‘Unobscured’ is separating fact from fiction of Rasputin’s mysterious, superstitious legacy
Folks, Aaron Mahnke has done it again. Now in the midst of the fourth season of “Unobscured,” he is focusing on the world’s most mysterious character whose legacy has become shrouded in rumor, disbelief, and superstition: Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.
Mahnke, as he always does, laments to us the tale of a peasant boy born to a family in Siberia in 1869. Not much is known about his life until he arrived in Saint Petersburg in the early 20th century. He’d had a religious conversion experience after making a pilgrimage to a monastery some years prior, gaining a small circle of followers. By the time he arrived in the city of the monarchy, rumors of his reputation as a holy man and healer had spread, capturing the attention of socialites and church leaders. Which is exactly how he met the ill-fated Emperor Nicholas and his wife, Empress Alexandra.
But Mahnke doesn’t start that season of “Unobscured” with the fabled life Grigori Rasputin. So much of his life and legacy are based on hearsay and rumors, like the story of how many different times the Bolsheviks tried to murder him and his strange influence over women. And with his early life being so uncertain, it makes more sense to start with the couple who made him the most influential man in Russia.
Empress Alexandra sets the stage for Rasputin
Alexandra Feodorovna was a German Princess, originally named Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, but she was given her new name when she converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. She was the favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, arguably the most powerful woman in the world and, eventually, blood related to nearly all royalty in Europe. Alexandra was incredibly intelligent and well-read, fiercely generous, and extremely religious. She was also very intense, a trait that her eventual Russian citizens hated. Her older brother, Frittie, died after a fall when she was just one year old. This fall wouldn’t have killed many other children, but Frittie, like many Royals related to Victoria, was a haemophiliac, and he died of a brain hemorrhage at just three-years-old. This accident, and everything thereafter, set the stage for Rasputin to become a trusted member of the Tsar and Tsarina, and nearly no one else.
Alexandra’s grandmother hoped she would one day be Queen consort of the British throne. But Alexandra fell in love with a different cousin (look, European royalty is nothing if not a good bit inbred), Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia. Nicholas’ father died in 1894, when Nicholas was just 26 years old. He was wholly unprepared to take the throne; historians say he had anticipated at least two more decades before he would succeed his father. But two years later, he and Alexandra were coronated.
Alexei the Haemophiliac
Mahnke discloses that Alexandra’s next mission, perhaps better worded as obligation, was to provide a male heir to the throne. She popped out four daughters in quick succession, beginning to fear she would be unable to birth a son to her and her husband. This is where the Romanovs turned to the occult. They had been told of a mystic man, named Philippe Nizier-Vachot, a frenchman who claimed he could change the sex of the baby inside the womb. They heeded his advice for years, even canonising Seraphim of Sarov, a long dead holy man. While they pushed him away after years of failure, they eventually did give birth to a boy, Alexei Nikolaevich, in 1904.
But, as the first episode of “Unobscured” retorts, Philippe would not be their last dip into the world of the occult. Remember that haemophilia that afflicted Alexandra’s brother, a gene that is carried by the daughters of Queen Victoria, spreading across European royalty? Well, Alexei had it too, and the rest of Alexandra’s life was dedicated to his safety.
Rasputin enters the Tsar’s palace, and never leaves
They turned to Rasputin, the Serbian priest and mystic, after doctors failed to help cure her son. Over time, she believed that Rasputin and Rasputin only could save her son. He took advantage of this, telling the Tsar and Tsarina that should he not be protecting them, Alexei would surely die.
Well, as we will find in “Unobscured,” in a deeply religious country who already disliked the Empress for her surly attitude and struggle to bear an heir, and disliked the Emperor who was too kind and unfit to rule Russia, turning to a mysterious occultish man did not help. And this orchestrated the end of the Romanovs and Rasputin himself. And, somehow even in death, Rasputin created a lore that has spiraled out of control, making fact and fiction harder to decipher than ever.
To hear the full story of Alexandra Feodorovna, the Romanovs, Rasputin and their ascent to the most widespread and mysterious fable this world has ever heard, check out this newest season of “Unobscured.” Mahnke is piecing together who Rasputin was from who many believed him to be, diving into the world of this mystic. He speaks with historians to put together the puzzle of how a peasant became the most mythologically storied man in history.
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