see what a monster we have created, we attempt to destroy it as though it is external to ourselves.”
“Something terrible is about to happen,” she whispered. “I have neither condemned nor condoned it but in my heart I think it’s the only way.”
“With or without your agreement, this terrible thing will happen anyway?”
She nodded.
“Then it’s out of your hands and all you can do is place it in the hands of God. Pray that if it is his will, this thing might be averted but, if there is no other way, pray for everyone involved.”
She stared at the serene expressions of the statues in the crib. How she longed for peace, for an end to all this horror, and a return to the beauty that was once her sole preoccupation.
“There was time once,” she murmured, “to contemplate everything; to reflect, to feel..."