I liked the style of his life very much. On meeting her husband, his wife fell down at his feet…His wife’s humility astounded me. When I am right, I yield to no one. And now here was Rasputin’s wife yielding in an argument with her husband, even though it was clear that she was in the right and not him. In reply to my … astonishment, she said, ‘A husband and wife have to live with one heart, sometimes you yield, and sometimes he does’ … We slept where we could, very often in one room, but we slept little, listening to the spiritual conversations of Father Grigory, who, so to speak, schooled us in nocturnal wakefulness. In the morning, if I got up early, I would pray with Father Grigory…Praying with him tore me from the earth … At home we would pass the time chanting psalms and canticles.
But the investigators had some doubt about the innocence of her life in Pokrovskoe. And she responded:
Yes, he did have the custom of kissing when meeting and even of embracing, but it is only to bad people that bad and dirty thoughts occur … It is also quite true that on one of my visits to the village of Pokrovskoe I bathed together with Rasputin and his family, with his wife and two daughters, and in the absence of bad thoughts, it did not seem either strange or indecent to any of us. I was convinced that Rasputin really was an ‘elder’, both by his healing of me, and by the predictions I had occasion to hear that came true.
Thus did she sweep aside all the suspicions about their sexual relations.
But the truth of Rasputin’s relations with Lokhtina, the first of his fierce devotees known to us, is very important. For otherwise we shall not understand either his teachings or his whole subsequent story. Especially since the studies produced by Rasputin’s new admirers have claimed that the testimony about his sexual liaisons with his followers was invented by his enemies.
But we shall let a friend speak. And one of Rasputin’s closest. Contained in the File is the testimony of his publisher Filippov:
Once in 1911 at his place on Nikolaev Street I was the unexpected witness of a painful scene. Arriving at Rasputin’s early in the morning for tea as was my custom …I saw him behind the screen that separated his bed from the rest of the room. He was desperately beating Madame Lokhtina, who was clad in a fantastic get-up consisting of a white dress hung with little ribbons, and who was holding onto his member, while shouting, ‘You are God!’ I rushed over to him … ‘What are you doing! You are beating a woman!’ Rasputin answered, ‘She won’t let me alone, the skunk, and demands sin!’ And Lokhtina, hiding behind the screen, wailed, ‘I am your ewe, and you are Christ!’ It was only afterwards that I learned that she was Madame Lokhtina, a devotee of Rasputin’s, who was having an affair with him … She regaled me with so many witty remarks attesting to her great intelligence and good breeding that I was quite amazed by what I had seen.
The other witnesses who met Lokhtina also speak with astonishment of her quick brain and malicious wit. How, then, had the peasant succeeded in forever chaining that brilliant woman to himself? Where did it come from, that fierce passion that would remain with the unhappy general’s wife for ever, long after the peasant felt nothing but revulsion for the old woman she became? The answer lies in the principal mystery of that man, of which I shall speak later.
The royal family returned to the capital in December 1905. And Lokhtina was nearby as Rasputin considered the steps that he would take in order to see them again. Feofan was right about that: it was Rasputin himself who initiated the next meeting with the royal family.
Retained in the File is the evidence of another important witness, Colonel Dmitry Loman, who appeared before the Extraordinary Commission in 1917. He had been brought for interrogation at the Winter Palace, where he had only recently occupied a state apartment. Loman had made a brilliant career at court: he had been entrusted with the building of the Feodor Cathedral, much loved by the royal family. As witnesses would testify, he had been given the commission through Rasputin’s assistance. When he first met Rasputin, however, he was merely an officer in a Life Guards regiment and a friend of the Lokhtins.
‘I knew Rasputin on his first arrival in Petersburg,’ Loman testified. ‘Rasputin got into the palace the first time in this way: once the sovereign (I pass this along as a rumour) received from a Siberian peasant, from Rasputin, that is, a letter requesting an audience and permission to present him with an icon that for some reason was especially revered. The letter piqued the sovereign’s interest.’
The Leap To The Palace
Loman was right. And the corroboration comes from Rasputin himself. For an undated telegram sent by the peasant to the tsar in 1906 has survived. ‘Tsar Father, having arrived in this city from Siberia, I would like to bring to you an icon of the Righteous Saint Simeon, the Miracle Worker of Verkhoturye…in the faith that the Holy Saint will keep you all the days of your life and aid you in your service for the advantage and happiness of your loyal sons.’ The telegram was apparently written by Lokhtina, the devoted general’s wife, so much does it differ from the incoherent telegrams with which Rasputin would later inundate the ‘tsars’.
And Nicholas did in fact grant the peasant an audience after receiving his telegram. As the tsar would himself later write in a letter to Prime Minister Stolypin which allows us to establish an almost exact date for that truly historic meeting. Historic, for this time the peasant produced such an impression on the tsar that the highly reserved Nicholas sent his prime minister a remarkable letter about it.
16 October 1906. A few days ago I received a peasant from the Tobol province…who brought me an icon of Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye … He made a remarkably strong impression on Her Majesty and on me. And instead of five minutes, our conversation lasted well over an hour. He will soon be returning to his native region. He has a strong desire to meet you and bless your injured daughter with the icon. [Terrorists had blown up the prime minister’s dacha. He had miraculously survived and had carried his injured daughter out of what was left of the building.] I very much hope that you will find a moment this week to receive him.
‘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 sh
adow 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 pe
asant.’ 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.
The Rasputin File Page 11