Rasputin and the Russian Revolution

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

Among those who frequented her house were Mr. Sabler, then Procurator of the Holy Synod, together with his future successor, Mr. Loukianoff; a good sprinkling of ministers—she was distantly related to Mr. Stolypine, a fact that had considerably added to her importance during the latter’s lifetime—and a few influential dames belonging to the immediate circle of friends of the imperial family. All this constituted a coterie that had gradually assumed perhaps more importance than it really deserved, but that brought into St. Petersburg society an element with which it would not have been wise to trifle and which it was impossible to overlook, for any one caring to concern himself or herself with the course that public affairs were taking and assuming.

A few years before the time I am referring to, that is about 1908 or 1909, a good deal of interest was excited not only in St. Petersburg, but in the whole of Russia, by a monk called Illiodore, who also preached a new gospel to those willing to listen. There was, however, about him none of the peculiarities which distinguished Rasputin, and no one had ever found one word to say against his morals. But he tried also to found a religion of his own in the sense that he attempted to develop on a higher scale, and with certain Protestant leanings, the feelings of fervour of the people. At Saratoff, where he lived, he did a great deal of good, and he had built there a large church, Orthodox, of course, which soon became a centre of pilgrimage to which flocked thousands and thousands of people desirous of hearing him and of listening to his inflamed speeches. They reminded one of those crusades that in the Middle Ages had stirred whole nations to rise and rush to deliver the Holy Sepulchre from the yoke of the infidels. He was far more a Peter the Hermit than Rasputin, and had, moreover, education, which the other lacked.

But ecclesiastical authorities in St. Petersburg did not approve of his teachings, and he soon came into conflict with them, together with the Bishop of Saratoff, who had all along supported him and who considered him as being really a good and pious man. This conflict led to a quarrel, the result of which was that Illiodore was confined in a monastery, whence, however, with the help of his disciples and adherents, he contrived to make his escape. There was also a whole series of lawsuits, into the details of which it is useless to enter here. At last the monk was unfrocked for rebellion to his superiors, by a decree issued from the Holy Synod, and compelled to take back his secular name of Trufanoff. He became fearful of further annoyance and managed to get hold of a false passport, with the help of which he made his way into Norway, where we shall find him presently mixed up in a most extraordinary adventure with which Rasputin was concerned. But before all this had occurred there was a brief period when Illiodore was quite an important personage in Russia, and the salons of the Countess Ignatieff and of other ultra-devout ladies used to see a lot of him whenever he happened to be in St. Petersburg. These feminine listeners were very fond of him, and did their best to spread his reputation all over the capital.

During Rasputin’s wanderings he had come across Illiodore at Saratoff, and the latter, like so many others before and after him, had succumbed to the hypnotic spell which “Gricha” was casting around him. He had believed him to be a real servant of God, and he had engaged him to come to St. Petersburg and to preach there before some of the people who had already listened to his (Illiodore’s) sermons. He had introduced him to the celebrated Father John of Cronstadt, this saintly priest who was so famous for his virtues and his good deeds. And, strange though this may appear, Father John also had been struck by Rasputin’s eloquence and had believed him to be really inspired by the Lord. In order to explain the state of mind prevalent at the time among the orthodox clergy one must say that the clergy, or at least some of their important members, were trying to bring about a revival of religious fervour in the Orthodox Church, especially among persons belonging to the upper classes, who had, during the last twenty-five years or so, become more than indifferent in regard to spiritual matters, and who had considered religion more a question of “convenience” than anything else. Since the religious censorship had been suppressed and books to any amount treating of every conceivable subject had been allowed to circulate freely in the country, the former attachment to the Mother Church had waxed fainter and fainter, until this Church appeared in the eyes of many as simply a question of good breeding, to which it was necessary to conform when one belonged to good society, but which, beyond this, was treated entirely as a matter devoid of importance.

In view of this fact, those Prelates and Dignitaries who lamented over this state of things were not sorry to find that there were still in the world people capable of arousing in the minds of others an interest in religion and religious matters. This explains partly why the craze which seized some persons in regard to Illiodore at first, and to Rasputin later on, was not viewed with the dissatisfaction one might have expected by the Russian ecclesiastical authorities. They argued that surely it was better for people to pray in the way these two so-called “saints” told them to do than not to pray at all. It was only much later, after Illiodore’s rebellion to the orders of his superiors, and Rasputin’s ever-growing personal influence had begun to alarm them, that there were found some bishops in Russia who made a stand against both, until at last a catastrophe removed these two men from the scene of their previous labours and successes.

Rasputin and Illiodore were in time to become mortal enemies, but at first a great friendship united them, and when Rasputin was sentenced to enter a convent in the manner already related, Illiodore took up his cause most warmly and telegraphed to one of the former’s admirers, an ecclesiastic of high rank in St. Petersburg, in the following terms: “Neither Bishop Feofane nor Archimandrite Serge has behaved fairly in regard to the ‘Blessed Grigory.’” Illiodore’s efforts, however, did not avail and Rasputin was ordered to leave the capital immediately. But instead of being compelled to enter the convent whither they had wished to confine him at first, he was allowed to return to his native village of Pokrovskoie. Before doing so he bethought himself of calling on his former patron, Bishop Feofane, but the latter met him with the exclamation, “Don’t approach me, Satan! Thou art not a blessed thing, but only a vulgar deceiver!” At Pokrovskoie Rasputin surrounded himself with twelve sisters, of whom the oldest was barely twenty-nine years of age. They all lived in his house, which was extremely well arranged and richly furnished. Rasputin’s wife, together with her children, was also there and occupied a suite of five rooms, whilst each of the sisters had a separate room to herself.

People wondered that the woman who ought to have been the sole mistress in the place had consented to share her authority with all these girls, and some even thought that she was just as bad as her husband. In reality, the “Prophet’s” consort had done all that she could to persuade her husband to give up the “mission” which he declared had been imposed upon him by the Almighty and to return to his former life of a simple peasant. Her efforts had remained fruitless, and Rasputin had replied to all her entreaties that his past existence had come forever to an end, and that he knew his star was about to shine in a wonderful way within a short time. He commanded his wife not to attempt to interfere in the matter of his own personal relations with the “Sisters” living under their roof. Though she tried to submit to his will, yet there were occasions when terrible scenes occurred between husband and wife. Then the latter would attack violently the girls, whom she accused of all kinds of dreadful things, and would then fall on the ground in attacks of strong hysterics, screaming so dreadfully that people heard her from the street. But tears and submission were equally of no avail and Rasputin did not trouble about his wife’s rage or grief any more than he had troubled in general with any other impediment he had found in his way. As concerns the kind of life which the “Sisters” were leading at Pokrovskoie this is how one of them describes it:

It is now already six months since I am here, living in a kind of nightmare. I do not know to this day whether the “Blessed” Gricha is a saint or the greatest sinner the earth has ever known. I cannot find a quiet place in this miserable village. I would like to run away, to return to St. Petersburg, but I dare not do so. I am so afraid, so terribly afraid of the “Blessed” one. His large, grey, piercing eyes crush me, enter into my very soul and absolutely terrify me. At a distance of 5,000 versts I feel his presence near me. I feel that he has got extraordinary powers, that he can do everything that he wishes with me.

For two whole years Rasputin was not allowed to show himself in the Russian capital, but the influential friends he had there never left off trying to get the decree of banishment rescinded. Among others, the Archbishop of Saratoff, Hermogene, and Illiodore worked most actively in his favour, and the latter in one of his sermons did not hesitate to call Rasputin the “greatest saint which the modern Russian Church had ever known.” At last the efforts of his friends proved successful and Rasputin, toward the end of the year 1912, reappeared in St. Petersburg, where this time his progress was far more rapid than it had been formerly, and here his reputation of a latter-day saint grew with every hour, until at last he came to be looked upon as a real manifestation of the Divinity upon earth.

It was about that time that he was seen more frequently at Tsarskoie Selo, where the poor Empress was eating her heart away in anxiety over the health of her only son, the little heir to the throne, whose days seemed to be numbered. Rasputin, who had been introduced to her as a pious, good man, whose prayers had already worked miracles, was very quickly able to influence her in the sense that he persuaded her that the small Grand Duke could only be cured if constant prayers were said for him by people who were agreeable to the Lord. It is not to be denied that the pseudo-saint had cultivated to a considerable extent the science of hypnotism and that he used it in regard to the consort of the sovereign in the sense that she grew really to believe that the presence of the “Prophet” by the side of her sick child might cure the latter. There was nothing else in their relations to each other, which remained always, in spite of all that has been said, purely official ones.