The Rasputin File (15 page)

‘He made a remarkably strong impression on her Majesty and on me.’ He had thus managed to ‘catch’ the tsar, as well.

One can imagine what he talked to the ‘tsars’ about. Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye had played a great role in the transformation of the dissolute Grisha into Father Grigory. And, to be sure, it was also a story about finding God. A story about his wanderings in the name of God and about everything that lay beyond the reach of those religious people but was still the object of their dreams. And here Rasputin had no equals. Here he was a poet. They were the same thoughts he would expound in his ‘Life of an Experienced Wanderer’. And his favourite was, ‘Great, great is the peasant in the eyes of God!’ So the peasant was more powerful than all those pitiful urban intellectuals who had produced sedition and discord. And most important: the peasant loved his tsars and would not let them down. Just as the Lord would not. The people and the tsar with no one between! Thus, they heard then just what they wanted to hear.

And, finally, the peasant asked for something that must have made their hearts beat faster. He asked for permission to see their boy. He began speaking of his illness as if he had known about it for a long time. And he asked for their consent to relieve the child’s sufferings with a prayer. It was for that reason that he had brought the icon of Simeon of Verkhoturye, whose relics and icon possessed great healing power.

And it is presumably then that they took him to the child. Because it was afterwards that the tsar wrote his rapturous letter to Stolypin asking him to allow the peasant to ‘bless your injured daughter with the icon’. For in their eyes, evidently, a miracle had taken place. The kind that Vyrubova would later recount. And that would take place many times.

In the half-light of Alexei’s room illuminated by the lamps in front of the icons, their ‘Little One’, their ‘Sunbeam’, had not been able to fall
asleep, tormented as he was by his latest attack. And the strange peasant went over to his crib. And his huge crooked shadow bent over the boy in prayer. And before their eyes the boy grew calmer and quietly fell asleep. To wake up healthy the next morning. (A miracle! A miracle!)

Was the peasant familiar with mysterious secrets of healing retained in Siberia from pagan times? Or was it hypnotic suggestion? Or did he really sense in himself then a great and inexplicable power of healing? For us, this is a matter of reflection and doubt. But for her, there could have been no doubt after that meeting. He had come to them, the emissary of the people, the man of God whom his precursor, Our First Friend, had foretold. To save the heir and defend his tsars.

And soon after the tsar had done so, the prime minister received the peasant. And Father Grigory went to Stolypin’s home with the same wonder-working icon.

From Vyrubova’s testimony before the Extraordinary Commission: ‘The late Stolypin … after the explosion at his dacha, summoned Rasputin to his injured daughter, and he apparently prayed over her and she recovered.’

From that day forth the royal family revered the Siberian saint whom the peasant had told them about. At the tsar’s expense, a magnificent pavilion was erected over Saint Simeon’s shrine. And the procession of the cross on the day of Saint Simeon’s apotheosis was headed by Father Ioann Storozhev. The same Ioann Storozhev, a priest from the city of Ekaterinburg, who two days before their execution in 1918 would celebrate holy communion with them and give them the blessing that would be their last. And after their execution, ‘an icon of Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye of small size in a metal frame’ would be found in the Ipatiev House, an icon that had once been brought to them by the Siberian peasant.

Rasputin now became indispensable. Now they themselves summoned him to the palace. Although it was a palace in which they were less than free. After the business with Philippe they had grown cautious. And to keep from provoking rumours, they summoned the peasant from Pokrovskoe along with Feofan, a person of official standing who was then rector of the Petersburg Theological Seminary.

From Loman’s testimony in the File: ‘Aside from his official audience, Rasputin went maybe two or three times… with Feofan, but in the very modest role of a lay brother and follower of Feofan.’ But Father Grigory asked Feofan not to tell Militsa about those visits. ‘Rasputin himself informed me that he was hiding his acquaintance with the royal family from Militsa Nikolaevna,’ Feofan testified in the File.

And Militsa, suspecting nothing, continued to sing the peasant’s praises.
‘9 December. Militsa and Stana dined with us. They talked to us all evening about Grigory,’ the tsar recorded in his diary.

The ‘Black Woman’s’ Prediction

But it was impossible to hide the new acquaintance from Militsa for long. Just as it was impossible for the righteous Feofan to lie. Rumours reached the Montenegrins from Tsarskoe Selo. And after Militsa’s very first question, Feofan told the truth. The grand duchess was furious with the peasant. She still did not understand then whom she was quarrelling with.

From the File, the testimony of Feofan: ‘Rasputin informed me that Militsa had openly declared to him, “You, Grigory, are an underhanded person.” Militsa Nikolaevna told me personally of her dissatisfaction with Rasputin’s having penetrated the royal family on his own, and mentioned her warning that if he did, it would be the end of him.’

Was it just the powerful Militsa’s helpless irritation? Or the intuition of a mystical woman? But what could Militsa do about someone the tsars themselves had summoned? And in any case she did not have time to deal with Rasputin then. For at the end of 1906 the Montenegrins had become the centre of a court scandal.

From the diary of KR: ‘6 November … I learned with horror from my wife that Stana is to be divorced … and will marry Nikolasha!!! The permission for the marriage cannot be anything but an indulgence elicited by Nikolasha’s closeness to the sovereign…It violates the ecclesiastical rule forbidding two brothers to marry two sisters.’

‘10 November. Nikolasha declared that he hadn’t raised a finger for the wedding … that it could not have been managed without the influence of Philippe from beyond.’

Scandals In The Noble Family

It was the latest in a series of scandals in the great Romanov family. Not long before the tsar’s uncle, Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, had condescended to appropriate the wife of the adjutant of another grand duke. And had married her, for which he had been exiled from Russia. For according to the laws of the Russian Empire, ‘all members of the Imperial Household are deprived of the right of marriage to persons not belonging to a ruling or sovereign House.’ And then another scandal threatened the family. The tsar’s younger brother Misha had taken it into his head to marry the wife of a Life Guard from his own Blue Cuirassier regiment, the twice-divorced
beauty Natalia Wulfert. The dowager empress convinced him with difficulty to give up the wild idea. And then yet another scandal. This time it was Kirill, the son of another uncle, Vladimir. The dashing Guards Quartermaster had broken up the family of Alix’s brother, Ernie, duke of Hesse-Darmstadt. Ernie’s wife had left him for Kirill. And Nicholas had been forced to punish Kirill. What could he do? Nicholas’s father’s chastisement of such misbehaviour had been ruthless. Now, as head of the Romanov house, Nicholas was the one who had to do the chastising. And here was this new scandal with the ‘dread uncle’. But just what sort of influence must the Montenegrins have had over Alix, if the tsarina, though filled with disgust by those divorces, meekly put up with it all and forced the tsar to put up with it too, despite all the threatening appeals from the dowager empress to punish Nikolai Nikolaevich and restore order in the family.

From the diary of the general’s wife A. Bogdanovich for 25 October 1906: ‘They say that she [that is, Stana] has incarnated the medium Philippe in herself, that he resides in her, and that she predicts that everything will now be peaceful … The tsar and tsarina believe her every word and in expectation of peace are carefree and gay.’

But this time the general’s wife and court scandalmongers were wrong They still did not know about the peasant who at the time had taken up residence in the hearts of the ‘tsars’ and brought confidence and peace to their souls.

A Special Desire Of His Majesty

While Pyotr and Nikolai Nikolaevich and the Montenegrins were busy straightening out their personal affairs, Rasputin experienced a swift rise in his fortunes. A mere two months after their first meeting, the tsar was personally engaged in changing the unknown peasant’s last name.

In that connection, His Majesty had summoned Count Benckendorff, the head of the royal chancery. Alix was upset about the unpleasant-sounding name, so inappropriate to the character of the holy man who had come to them.

Rasputin was asked to write a petition for a name change. And Benckendorff informed the minister of internal affairs: ‘In conveying to me this written petition from Rasputin, His Majesty has deigned to express his special desire that the request be respected.’

And on 22 December 1906, the petition of the peasant Rasputin for permission henceforth to call himself ‘Rasputin-Novy [New]’ was granted.

The monk Iliodor recounts in Rasputin’s own words the story that was evidently meant to be the official one: ‘No sooner did I appear in the doorway than the heir started clapping his little hands and babbling, “the New one, the New one, the New one!” They were his first words. The tsar then gave the order to call me not by the name Rasputin, but Novy.’

It is in fact possible that there was another subtext in the name, which I shall take up next. However, one way or another, he had for a time been given the right to call himself just ‘Novy’.

But life would not permit it. Life would soon return the name ‘Rasputin’ to him.

The Riddle Of The New Name

With ‘Novy’s’ appearance, a new and secret life began at court. But it was not until a year later that the royal couple decided to reveal the secret of that new life to Nicholas’s sister Olga, whose diary records: ‘Autumn 1907. Nicky asked if I would like to see a real Russian peasant.’ And then she saw what she would later recall in distant Canada: ‘Rasputin led [Alexei] to his room, and the three of us followed, and…we felt as if we were in church. There was no electricity in Alexei’s room, and the only light came from the lamps in front of the icons … The child stood next to a giant shadow with its head bent low. He was praying, and the child joined him in his prayer.’

It was then that Olga learned that Rasputin had promised the ‘tsars’ that their boy would recover from his illness. As Vyrubova testified, ‘Rasputin predicted that in time the boy would recover completely… that he would outgrow the disease.’

And his faith in their son’s recovery gave them peace. Then, too, they saw the failure of the terrible revolution. Only recently revolutionaries had hunted the tsar like game, and the Tsar of All Russia had written to his mother, ‘You understand how I feel… not having the possibility of driving outside the gates. And this in my own home! … I blush writing this to you.’ Only yesterday chaos had held sway in the country. And now, just as the peasant had predicted, they had managed to put down the revolution.

A new life was beginning. All as the ‘new’ person had predicted. Philippe was the former ‘Our Friend’. Rasputin became the
new
one — ‘Our New Friend’. And that, apparently, was the hidden meaning of his new last name.

Yet Another Historic Meeting

Rasputin continued to visit the Montenegrin princesses during the whole first half of 1907. Militsa’s outburst of anger seemed to have subsided. This was all the more necessary since the tsars continued to meet Rasputin occasionally at her home. And she seemed to forgive and to overlook the fact that Rasputin was now a frequent secret guest at the royal palace. As before, she praised the seer to her acquaintances. She already understood: continual glorification of Father Grigory was very pleasing to the tsarina.

It was then at Militsa’s palace that another meeting took place that would have great significance for the fate of the empire.

At that time a new friend had appeared at the tsarina’s side, the young maid of honour Anya Taneeva. And soon afterwards the court had begun to talk of the ardent friendship between the tsarina and her young maid of honour. And Militsa immediately began inviting the new favourite to visit her. Anya seemed to be a naive young girl who imitated the tsarina to a ludicrous degree. She engaged Militsa in identical conversations on the tsarina’s favourite mystical topics. And, naturally, Anya wanted to meet Rasputin. Especially since she was then, at the beginning of 1907, getting ready to wed the naval officer Vyrubov.

The File, from the testimony of Vyrubova:

I first met Rasputin at Militsa Nikolaevna’s in 1907 a few days before my wedding… Although I had heard that the sovereign and empress were seeing him at her home. The meeting was preceded by reading mystical books in Russian and French that Militsa Nikolaevna had lent me and that proved the existence of people who, thanks to their lives, had been made seers. At the beginning of March 1907 Militsa Nikolaevna invited me to visit, warning me that Rasputin would be there. She received me in the living room alone and started telling me about people who are endowed with a gift from on high, and who possess the gift of seeing into the future. Militsa Nikolaevna talked to me for about an hour on that topic and asked me not to be surprised if she exchanged a triple kiss with Rasputin … I was very nervous, more so since she had said, ‘Ask of him whatever you wish, he will pray for you. He can ask anything of God’ … Rasputin and Militsa kissed each other, and then she introduced him to me … And I was startled by his piercing eyes, set deep within their sockets … I was concerned about my marriage, since I didn’t know the groom very well, and I asked if I should get married. Rasputin answered that he recommended I get married, although the marriage would be an unhappy one.