Did Rasputin really bring down the Tsars? The truth behind the dark legend of the Russian mystic

Danny Bird speaks to Antony Beevor about the extraordinary influence the mystic Rasputin had on the imperial Romanov family and the role he played in its ultimate demise

A mixed group of men and women in early‑20th‑century clothing gather around a table set with dishes, with a bearded man seated at the centre of the group.

Published: May 6, 2026 at 5:00 PM

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Danny Bird: When people hear the name ‘Rasputin’, they tend to picture an almost cartoonish villain shrouded in myth and scandal. What drew you to his story and is there anything you want your readers to unlearn about him from the get-go?

Antony Beevor: Grigori Rasputin was an extraordinarily influential figure. Alexander Kerensky, leader of the Provisional Government after the February 1917 Revolution, famously said that “without Rasputin, there would have been no Lenin”. That raises a compelling question: how did a virtually illiterate Siberian peasant play such a significant role in the downfall of the greatest autocracy the world had ever known? From that perspective, he is a phenomenally fascinating character and one that is crucial to understand.

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Rumour also played an enormous role in Rasputin’s story. Even today, we tend to underestimate the power of rumour and its effects, and historians have often done the same.

What was it about Rasputin’s personality, beliefs or timing that made his rise to the apex of the Russian empire possible?

At the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, there was a widespread fascination with spiritualism, shamans and, often, outright frauds. St Petersburg society at the time was deeply corrupt and became even more so once the First World War began. When a so-called ‘man of God’ arrived on the scene, people were obsessed. Rasputin undeniably possessed extraordinary qualities. We know of his seductive power, but he also presented himself as a healer. This remains a subject of debate: how he was able, not to cure, but at least to alleviate the suffering of Tsar Nicholas II’s heir, Alexei Nikolaevich, who had haemophilia.

Several men in early‑20th‑century military uniforms stand with a young boy, while mounted soldiers appear in the background.

Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei of Russia in 1915. The tsar had left Petrograd to take personal command of the armies (Image by Getty Images)

Where was Rasputin born and what was his early life like?

He began life as a ne’er-do-well in a village called Pokrovskoye in western Siberia, surrounded by vast forests and rivers. His father was a peasant; the family owned a few animals and worked in winter transporting goods by sledge. As a teenager, Rasputin was reputedly a heavy drinker. After marrying a simple but intelligent woman, he underwent what he believed to be a spiritual transformation and felt he had received a calling from God. Whether one accepts this or not, there is little doubt that he was sincere in that belief.

This did not alter other aspects of Rasputin’s character, which later emerged more clearly. He was profoundly contradictory: genuinely religious and intensely spiritual, yet also deeply lascivious and a lecher of the worst order. He claimed to love women but was predatory and a rapist. Yet he had an extraordinary ability to convince women that he alone truly understood them. When he arrived in St Petersburg, many society women, often neglected by their powerful husbands, were drawn to him with remarkable devotion.

Such contradictions are deeply Russian, and are one reason he remains such an intriguing figure. As the 19th-century poet Fyodor Tyutchev famously observed, “Russia cannot be understood by the mind alone.” There is a powerful current of spiritual emotion at its core, although one corruptible by cruelty and excess.

Rasputin embodied this paradox. He could be generous, giving money away freely, yet at the same time accepted bribes and cash from all sides. To portray him simply as a figure of pure evil is as misleading as depicting him solely as the holy man adored by the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

What were the circumstances that brought him to the capital of the Russian empire, St Petersburg?

He announced to his wife that he was leaving her to become a wandering pilgrim, setting out in search of God and enlightenment. At the time, around 1903–04, this was far from unusual. There were perhaps a million Russians on the roads, dressed in rags, carrying chains, practising a form of bodily mortification. They walked from monastery to monastery, praying, doing odd jobs and receiving just enough food to reach the next stop.

Rasputin travelled not only to holy sites across Russia but as far as Mount Athos in Greece. He later arrived in Kazan, on the river Volga, one of Russia’s ancient cities. There he attracted the attention of a wealthy and influential woman who became convinced he was both a healer and a man of God. But he was already behaving appallingly, persuading young women, including, reportedly, girls as young as 15, to wash him intimately in the bathhouse. This was central to his method of seduction and led many to suspect him of belonging to the Khlysty, a sect that believed sin was a necessary path to redemption. The logic was seductive: sin together and be redeemed together.

Despite this, the woman in Kazan introduced him to a powerful bishop in St Petersburg. This proved decisive. The bishop, like many others, was swept away by Rasputin’s ability to break down resistance through an intense, if often incoherent, spirituality. He could be rambling and barely intelligible, yet the less people understood him, the more fervently they invested meaning in his every word. He soon gained the support of senior churchmen, including the confessor to the royal family, as well as two Montenegrin princesses in the Romanov circle.

Through them, Rasputin was introduced to the tsar in November 1905, a critical moment. Nicholas II had just been humiliated by Russia’s disastrous defeat to Japan, which had triggered revolutionary unrest. Rasputin was able to present himself to the tsar and tsaritsa as a simple man of the people, someone they could trust and confide in. Both were drawn to him.

Interestingly, this was not without precedent. A few years earlier, a French mystic known as ‘Monsieur Philippe’ (Nizier Anthelme Philippe) had gained similar influence at court. He, too, was referred to as ‘our friend’ and credited with extraordinary powers. When he left, he reportedly foretold that another would come after him. In the empress’s subconscious, Rasputin seems to have fulfilled that prophecy.

People gather around small market stalls by a riverbank while boats are docked nearby, with a town of spires and buildings visible across the water.

An 1861 painting, View of the City of Kazan on the Volga in Russia. Rasputin met an influential woman in Kazan who ultimately led him to the Romanov circle (Image by Bridgeman Images)

The tsar and tsaritsa were nostalgic for a Russia that predated Peter the Great’s westernising reforms. Do you think they saw Rasputin as a manifestation of this older, primal version of Russia?

Absolutely. This was the core of Rasputin’s appeal: he was a man of the people, a living embodiment of ‘old Russia’. One must remember a fundamental tension within Russia itself: the split between slavophiles and westernisers. The slavophiles rejected the idea that Russia should follow a ‘western’ path. Instead, they believed it was rooted in an ascetic spiritual tradition unique to Russia and were suspicious of European influence.

This helps explain why Nicholas and Alexandra loathed the legacy of Peter the Great (reigned 1682–1725), who founded St Petersburg as a ‘window on the west’ and sought to modernise the country. Those reforms, and the brutal repression that accompanied them, created a recurring cycle in Russian history: modernisation followed by savage backlash.

Rasputin was able to present himself to the tsar and tsaritsa as a simple man of the people, someone they could trust and confide in

This mindset was clearly visible during the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov in 1913. The tsar insisted that courtiers dress in traditional boyar costume rather than in the western dress of Peter the Great’s era. For Nicholas and Alexandra, Moscow represented the spiritual heart of Russia, while St Petersburg symbolised corruption and dangerous European decadence. This outlook helps explain why they increasingly isolated themselves from Petersburg society altogether.

Rasputin became indispensable to Nicholas and Alexandra because of his ability to ‘heal’ complications arising from their son’s haemophilia. Do you think he believed in his powers or was he exploiting a desperate family?

This is a subject that may never be fully understood. I recall being advised, after injuring my back, to see someone who could apparently pass their hands over it without touching yet have a remarkable effect. It’s a bit like that with Rasputin. Whether one believes in it or not, some phenomena defy explanation.

There is no doubt that even the doctors were fascinated and at times embarrassed, as they were unable to relieve the suffering of the tsarevich. On several occasions, during crises such as when the family was in a Polish forest, the child suddenly calmed when Rasputin’s voice reached him via telephone. Doctors attributed it to coincidence, or perhaps to psychosomatic factors. Yet contemporaneous accounts describe the child being soothed by Rasputin’s presence and voice, despite his terrifying appearance.

Whether this was genuine healing or charlatanism is impossible to prove, but there is no doubt that Rasputin held extraordinary influence. He gave the empress a sense of power over her son’s wellbeing, and by extension over her husband, the tsar – a psychological authority no one else possessed.

Rasputin took advantage of the sexual excess and hypocrisy of Russia’s aristocracy in the years leading up to the 1917 Revolution. How vital was this ‘moral decay’ to his grip on high society?

It’s striking how sex and revolution often intertwine. Think of the French Revolution, with its lurid fantasies about Marie Antoinette and noble women. There are clear echoes in Russia in the early 20th century. Rumours that the empress was sleeping with Rasputin, or that he was involved with her daughters, were entirely false. Yet in a patriarchal society, such scandals could utterly undermine the tsar’s authority.

Nicholas II was naïve in allowing Rasputin unrestricted access to the empress and the palace, which inevitably fuelled gossip. Because the rumours were false, both he and the empress rejected them, refusing to acknowledge the growing tide of resentment and revolt that was mounting around them.

How far was Rasputin able to influence tsarist rule during these years?

Rasputin’s influence began modestly, but after 1915 it escalated dramatically. Persuaded by Rasputin and the empress, the tsar took personal command of the armies – a disastrous decision. He left Petrograd (the new name for St Petersburg after 1914), giving the empress and Rasputin free rein over government appointments. They removed or replaced dozens of provincial governors with loyal supporters and even intervened in the selection of prime ministers and the minister of the interior, effectively shaping the administration according to their will.

But Nicholas II’s mother, the empress dowager Maria Feodorovna, was against Rasputin.

She was strongly opposed to him, and there was a long-standing reason for her distrust. A diary reputed to have belonged to Rasputin, preserved in the Russian archives, contains material corroborated by other sources. According to it, when Nicholas’s mother was pregnant with him, she had a terrifying dream: she and her husband were climbing a hill when a baby appeared in her arms. She was told it was her future son. The baby then leapt from her arms and scrambled ahead, only to be confronted by a peasant in a blazing red shirt, wielding an axe, who beheaded the child.

Traumatised, the empress consulted a family wet nurse to interpret the dream, who offered a benign reading. Yet decades later, when she learned that her son and daughter-in-law were enthralled by a Siberian peasant, she was horrified. She recognised Rasputin’s presence as potentially dangerous and became the leading voice of opposition within the imperial family.

This account was also shared with me by Princess Olga Romanoff, whose father had told her the story of the dream. Her father was the brother of Princess Irina Alexandrovna, who was married to Felix Yusupov, the man who later murdered Rasputin, linking the family’s memory of these events directly to the dramatic arc of Rasputin’s influence and demise.

A seated older woman in formal attire, including a dark jacket, high‑collared blouse, pearls and a decorative brooch, poses in a room with framed artwork and curtains behind her.

Maria Feodorovna, mother of Tsar Nicholas II, was vehemently opposed to Rasputin (Image by Getty Images)

How did Russia’s involvement in the First World War amplify Rasputin’s influence at court and the sense that the system was in jeopardy?

Rasputin’s influence grew dramatically with Nicholas II absent at the front. The tsar hated politics and decision-making; he was weak but obstinate, a dangerous combination. He preferred life at the army headquarters, far from Petrograd, leaving the empress and Rasputin effectively in charge of domestic affairs. Rasputin and the empress made political appointments according to their preferences, which created chaos.

One notable example was Alexander Protopopov, who initially seemed a competent, liberal candidate and was vice president of the Duma. He became obsessed with the empress and was afflicted with advanced syphilis, which affected his judgment. Persuaded by Rasputin, he was given control over Russia’s rail network, a role critical for moving food to cities. Mismanagement here meant that food could not reach urban centres, notably Petrograd, contributing directly to the unrest that sparked the February Revolution in 1917.

Tsar Nicholas II’s mother recognised Rasputin’s presence as potentially dangerous and became the leading voice of opposition within the imperial family

The circumstances of Rasputin’s assassination are almost legendary. Could you talk us through what happened and what effect it had on Russia?

Rasputin was assassinated by extreme rightwing reactionaries in December 1916. The key figures were Prince Felix Yusupov, married, as I’ve said, to the tsar’s favourite niece, Princess Irina, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, a popular and dashing cousin of the tsar. They were joined by Vladimir Purishkevich, an arch-monarchist, antisemite and leader of the ultraconservative Black Hundreds. Their plan relied on luring Rasputin to the Moika Palace, home to the Yusupov family, in Petrograd under the pretext of meeting Irina, who was, in fact, still in Crimea.

The conspirators first tried to poison him with cakes laced with cyanide, but Rasputin appeared unaffected. Panicked, they shot him multiple times, finishing him off at close range. The autopsy later confirmed the chaotic and incompetent nature of the assassination.

The murder shocked the tsar and empress, who feared it might be part of a wider palace coup. In Petrograd, the public reaction was paradoxical: some celebrated, but the broader effect was destabilising. Rasputin’s death, rather than restoring order, accelerated the decline of the Romanov autocracy.

What do you think Rasputin’s extraordinary life tells us about the tsarist system in its final years?

This episode illustrates the extreme strain on Russian society at the time. A reactionary state, forced into an unprepared war, was already fragile. Logistical chaos, military incompetence, and corruption compounded the crisis. Socially, the aristocracy and elite were widely seen as decadent and morally corrupt, with rampant infidelity, divorces and exploitation of women. Even prominent industrialists, while patrons of the arts, were implicated in corruption and vice.

Against this backdrop, Rasputin’s influence and eventual assassination were both symptoms and accelerants of a failing system, highlighting how power, truth and leadership were vulnerable under extreme societal strain.

Antony Beevor is a bestselling writer and historian, with four novels and 13 works of non-fiction already to his name. His books include Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921 (W&N, 2022) and Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944 (Viking, 2018)

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This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

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