The Rasputin File (34 page)

From the testimony of Vyrubova: ‘And then Rasputin was sent a telegram with the request that he pray, and Rasputin replied with a soothing telegram that the heir would live. “God has seen your tears and heeded your prayers …Your son will live.”’

And when Alix, with a face tormented by sleepless nights, triumphantly showed the telegram to the doctors, they merely nodded their heads in sorrow. But they noted with astonishment that even though the boy was still dying, she immediately became calm. Such was her faith in Rasputin’s power! And the doctors must have thought that the Middle Ages had finally returned to the palace. But the heir did recover! It seemed to her then that she had seen a Biblical miracle with her very own eyes! By prayer alone without even coming to Spala, he had saved her son.

On 21 October the court minister Fredericks announced from Spala that ‘The most critical and grave period of his Imperial Highness’s illness has … passed.’

‘Was that really not enough to gain the parents’ love,’ Vyrubova recalled. And on Rasputin’s arrival in Petersburg, the ‘tsars’ again heard something encouraging.

From the testimony of Vyrubova: ‘The doctors said the heir’s haemorrhaging was hereditary, and he would never get over it in view of the delicacy of his vessels. Rasputin reassured them, declaring that he would outgrow it.’

How could she not have deified him after that! This is the right word: she had already made him a God. As we shall see later on, it was a very convenient one for her.

The rumours that the heir might die forced Nicky’s brother Mikhail to take action. In the event of Alexei’s death, he would become the heir. He knew that the family would in that case never permit him to marry the former cavalry captain’s wife, Natalia Wulfert. But the ash-blonde hair and velvety eyes of the most elegant woman in Petersburg had conquered him, and so Misha wasted no time.

On 31 October the dowager empress received a letter from Cannes. ‘My dear Mama …How difficult and painful it is for me to cause you distress …but two weeks ago I married Natalia Sergeevna…I would never, perhaps, have made the decision to do so, had it not been for the illness of little Alexei.’ For the family of Alexander III, the future of the throne now lay only with the sick boy.

And that future was now in the hands of the strange miracle-worker.

Rasputin’s Merry Life

At the time the strange deity was continuing to lead an amazing life. And the agents were continuing to submit their reports to the Department of Police: ‘3 December 1912. He visited the editorial offices of the religious newspapers
The Bell
and
The Voice of Truth
with Lyubov and Maria Golovina … After which he took a prostitute on Nevsky and went to a hotel with her.’

‘9 January 1913. He wanted to visit the family baths with Sazonova, but they were closed. He parted with her and took a prostitute.’

‘10 January…He approached a prostitute.’

‘12 January. After visiting the Golovins, he took a prostitute.’

The same clear-cut alternation: from the prim household of the Golovins to a prostitute; then after a meeting with Vyrubova, a visit to the baths with one of his initiated devotees; then during a break, a prostitute; and in the evening sometimes even an automobile to Tsarskoe Selo!

But that pursuit of the body had now become habitual to him. Now for some reason he was not at all afraid of reports to the ‘tsars’. ‘If on his first visits he exhibited a certain caution before his encounters with prostitutes, glancing behind and going down back streets, then on his most recent visit those encounters have taken place quite openly,’ the external surveillance report summarized.

But then that subject in the tight-fitting peasant coat and unkempt beard who was given to darting down dubious streets and ‘running into’ the apartments of prostitutes had, in society’s view,
once again
presumed to meddle in international affairs.

Earlier that winter Rasputin had taken one more step towards his death.

Who Was The Peacemaker?

After the murder of Stolypin, an uncompromising opponent of Russian participation in wars, the Montenegrins’ father, King Nikola of Montenegro, felt more confident. And he took action. A secret alliance against Turkey was concluded among the Orthodox states of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria. The moment they had chosen was opportune: Turkish political life was in chaos.

And on the night of 26 September 1912 (9 October NS) the Winter Palace heard the sensational news that Montenegrin troops had occupied the Turkish fortress at Scutari in Albania. The tsar understood how that impudent disruption of the status quo in the Balkans would ignite an explosion of indignation among the great powers. The minister of foreign
affairs was instructed to persuade Montenegro to end its occupation of the fortress. But the Montenegrins’ father knew of the bellicose mood in Petersburg and of the support of Grand Duke Nikolai, the ‘dread uncle’, and he callously continued the siege of Scutari.

And then more threatening news came from the dangerous Balkans. On 5 (18 NS) October Serbia and Bulgaria entered the war against Turkey, followed by Greece the day after. And the Turkish army sustained defeat after defeat. News of the successes of the Balkan alliance — of their brothers in the faith — against the Turkish Moslems gave rise to an outpouring of joyous nationalism in Russia. There were continual demonstrations in Petersburg bearing the slogan, ‘A Cross for Holy Sophia’, a reference to the great Byzantine cathedral turned into a mosque in Istanbul. The old idea of pan-Slavism was abroad again, the idea of a great federation of Orthodox Slavic states with Russia at its head, and everyone was again caught up in the old dream of the Russian tsars: of taking Constantinople back by force from Turkey — Constantinople, the ancient capital of Byzantium, from which Rus had adopted its Christian faith.

The response was immediate. The Austrians and Germans threatened war.

And again the Balkan boiler was about to blow up the whole world.

On 10 and 29 November and on 5 December 1912, the Council of Ministers met in Petersburg. And the situation of a few years before was repeated. Russian society wanted to fight: the demands for military assistance to its ‘Balkan brothers’ were unanimous, and the registering of volunteers began. Even Rasputin’s friend Filippov was for war at the time. And there was no Stolypin powerful enough to overcome public opinion (or, more accurately, public insanity). War was again at the very threshold. And once again it would be a world war. The Austrian fleet and the ships of the great powers had already blockaded the Montenegrin coast. General mobilization was anticipated in Russia. Speaker of the State Duma Rodzyanko counselled the tsar to fight.

And then the tsar suddenly demonstrated character: he resolutely moved against public opinion. He demanded that the minister of foreign affairs put pressure on Montenegro. And on 21 April 1913 the Montenegrin king, after many hours of persuasion, consented to withdraw from Scutari in return for monetary indemnification. And the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov, announced with relief, ‘King Nikola was going to set the world on fire to cook his own little omelette.’ This was in reply to the constant reproaches that Russia had once again betrayed its Balkan brothers.

And then a rumour raced through Petersburg. It was Rasputin’s wish that
had stood behind the tsar’s decisiveness! It was he who once again had prevented the ‘tsars’ from defending their fellow Slavs.

And it was true.

The File, from the testimony of Filippov:

In 1912–13, at the very height of the resolution of the Balkan question when we were on the verge of war with Austria, Rasputin, in response to my urgent demand that Russia vigorously go to war against the Germans in defence of Slavdom, observed that the Germans were a power, while the little brothers were just swine for whose sake not a single Russian was worth losing…Rasputin found that we would not be ready to fight the Germans … until we had regained our strength from the shock of the war with Japan.

From Vyrubova’s testimony: ‘Rasputin was adamantly opposed to any war whatsoever. He was against Russian interference in the Balkan war.’

From the testimony of Badmaev in the File: Rasputin ‘told me that he had asked the tsar not to fight in the Balkan war at a time when all the press was clamouring for Russia to take part, and he succeeded in convincing the tsar not to fight.’

And so the unbelievable had occurred: a semi-literate peasant had defeated all the parties and forced the tsar to act in contempt of public opinion! And he had done so alone!

Thus said the court and all Petersburg. From the very beginning Rasputin had had a clear realization of his main task at court — to grasp what the ‘smart one’, that infinitely strong-willed woman, wanted in the innermost reaches of her soul. And to give expression to it as his own prediction, as knowledge from God. He knew very well how horrified she was by even the thought of war with Germany. And he managed once more to give voice to her secret wishes. And once more he frightened the tsar with apocalyptic predictions of what would happen in the event of war. And she accepted those predictions with relief as God’s command given utterance by the man of God. And took his side. And the tsar was forced to submit.

However, that is not my assumption. Gilliard, the tutor of the royal children and someone who had lived with the family for many years and who understood Alexandra Fyodorovna very well, wrote of Rasputin in his memoirs: ‘His prophetic words most often merely confirmed the hidden wishes of the empress herself. She herself did not suspect that she had induced them, that she was their ‘inspirer’. Her personal wishes, passing through Rasputin, acquired in her eyes the force and authority of revelation.’

But that was not understood in society. And once again it was believed
that the semi-literate, debauched peasant had cancelled a just war. And Nikolai Nikolaevich, who had for the second time suffered defeat in the Balkan story, would never forgive that. The unbending ‘dread uncle’ also believed that the peasant was guilty of Russia’s humiliation.

And in the File, Konstantin Chikhachev, the deputy chief of the Saratov Judicial Chamber, relates to the investigator some words he heard from Rasputin himself:’[Nikolai Nikolaevich] used to be terribly fond of me … We were friends right up until the Balkan war. He wanted the Russians to enter the war. Whereas I did not, and spoke against it. He has been angry with me ever since.’

Thus, the pan-European butchery was postponed. Thus, the grand duke and the other hawks fully believed that as long as the peasant was in the palace, there would be no war. But they knew that he was in the palace for the long term, and that he would not give up his place.

So only one solution remained: to remove him for good.

The Dangerous Dzhunkovsky

It had come at last: 1913, the festive year of the dynasty’s tercentenary.

At the very end of 1912, Minister of Internal Affairs Makarov fell, just as Prime Minister Kokovtsev had predicted to him. He was sent into retirement in early 1913, on the eve of the jubilee celebrations. The new minister of internal affairs, Vasily Maklakov, was chosen from among the provincial governors. He was a distant relative of Count Leo Tolstoy and the relative of a well-known liberal and Constitutional Democrat. But unlike his relatives, he was a monarchist, and during his term as governor he had become famous for expelling Jews from his province. He was just past forty. And in view of his youth, Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, the governor of Moscow and a former associate of Ella’s husband, the murdered Grand Duke Sergei, was appointed his deputy.

All the secret police forces were concentrated in Dzhunkovsky’s hands: he became chief of the gendarme corps, and the Department of Police was subject to him, as well. He also had complete responsibility for arranging the security of the royal family during the jubilee celebrations.

In 1917, during his interrogation by the Extraordinary Commission, Dzhunkovsky testified that he had been known to the tsar for a long time: ‘ever since I was a young officer, inasmuch as I had served in the Preobrazhensky regiment, first battalion’. The same place Nicholas, then the heir, had received his own military training. For Nicholas, so fond of everything military, that meant a great deal. The tsar had met Dzhunkovsky
during the latter’s duty assignments at the Winter Palace and was thus acquainted with his monarchist views. The tsar was also pleased with the old Guards officer’s magnificent bearing. The external appearance of the new chief of gendarmes was truly fearsome. The poet Alexander Blok described Dzhunkovsky as possessing an ‘imposing face, sharply pointed moustaches, and a beetle brow’. Moreover, the formidable Dzhunkovsky was a man of the world and knew how to entertain. He could, whenever invited to breakfast, amuse the royal children with his very fine bird calls.

But for now, Dzhunkovsky readied the capital for the celebrations. Later on, after the death of the tsar and the end of the monarchy, he would describe it all in his memoirs.

Great Celebrations With The Peasant

The sacred day arrived. Three hundred years before, the Muscovite Assembly of the Land had elected as tsar the boyar Mikhail Romanov. And on the morning of 21 February 1913, bells began ringing all over Russia. And processions of the cross with lighted candles were conducted around all its churches.

At 8:00 a.m. Petersburg was awakened by the cannon of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Dzhunkovsky began his drive around the city early in the morning. The streets were already filled with people. An especially large crowd had gathered next to Kazan Cathedral, where the royal family would appear. At noon a deafening ‘hurrah’ was heard from the troops stretched out in a chain from the Winter Palace to the cathedral. And a squadron-strong military escort in crimson Circassian coats came into view, and after them the tsar and the heir in an open calash, and then a coach carrying the two empresses with giant Cossacks on its footboards, and then another coach with the grand duchesses.