On the centenary of the death of Rasputin comes a definitive biography that will dramatically change our understanding of this fascinating figure A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the personification of evil. Numerous biographies, novels, and films recount his mysterious rise to power as Nicholas and Alexandra's confidant and the guardian of the sickly heir to the Russian throne. His debauchery and sinister political influence are the stuff of legend, and the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was laid at his feet. But as the prizewinning historian Douglas Smith shows, the true story of Rasputin's life and death has remained shrouded in myth. A major new work that combines probing scholarship and powerful storytelling, Rasputin separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures. Drawing on a wealth of forgotten documents from archives in seven countries, Smith presents Rasputin in all his complexity--man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. Rasputin is not just a definitive biography of an extraordinary and legendary man but a fascinating portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

From the bestselling author of Stalin and The Last Tsar comes The Rasputin File, a remarkable biography of the mystical monk and bizarre philanderer whose role in the demise of the Romanovs and the start of the revolution can only now be fully known. For almost a century, historians could only speculate about the role Grigory Rasputin played in the downfall of tsarist Russia. But in 1995 a lost file from the State Archives turned up, a file that contained the complete interrogations of Rasputin’s inner circle. With this extensive and explicit amplification of the historical record, Edvard Radzinsky has written a definitive biography, reconstructing in full the fascinating life of an improbable holy man who changed the course of Russian history. Translated from the Russian by Judson Rosengrant.

Based on new sources—the definitive biography of Rasputin, with revelations about his life, death, and involvement with the Romanovs A century after his death, Grigory Rasputin remains fascinating: the Russian peasant with hypnotic eyes who befriended Tsar Nicholas II and helped destroy the Russian Empire, but the truth about his strange life has never fully been told. Written by the world's leading authority on Rasputin, this new biography draws on previously closed Soviet archives to offer new information on Rasputin's relationship with Empress Alexandra, sensational revelations about his sexual conquests, a re-examination of his murder, and more. Based on long-closed Soviet archives and the author's decades of research, encompassing sources ranging from baptismal records and forgotten police reports to notes written by Rasputin and personal letters Reveals new information on Rasputin's family history and strange early life, religious beliefs, and multitudinous sexual adventures as well as his relationship with Empress Alexandra, ability to heal the haemophiliac tsarevich, and more Includes many previously unpublished photos, including contemporary studio photographs of Rasputin and samples of his handwriting Written by historian Joesph T. Fuhrmann, a Rasputin expert whose 1990 biography Rasputin: A Life was widely praised as the best on the subject Synthesizing archival sources with published documents, memoirs, and other studies of Rasputin into a single, comprehensive work, Rasputin: The Untold Story will correct a century's worth of misconception and error about the life and death of the famous Siberian mystic and healer and the decline and fall of Imperial Russia.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZENearly a century after his murder, Rasputin remains as divisive a figure as ever. Was he really a horse thief and a hard-drinking ruffian in his youth? Was he a a devout Orthodox Christian, or was he in fact a just a fake holy man? Are the stories of his enormous sexual drive, debauchery, and drunken orgies true or simply a myth? How did he come to know the emperor and empress and to wield so much influence over them? What was the source of his healing power? Was Rasputin running the government in the final years of his life? And if so, was he acting on his own or on the orders of more powerful, hidden forces? Did Prince Yusupov and his fellow conspirators act alone or were they other parties involved in Rasputin's murder-British secret agents or even an underground cell of Freemasons, as has been claimed? And to what extent did Rasputin's murder doom the Romanov dynasty? Drawing on major new sources hitherto unexamined by western historians, Douglas Smith's book is be the definitive biography of this extraordinary figure for a generation.

For historical aficionados and curious readers alike, this is the perfect ‘short life’ - gripping and hilariously funny, this biography sheds much-needed light on the life of the Russian icon: Grigory Rasputin. Grigory Rasputin, Siberian peasant-turned-mystic and court sage, was as fascinating as he was unfathomable. He played the role of the simple man, eating with his fingers and boasting, ‘I don’t even know the ABC’. But, as the only person able to relieve the symptoms of hemophilia in the Tsar’s heir Alexei, he gained almost hallowed status within the Imperial court. During the last decade of his life, he and his band of “little ladies” came to symbolize all that was decadent, corrupt and remote about the Imperial Family, especially when it was rumored that he was not only shaping Russian policy during the First World War, but also enjoying an intimate relationship with the Empress... Rasputin’s role in the downfall of the tsarist regime is beyond dispute. But who was he really? Prophet or rascal? A “breath of rank air...who blew away the cobwebs of the Imperial Palace’’, as Beryl Bainbridge put it; or a dangerous deviant? In this riveting and eye-opening short biography, Frances Welch turns her inimitable wry gaze on one of the great mysteries of Russian history.

A biography of Grigory Rasputin, a poor peasant from Siberia who charmed his way into the court of Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra of Russia.