Grigori Rasputin

The content below is from Episode 92 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast.

This week’s episode won’t have an audio version until a later date. I got the covid and it sucks.

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

• I recommend you watch the 2004 Hellboy movie.
  • Here’s the Plot: At the end of World War II, the Nazis attempt to open a portal to a paranormal dimension in order to defeat the Allies, but are only able to summon a baby demon who is rescued by Allied forces and dubbed “Hellboy” (Ron Perlman). Sixty years later, Hellboy serves as an agent in the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, where he, aided by Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), a merman with psychic powers, and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a woman with pyrokinesis, protects America against dark forces.
  • It is based on the comics written by Mike Mignola and published by Dark Horse comics.
  • Directed by Guillermo del Toro and starrying Ron Pearlman as Hellboy, this movie kicks ass! It is dark and twisted, yet there is genuinely good humor throughout. Plus all the side characters are fantastic as well. The performances were spectacular and the head of photography on set knew what he or she was doing.
  • If you have already seen this gem of a movie I suggest you go back and watch it. I loved it as a 12 year old kid and I loved it even more as a dude in his late 20’s.

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT

• I thought about doing an episode about the time Atilla the Hun (AKA the scourge of god) was trampling through 5th century Europe until he set his sights on Rome and the unexpected happened. He agreed to meet with legendary Pope Leo I and after a relatively brief meeting Atila and his army left without laying a finger on Rome. No idea what was said, but it must have been respectable as all hell.
  • Yeah, I thought about doing that episode, but then I saw the trailer for the new Kingsman movie coming out set in WW1 era and I decided I HAD to do an episode on Rasputin.
  • The tail of Atila and the Pope can wait for another day. Put that away in my handy list of potential episodes.
  • Because this episodes going to be about the bad guy from the first Helboy movie.
    • oh and disclaimer: I am going to have some fun as I fumble through the onslaught of Ruskie names in this episode.

• Rasputin was a Russian dude from the lat 19th and early 20th century. He was perhaps the toughest son of a bitch on the planet during a time when the world was full of tough sons of bitches. He slept with countless women (most of whom he definitely should not have been sleeping with like royalty), he claimed to be the second coming of Christ, and was basically a cult leader that was able to win the trust of one of the most powerful families on the globe.

• Born in January of 1869 during the heart of winter in a place called Povskrovskoye located in Russian Siberia. In the middle of summer, the hottest this place ever gets is like 70 degrees and that is very rare. In winter it is about 5 degrees Fahrenheit on average… for like 3 months straight.
  • Legend says that when it gets to like 45 degrees Fahrenheit all the local women go topless and start sunbathing in the street. That is how cold this place usually is!
    • JK
  • To survive in a place like Pokskrovskoye you have to be tough as nails.

• Although he attended school, Grigori Rasputin remained illiterate, and his reputation for licentiousness earned him the surname Rasputin, Russian for “debauched one.”
  • Licetiousness means:: 1 : lacking legal or moral restraints especially : disregarding sexual restraints licentious behavior licentious revelers. 2 : marked by disregard for strict rules of correctness.
  • Even at a very young age, Grigory Rasputin had his infamous gaze. If you see a picture of Rasputin (go ahead and google if you are listening), you will see that even after being dead for over 100 years this guy can still stare directly in to you soul via a pixelated image.
    • He used this death stare, toughness gained from his upbringing, and natural gnack for idetifying people’s weaknesses to get ahead in life… and it worked… eventually.
  • He evidently underwent a religious conversion at age 18, and eventually he went to the monastery at Verkhoture, where he was introduced to the Khlysty (Flagellants) sect.
    • A Flagellant is a person who subjects themselves or others to flogging, either as a religious discipline or for sexual gratification.
  • Rasputin perverted Khlysty beliefs into the doctrine that one was nearest God when feeling “holy passionlessness” and that the best way to reach such a state was through the sexual exhaustion that came after prolonged debauchery.
    • This sounds A LOT like Drupka Kunley from episode #22.
      • He was a 15th century Yogi who brought enlightenment to women with his legendary phallus that the people called the “Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom.” In return he asked to be paid in booze…
  • But unlike Drupka Kunley, Rasputin did not become a monk. He returned to Pokrovskoye, and at age 19 married Proskovya Fyodorovna Dubrovina, who later bore him four children. Marriage did not settle Rasputin. He left home and wandered to Mount Athos, Greece, and Jerusalem, living off the peasants’ donations and gaining a reputation as a starets (self-proclaimed holy man) with the ability to heal the sick and predict the future.
    • Sounds like a cult leader to me, but then again I never met the dude.

• Rasputin’s wanderings took him to St. Petersburg (1903), where he was welcomed by Theophan, inspector of the religious Academy of St. Petersburg, and Hermogen, bishop of Saratov.
  • Ben Thompson from one of my favorite history blogs BadassOfTheWeek.com writes:
    • When he entered the gates of Saint Petersburg in 1903, Rasputin was an illiterate peasant nobody who had spent his entire life randomly wandering around the Russian countryside searching for God one horny, sex-crazed maiden at a time (or sometimes two or three at a time, depending on how energetic he was feeling).  Carrying only a Bible and a backpack and wearing little more than beat-up, tar-covered boots and a cheap gray overcoat, this impoverished, half-insane priest decided to settle down in the capital city of Imperial Russia and enter the country’s most prominent monastery.  It wasn’t long before his powerful, commanding personality and creepy-weird magical powers asserted themselves among Rasputin’s holy brothers – even the fucking Archbishop of Imperial Russia was convinced that this crazy mysterious monk had the power to control the weather and call down thunderstorms at his whim.  Rasputin grew in power, was introduced to a Countess in the imperial court, and immediately started humping every hot aristocratic babe in sight.

• The court circles of St. Petersburg at that time were entertaining themselves by delving into mysticism and the occult, so Rasputin—a filthy, unkempt wanderer with brilliant eyes and allegedly extraordinary healing talents—was warmly welcomed.
  • In 1905 Rasputin was introduced to the royal family, and in 1908 he was summoned to the palace of Nicholas and Alexandra during one of their hemophiliac son’s bleeding episodes.
    • hemophilia, also spelled haemophilia, hereditary bleeding disorder caused by a deficiency of a substance necessary for blood clotting (coagulation). The increased tendency to bleeding usually becomes noticeable early in life and may lead to severe anemia or even death. Large bruises of the skin and soft tissue are often seen, usually following injury so trivial as to be unnoticed. There may also be bleeding in the mouth, nose, and gastrointestinal tract. After childhood, hemorrhages in the joints—notably the knees, ankles, and elbows—are frequent, resulting in swelling and impaired function.
    • It is believed that little Alexei Nikolaevich had haemophilia due to generations of inbreeding that was common among European royalty.

• Rasputin succeeded in easing the boy’s suffering (probably by his hypnotic powers) and, upon leaving the palace, warned the parents that the destiny of both the child and the dynasty were irrevocably linked to him, thereby setting in motion a decade of Rasputin’s powerful influence on the imperial family and affairs of state.

• In the presence of the royal family, Rasputin consistently maintained the posture of a humble and holy peasant.
  • Outside court, however, he soon fell into his former licentious habits. Preaching that physical contact with his own person had a purifying and healing effect, he acquired mistresses and attempted to seduce many other women. When accounts of Rasputin’s conduct reached the ears of Nicholas, the tsar refused to believe that he was anything other than a holy man, and Rasputin’s accusers found themselves transferred to remote regions of the empire or entirely removed from their positions of influence.

• By 1911 Rasputin’s behaviour had become a general scandal.
  • The prime minister, P.A. Stolypin, sent the tsar a report on Rasputin’s misdeeds. As a result, the tsar expelled Rasputin, but Alexandra had him returned within a matter of months. Nicholas, anxious not to displease his wife or endanger his son, upon whom Rasputin had an obviously beneficial effect, chose to ignore further allegations of wrongdoing.
  • His near-limitless influence and ‘access’ the Empress whenever he felt like it led to quite a bit of prestige for Rasputin (and when I say he had access to the empress, I mean in more ways than one).  Foppish courtiers hung on his every word, desperate nymphomaniac babes flung themselves at him every time he stepped foot outside his house, and pretty much everybody wanted to invite him to all their totally sweet house parties.  But Rasputin didn’t morph in to one of them – he did his own thing, and didn’t cater to the prissy bullshit of the aristocracy.  He wore his regular old clothes, talked to nobles the same way he spoke to peasants, and generally did whatever the hell he wanted all the time and anybody who didn’t like it made no difference to him.
  • He had a Voldemore affect in that people referred to him as “The Unmentionable” or “The Nameless One.” With rumors circulating about Rasputin sleeping with not only the empress, but her daughters and every other woman in Russia, a certain body part of his began to get rumors of its own. The locals thought he had a 13″ schlong. Although there is a pickled penis about aht size that actually exists, “experts” aren’t sure if it is Rasputin’s.
• Rasputin reached the pinnacle of his power at the Russian court after 1915.
  • During World War I, Nicholas II took personal command of his forces (September 1915) and went to the troops on the front, leaving Alexandra in charge of Russia’s internal affairs, while Rasputin served as her personal advisor. Rasputin’s influence ranged from the appointment of church officials to the selection of cabinet ministers (often incompetent opportunists), and he occasionally intervened in military matters to Russia’s detriment. Though supporting no particular political group, Rasputin was a strong opponent of anyone opposing the autocracy or himself.

• Several attempts were made to take the life of Rasputin and save Russia from further calamity
  • The many attempts on his life and the variety of attempted assassination techniques is one of Rasputin’s biggest claims to fame.
  • In 1914 he survived being stabbed in the stomach by a crazy woman. There were many other attempts that never made contact. But in 1916 his assassins were successful.
  • A group of extreme conservatives, including Prince Feliks Yusupov (husband of the tsar’s niece), Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich (a member of the Duma), and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich (the tsar’s cousin), formed a conspiracy to eliminate Rasputin and save the monarchy from further scandal.
  • On the night of December 29–30 (December 16–17, Old Style), Rasputin was invited to visit Yusupov’s home, and, according to legend, once there, he was given poisoned wine and tea cakes.
    • He ate the cyanide laced tea and cakes and simply burped.
  • When he did not die, the frantic Yusupov shot him in the back at point blank range. Rasputin collapsed but was able to get to his feet and start strangling the Prince who shot him. Then he was able to run out into the courtyard, where Purishkevich shot him again 3 more times.
  • The conspirators then clubbed and bound him and threw him through a hole in the ice into the Neva River, where he finally died. When they found his body evidence suggested he had freed himself and had begun to swim himself to safety when he succumbed to hypothermia.
    • The tough son of a bitch that Rasputin was, even he was no match for the cold of Russia’s winters.
  • The murder merely strengthened Alexandra’s resolve to uphold the principle of autocracy, but a few weeks later the whole imperial regime was swept away by revolution.
    • Oddly enough, while Rasputin’s death was celebrated by the aristocracy, it pissed off the common people of Russia.  They saw him as one of them – an oppressed peasant who had clawed his way to power only to be assassinated by the so called elites of their society.
  • and… well… the Bolsheviks arrived and the world was introduced to a nice little thing called Communism.

And on that note, I’ll end let The Red Army Choir take this one away.

Sing loud and sing proud you commie bastards!

CREDIT

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grigory-Yefimovich-Rasputin
• https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons/attila-and-pope-leo#:~:text=In%20452%2C%20Attila%20the%20Hun,Pope%20Leo%20met%20with%20Attila.
• https://www.badassoftheweek.com/rasputin