The Rasputin File

by Edvard Radzinsky

  ‘Malanya’s Also Taking Part’

  The murderers could not, of course, have failed to arrange for the participation of women. It was not for nothing that when the preparations for the murder were being made, Felix had written to Irina, ‘Malanya’s also taking part.’ It was not for nothing, either, that the police had information about the presence of women that night. And that Tsarskoe Selo had the information, too. And that in society they were talking about the same thing. The actress Vera Leonidovna Yureneva spoke of a certain ballerina, who was Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich’s lover. As we’ve already noted, Coco Chanel’s future boyfriend was liberal in love.

  I easily found the ballerina’s name in the Department of Police case file. There are several whole reports about Vera Karalli, whom the police suspected of taking part in the murder night. ‘Vera Karalli, a performer with the ballet company of the Imperial Theatres, twenty-seven years old. During her stays in the capital, she was visited by Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich,’ an agent reported. Vera Karalli’s presence at the Yusupov palace on the night of the murder was also claimed by Simanovich, who went to the police station on the Moika canal on 17 December with Bishop Isidor. After looking into it, however, the security branch agents reported that ‘there was no note of her being absent [from her hotel].’ ‘There was no note of her being absent.’ But that was the very reason for the cunning ‘rehearsals’: the sly substitution of another woman at the hotel for Vera Karalli on the night of the murder in order to give the latter an ‘alibi’ — not a complicated thing.

  But Vera Karalli was apparently not the only woman at the Yusupov palace that night. They knew in Tsarskoe Selo of the participation of another lady, a much more important one. Vyrubova names her straight out: Marianna Derfelden, née Pistolkors, daughter of Grand Duke Pavel’s wife Olga by her first marriage and sister of Alexander Pistolkors. But if her brother and his wife were among the most dazzling of Rasputin’s devotees, Marianna had taken Dmitry’s side. And she hated the peasant for the servile devotion of her weak-willed brother and for the disgrace of her brother’s wife, about whose relations with Rasputin the most shameful rumours had been circulating. The police evidence against Marianna was so serious that she, the stepdaughter of a grand duke, was arrested!

  But into what did her arrest turn! As her mother recalled, ‘When we arrived at 8 Theatre Square, where Marianna lived, we were stopped by two soldiers who let us through only after taking down our names. All the highest society was at Marianna’s! Some ladies she barely knew arrived in order to express their sympathy with her. Officers came up to kiss her hand.’ It was then that the brakes were put on the murder case. The tsar did not want all those public displays of affection for the perpetrators. Moreover, Grand Duke Pavel was taking his son’s involvement very hard. So the tsar did not want to finish off his ailing uncle by prolonging the arrest of the stepdaughter.

  She was called Marianna, but her sarcastic friends had mockingly twisted that French name into the simple peasant name ‘Malanya’. There had been women there. But to protect them from the police and to preserve their honour, the participants had not identified them.

  Were The Pastries Poisoned?

  Purishkevich and Yusupov’s account of what took place was dictated by noble considerations in other ways, as well. And here’s the most interesting and mysterious part: just what did in fact happen between Felix and Rasputin in the charming basement ‘dining room’?

  And, above all, what about the mysterious story of the poisoning?

  ‘Protopopov passed on to me,’ Beletsky testified, ‘that Rasputin was still alive when they threw his body into the hole in the ice. That was shown by the autopsy.’

  First they poisoned him, but he was still alive. And then they shot him, but he was still alive. A story of the devil. And Felix stresses this in a number of ways: ‘his diabolical malice’, ‘he was foaming at the mouth’ — all that is repeated in Yusupov’s memoirs.

  But Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, that ‘Voltairean’ who did not put much stock in demons, would write in his diary, ‘The fact that the potassium cyanide had no effect I explain very simply … having often resorted to it in the past to poison insects. The solution was too weak.’ He may well be right about that: in their haste and anxiety, they made too weak a solution for the wine glasses. But there was still the poison that they had ‘chipped into the pastries’ — enough to kill an ox. Does this mean Rasputin really was a superman? But then how was it that he behaved like a very ordinary person, when he was seriously injured and almost died after the inexperienced Guseva stabbed him just once with a knife in 1914 with her weak woman’s hand? And when a surgeon was dispatched from Petrograd to save him? Why is that? His daughter Matryona raises the same question in her memoirs. And she offers an explanation.

  Rasputin could not have eaten any of the poisoned pastries. He followed a special diet. His daughter reports that ‘Father never ate sweets, meat, or pastries.’ This is confirmed by the many various descriptions of him. Simanovich writes that Rasputin did not eat sweets. And Beletsky and Khvostov report in their testimony that Rasputin kept to a strict diet. Rasputin, as his friend Filippov explained, linked that diet to his abilities as a healer. Fish and the avoidance of sweets. And he did not break that diet even when drunk. Although his devotees gave him boxes of candies, he himself never ate them. Konstantin Chikhachev, deputy chief of the Saratov Judicial Chamber, spoke about that in the File, as we shall recall: ‘In the compartment lay boxes of candy, which he shared but did not touch, expressing himself vulgarly that he didn’t eat that “scum”!’ ‘Scum’ was what he called sweets. And Felix himself wrote about it: ‘A moment later, I passed him the plate with the poisoned pastries. At first he refused. “I don’t want any; they’re too sweet.”’

  But then, Felix declares, he ate them. How could he agree to do what he had never done? And why would he? No, he could not have eaten the pastries. Rasputin’s daughter was right: it was another lie. He only drank the poison dissolved in the wine. Which, it may be, was too weak a solution. Felix made up the story about the pastries later as part of his fable about a devil whom ordinary people had heroically destroyed.

  And so, Rasputin never did eat the pastries. And he evidently didn’t drink much, either. What then did take place in the room where Rasputin, according to Felix’s own account, spent more than two hours? Or, as the meticulous historian Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich would write in his diary, ‘around three hours’? And why did he forget the reason for his visit? Or, more accurately, forget all about it, since only that way can we explain the normally nervous and impatient Rasputin waiting almost three hours for Irina to show up. Felix could hardly with ballads alone have caused Rasputin to forget all about the reason for his visit. And, essentially, have put his intuition completely to sleep.

  An Erotic Version

  It may be that Felix — that exquisitely corrupt child of the century — was aroused by the sense of danger and imminent bloodshed. And that in the dining room there took place an encounter of the kind that so exercised Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich’s imagination. Which is why Rasputin had been willing to wait, and as long as you like, for Irina’s appearance, which promised him a continuation of a remarkable interlude that had captivated Felix, too. And it was only ‘when they started to express their impatience upstairs’ that Felix had been forced to act. And then he went upstairs and informed his confederates that Rasputin was taking neither pastries nor wine. And after obtaining the grand duke’s pistol, he went back downstairs to the dining room. And it is why, given all that had just passed between them, Rasputin failed to notice the pistol in Felix’s hand. And why his intuition was fast asleep. And why Felix succeeded in shooting him. But Felix was no murderer. He, who hated military service, was naturally not the best of shots. And he was agitated besides! So all he could do was gravely wound Rasputin. The record of the autopsy on Rasputin’s body unfortunately disappeared after the revolution. But one thing is indisputa
ble: Felix did not kill him then. Rasputin was simply unconscious. Although the murderers did bring on a death agony in him and an apparent cessation of his pulse. (The regicides would establish the death of the entire royal family in the Ipatiev basement in exactly the same way — by pulse. After which the grand duchesses would begin to revive.) But Rasputin revived! Or, more accurately, he merely regained consciousness.

  As Nikolai Mikhailovich would later write, using Felix’s own words, after coming to, Rasputin ‘tore his epaulette off’. For Felix was not worthy of an officer’s epaulettes! Felix, the Little One, who had deceived him with love! That is why, reproaching him, the duped peasant had familiarly cried, ‘Felix, Felix!’ And it is why Felix would not be able to forget that cry or forgive those words. And why the disgraceful scene would take place in which Felix suddenly started flailing at the dying Rasputin with the dumbbell handle. Repeating during it, ‘Felix, Felix,’ the words with which the humble peasant had dared denounce him, a nobleman! The peasant who had torn off his epaulette.

  A Realistic Version

  The most plausible version of what happened is much more boring, however. Most likely, it all took place very quickly. When Rasputin declined to eat the pastries and drink the wine, Felix left as if to find out when the guests upstairs would be leaving. And after conferring with the other murderers, he proposed shooting the peasant. And then Felix returned with the pistol. And shot Rasputin at once. After that, the others ran downstairs. After deciding that Rasputin was dead, they then went back upstairs to celebrate their successful deliverance from the dangerous peasant. All the notions about the poison and the wine that had not affected Rasputin were invented after the fact as proof of what Felix would write: ‘It should be remembered that we were dealing with an extraordinary person.’ The man-devil they had defeated!

  And then they had something to drink upstairs while they waited for the city to go to sleep and the streets to empty completely. So the corpse could be taken away without witnesses. During that time Rasputin recovered his strength and regained consciousness. And as he had done once before when Guseva stabbed him, the peasant attempted to save himself by fleeing. But, as Felix and Purishkevich claim, he was shot right next to the gate by Purishkevich.

  That claim is the third and biggest of the fabrications.

  Who Killed Him?

  While filming my television programme at the Yusupov palace, I followed the path of the injured Rasputin up the steep staircase. And emerged outside by the same door through which he had tried to escape.

  Looking around, I could still imagine Rasputin fleeing across this small unfenced area next to the house. And Purishkevich running after the gravely wounded Rasputin and missing him at an effective distance of two or three paces. Which is entirely understandable, since Purishkevich was a civilian, a historian and philologist by training, who had worked in the executive office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When he wishes to prove in his memoirs that he was a good shot, the only thing he can say is that he ‘shot well at — ‘!

  And it will have to be proved. For after the first wild shots at Rasputin, who was after all not very far from the gunman (Purishkevich explains the misses as nervousness), two masterful shots followed when Rasputin was already quite far away — by the gate. One ‘in the back’, as Purishkevich writes. And the second, precisely aimed, in the head. No, nervousness had nothing to do with it. It was simply that the second two shots were of another class, as if belonging to a completely different marksman. An excellent and cold-blooded one. So, who among the accomplices fits the role of that kind of marksman? Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich above all. A brilliant Guards officer, an athlete, and a one-time participant in the Olympic Games. It was he who gave Felix the pistol with which he shot Rasputin. And it was no coincidence that Dmitry had come with a revolver. For if anyone had personal reasons to do the peasant in, Dmitry did. It was Rasputin who had wrecked his betrothal; it was Rasputin who had told the scurrilous tales about him and his fiancée; it was Rasputin who had disgraced the royal family in which Dmitry had been raised; and it was Rasputin who had caused the schism in the great Romanov family, not to mention in his father’s immediate family. And it was no accident that the woman who did not become his wife, the tsar’s daughter, Grand Duchess Olga, had thought of that at once. And had written it down in her diary in advance of all the official inquiries: ‘18 December …we have learned that Father Grigory has definitely been killed, it must have been by Dmitry.’

  The Grand Duke And The Murder

  But, as Yusupov and Purishkevich claimed, the grand duke was not in the Yusupov palace at the time of the murder. He had gone off on that strange, abortive errand of incinerating Rasputin’s fur coat. And he had returned by automobile only after Rasputin had been killed.

  So they claimed. But both were lying. And it is easy to prove it.

  According to the testimony of the two constables, Vlasyuk and Efimov, who after the shots were fired began to watch the Yusupov palace, they did not see any automobile go up to the house after the shots. Although not to see such a rare thing as an automobile on an absolutely empty street would have been impossible.

  The only thing they noticed was an automobile leaving the house after the shots (the one in which Rasputin’s corpse was carried away). And we will find the same incident (based on the constables’ words) described in numerous memoirs. As General Globachyov, the chief of the security branch, wrote in a coded telegram of 18 December, ‘several shots rang out, a human cry was heard, and later a car drove away.’

  And so, after the murder no automobile whatever came to the palace. That means that the grand duke could not have returned to the house. But nevertheless he was there.

  How so? Because he had never left. He had been in the palace the whole time. And he was there at the moment Rasputin was murdered. And he left along with the rest of them only after the murder.

  And so, the grand duke was in the palace at the time of the murder. And it was for that reason that Purishkevich and Yusupov were obliged to make up the ludicrous story about Dmitry and the burning of the fur coat. So what actually did happen?

  The Instant Of Murder (A Reconstruction)

  The vestiges of truth, in my view, are to be found in Felix’s first testimony given immediately after the murder. After Felix shot Rasputin with Dmitry’s pistol, the grand duke, Felix says, took back the gun. After leaving the ‘dead Rasputin’ in the basement, they celebrated the event upstairs, waiting for the depths of night when they could take the body away. But first it was necessary to get the two women who were in the house out of it. And as Felix truthfully stated to Minister of Justice Makarov, ‘Around 2–2:30 a.m. the two ladies were ready to go home, and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich left with them.’

  The grand duke had apparently been about to take them home in his automobile when the monstrous scene of Rasputin’s ‘resuscitation’ took place after Felix had gone down to the basement. Mad with fear, Felix had rushed upstairs shouting, ‘Shoot! He’s getting away!’

  Purishkevich was by himself in the study. He grabbed his heavy Savage revolver and ran after Rasputin. Bounding into the courtyard, Purishkevich shot twice and missed. But Dmitry was already in the courtyard with the ladies. The grand duke shot twice with his Browning. The first shot brought Rasputin to a halt; the second one, in the back of the head, laid him out on the wet snow. And one of the ladies cried out in terror. Hence the woman’s cry heard by Constable Efimov. The ladies’ departure naturally had to be postponed, and Rasputin’s body was quickly dragged out of the courtyard. Hearing the shots, Felix had then got a grip on himself and summoned the butler to go with him into the courtyard, since he realized that the shots would alarm the constables. And it would be necessary to explain. And he wanted the butler to do that. It was in fact then that Constable Vlasyuk appeared at the palace. Felix’s calm deceived the constable. But Felix paid a steep price for that calm. And the ugly scene of Felix beating the dying peasant took place right after
Vlasyuk left. But it began to seem to the murderers that the constable had suspected something. And they presumably conferred. One must keep in mind that they were drunk. And then the crazy idea occurred to Purishkevich, the chief expert among those present on the national mood, to tell the whole truth to the constable. Purishkevich was convinced that he, like the rest of the country, would have to hate Rasputin! That truth was the undoing of the whole business.

  After giving explanations to the constable, they quickly took Rasputin’s body away. Or, more accurately, they took the still-alive Rasputin away. They had never tried to kill a defenceless person before. So they had not shot him again ‘to make sure’. And Rasputin was still breathing. The women presumably left the palace later that morning.

  But why had it been necessary for Purishkevich (and then Yusupov) to make up the story that it was Purishkevich who had killed Rasputin? The answer is, in order to have the right to say (and to say so several times, so that willy-nilly it looked suspicious) that ‘the hands of the royal youth’ had not been ‘stained with …blood’. And the point here was not just that it was not fitting for a grand duke to be a murderer. There was also a political factor. For in the event of a coup, Dmitry, a young military man, a favourite of the Guards, and an organizer of the deliverance from the Rasputin ignominy (but not the murderer himself) would be a realistic pretender to the throne. But as the peasant’s murderer, he would have a much harder time becoming tsar. And so that it would be easier for the grand duke to lie, they made him swear to repeat their story — ‘there is no blood on my hands.’ Those words, if taken literally, were of course the truth. The blood was only on the hands of those who had actually dealt with the peasant’s bloody corpse.