Rasputin: The Man Behind the Tsar

In 1912, the only son of the Emperor of Russia was dying, and a peasant in Siberia sent a telegram: "The little one will not die." The next day, the bleeding stopped. This is the true story of Grigori Rasputin: how an illiterate Siberian wanderer became the most trusted friend of the last tsar and empress, why the family kept their son's illness a secret, how the First World War turned a scandal into a disaster, what really happened on the night he was killed (the legend versus the autopsy), and why the Romanov dynasty was gone just 75 days later. Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:17 The Wanderer 3:55 The Capital of Mystics 6:38 The Miracle 9:14 Two Rasputins 11:50 The Man Behind the Tsar 14:12 The Night at the Moika 16:37 Seventy-Five Days 18:18 Who Was Behind the Tsar? Was Rasputin the cause of the fall, or just its symbol? Tell us in the comments, and subscribe to Orbiq for more stories that shaped the world. Sources Douglas Smith, Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs (2016) Joseph T. Fuhrmann, Rasputin: The Untold Story (2013) Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra (1967) Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy (1996) Carolyn Harris, on the centenary of Rasputin's death (2016) Wikipedia: Grigori Rasputin; Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; February Revolution; Felix Yusupov Accounts of Rasputin's life and death are full of rumour; where sources disagree, the video says so. Dates are New Style (Gregorian calendar). Images Historical photographs, paintings and documents from Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress (public domain), including colour photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, plus these Creative Commons works: Aspirin bottle (Aspirin-Fläschchen): Bayer AG (CC BY-SA 3.0) Russian saints, Orthodox cathedral in Vilnius: Loraine (CC BY-SA 4.0) Maps: Natural Earth (public domain). Regions are approximate. Music: YouTube Audio Library. All historical images are real photographs, artworks or documents; no AI-generated images of real people.