The Murder of Rasputin
Typed Copy of a “Confidential” biographical sketch of Rasputin and memorandum on the state of Russia, headed “PETROGRAD 27 Dec./9 Jan. 1916/7. Confidential”.
Petrograd [St. Petersburg]: Jan. 1917.
Price: $7,500.00
About the item
Retained copy. 11 pages. 1 vols. 12-7/8 x 8 inches. The Murder of Rasputin. Slightly soiling, old folds, stab marks, overall however very good. In half blue morocco folder. Portions of the document reprinted, in heavily edited form, in “Rasputin, Nemesis of the Czar”, in: Current History, a Monthly Magazine of The New York TImes vol. VI, no. 2 (May 1917), pp. 288-291.
Item #264908
"Russia is a country, as you know, where, nine times out of ten, personalities and not principles are the springs of action"
A remarkably prescient and prophetic account of the murder of Rasputin by a seasoned observer on the eve of the Russian Revolution. The anonymous author/reporter, described in Current History as a “trustworthy Russian, whose reliability is vouched for by the conservative London Post”, begins: “It is only after serious deliberation and under a strong sense of public duty that I bring myself to write you this report of Russian affairs. As you know, for a couple of years of this war I never wrote you — or anyone else at home — a single line that was not for publication … But the time has come to speak, for there is only too much reason to believe that we are on the eve of events much more serious than those of 1905-6 …”
The writer gives a brief and vivid account of the career and character of Rasputin, the notorious “holy man,” “rascal,” and “drunkard,” whose “miraculous power of the opposite sex” and incredible influence over the Romanov court led to the messy assassination in late December, 1916, and the subsequent “reign of terror” in which press reports were suppressed.
“It is really a tragedy of a dynasty and may be still the tragedy of an Empire …” which, he believes, presages an era of violence: “What is extremely unpleasant to contemplate is that universal conviction that this is ‘only first blood’: the path of assassination is fatally attractive in Russia, and, in point of fact, it is the only way in which, as things are, the nation can attempt roughly to adjust the balance. Grave events are surely impending …”
A superb contemporary account in deft prose and with close knowledge of the inner circles of Russian life.
