Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River in the Tobolsk guberniya (now Tyumen Oblast) in Siberia. According to official records, he was born on 21 January 1869, and christened the following day. He was named for St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose feast was celebrated on January 10.
He had little education, but about the time he was thirty he turned to religion, establishing a local reputation as a holy man with a gift for prophecy.
In 1904 Rasputin traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met Father Feofan, inspector of the Ecclesiastical Academy.
Preaching salvation through repentance, he invited people to sin and repent and became a popular religious leader in his native community.
In 1904 Rasputin traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met Father Feofan, inspector of the Ecclesiastical Academy. The next year he was introduced to the family of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich and taken under the patronage of the Grand Duchess Militsa. Soon afterward he made his appearance at court and was credited with alleviating the hemophilia of Alexis, the young tsarevich. Thus Rasputin gained influence over Empress Alexandra and through her, over Nicholas II.
In 1911 he created a national scandal by forcing the appointment of an illiterate peasant friend as bishop of Tobolsk. At first he used his influence mainly in church appointments, but later he extended it to affairs of state, frequently provoking chaos in the government. Never adhering consistently to any one political program, he used his influence indiscriminately. During World War I he made and unmade cabinet ministers at will, and everyone who opposed him suffered disgrace or banishment.
Aroused by the baneful effects Rasputin was having upon the court, Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, and other aristocrats finally conspired to assassinate him. On the night of December 16-17, 1916 (Old Style), he was entertained by Prince Yusupov, who served him poisoned wine. When the poison apparently failed, the conspirators shot him and thrust his body beneath the ice in a branch of the Neva River.
In the early morning of 30 December 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of conservative noblemen who opposed his influence over Alexandra and the Tsar.
At the insistence of the empress, the recovered body was buried near the chapel of the imperial palace at Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin).
Very little about Rasputin's life and influence is certain, however, as accounts have often been based on hearsay, rumor, and legend.
In late 1906, Rasputin began acting as a healer for the Tsar and his wife Alexandra's son Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia and was Nicholas' only heir (Tsarevitch).
At court, he was a divisive figure, seen by some Russians as a mystic, visionary, and prophet, and by others as a religious charlatan. The high point of Rasputin's power was in 1915, when Nicholas II left St Petersburg to oversee Russian armies fighting World War I, increasing both Alexandra and Rasputin's influence. As Russian defeats in the war mounted, however, both Rasputin and Alexandra became increasingly unpopular.
Some writers have suggested that Rasputin helped discredit the tsarist government, and thus helped precipitate the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty.
Quotes from others about the person
The couple had seven other children, all of whom died in infancy and early childhood. There may have been a ninth child, Feodosiya. According to historian Joseph T. Fuhrmann, Rasputin was certainly close to Fyeodosiya and was godfather to her children, but "the records that have survived do not permit us to say more than that. "
Although he had married in 1895 to Praskovia Fedorovna Dubrovina and had three children, he left his family to go on long pilgrimages, visiting monasteries and often living as a hermit.
