We acknowledge now very much that there’s, you know, a placebo effect.

You know, if people feel they’re being helped, they often improve.

And it’s very possible that there’s a kind of placebo effect at work here.

I have a theory, [music] and it’s for what it’s worth, about Rasputin’s powers, and it’s a very simple one goes back to a tradition within the Russian peasantry.

Russian peasants had this gift and it’s called in Russian zagavarivat k to speak to the blood and what it was if an animal hurt itself and was bleeding or was in stressed state.

The peasants used a kind of talking calming method.

It’s a bit like horse whispering.

I think of Rasputin actually as a people whisperer and that’s I think what he did that was his gift.

It says he had this extraordinary sonorous Old Testament kind of manner and voice those incredible piercing blue eyes.

He had a gift of [music] calming the blood.

There were effects of this.

So first of all as far as the Zarina is concerned he can do no wrong.

you know, she must have him around [music] now.

He he can keep her son alive.

It’s as simple as that.

Rasputin is great.

It means he has the trust of the most powerful people in the Russian Empire.

So far as onlookers are concerned, [music] they don’t know about the hemophilia, but what they can see is that this mysterious peasant is getting closer and closer and closer to [music] the royal family.

The Romanovs referred to him as our friend.

And this is the key to Rasputin’s relationship with the Ramloff family.

You’ve got to remember they’re at a time of increasing violent revolutionary activity.

The Russian throne is threatened.

There’s huge antipathy to the Romanoffs.

They have retreated [music] within the confines of the Alexander Palace.

There were very very few people Nicholas and Alexander trusted.

And Russ Butin was one of a very few people that they really admitted into their inner circle.

The children have a pet name for him.

They call him our friend, which is, you know, pretty intimate.

He has names for them.

He calls Alexe [music] Olia.

That’s his nickname for Alexe.

And people who observe them all together realize that they’re very [music] close.

They’re very natural with each other.

I mean, Rasputin, bear in mind, is essentially a very simple person.

uh he doesn’t patronize the children.

He was their [music] friend.

He gave them advice.

Their wise guru and when you look at the girls attitude [music] to him, particularly the older three, they even asked his advice.

They wrote him letters.

They were affectionate towards him.

They kind I wouldn’t call him a kind of benign [music] uncle figure.

He was more of um a sort of religious advisor, father, confessor, whatever you like to call him, but they certainly looked upon him as one of their few trusted friends.

Nicholas sees Rasputin as having a positive effect on his son’s health, but also on his wife’s demeanor.

And you know there is some evidence that Alexander can be quite sort of strident and hectoring and that Nicholas is quite relieved at the presence of Rasputin because he exerts a sort of calming influence on his wife.

He [music] made that famous off-the- cuff remark to his prime minister [music] Stalipin that he’d rather have 10 rasputins than one of Alexandre’s hysterical outbursts.

So I think in a way he pandered to her new roses to keep [music] the peace.

Rasputin emerges for the royal couple as kind of a spokesman for the Russian peasantry.

I mean they believe that Rasputin’s ideas, his advice are are a kind of window onto popular attitudes within the Russian peasantry, you know, across this great uh empire.

And so therefore, he speaks with a kind of authority, you know, that they take seriously.

Rasputin goes back and forth between his village and St.

Petersburg.

So I think this is the kind of paradox that we see all the way through Rasputin’s life.

He’s absolutely determined to build a relationship with Azar and Zarina.

Make no mistake, he’s ambitious.

you know, he may be childlike and uh he may be kind of an open book in some ways, but he’s got an ambition as well on a personal level.

And when he’s back in his village, he’s trying to do good works.

He’s trying to give money to people.

He’s giving money for a church.

He’s doing, you know, the other side of the Rasputin story.

In the autumn of 1912, Alexe had another fall, another hemorrhage.

The doctors couldn’t do anything.

Alexandra was desperate.

Now, at this point, Rasputin was back in Siberia.

When Alex a had a really serious near fatal accident out at Spalola in the Polish forest, telegram was sent to Rasputin [music] and he was very close to death.

All Alexander could do this time was to send him [music] a telegram saying that this had happened again.

Could he help? He sent a telegram back telling her not to worry that Alexe would be fine and [music] telling her to make sure that the doctors didn’t bother him too much.

It was quite a clever telegram really not only reassuring her but giving a piece of advice and a piece of advice that you know meant that he was basically better than the doctors.

The telegram when it finally got to him at Pacroscoya his old home village actually didn’t arrive till after the crisis had passed.

Alex a had turned the corner before [music] Rasputin even responded and again it was just a telegram back saying don’t worry the little one will not die.

I’m sure that Nicholas and Alexandra were aware of gossip and dismissed it.

There was an enormous amount of innuendo and titter about Rasputin.

He was a very conflicted person.

He was on one side [music] extremely pious and wise guru preacher, layer on of hands, whatever you want to call him.

But there was a deeply dark libidenous side to him that wanted to just kick over the traces, get drunk, have sex with as many women as possible and live this kind of riotous uproarious life.

There were so many rumors that started to fly around about Rasputin and there’s a lot to sort of unpack here.

First of all, people were absolutely attacking Rasputin because he came to be this symbol of everything that was wrong with Russia.

He was driving it into the ground.

This kind of conspiracy theory that you see about certain groups that come back again and again and again.

You know, he became somebody who was the victim of this sort of conspiracy theory.

However, it wasn’t just him that was being attacked.

It was the royal family very much.

I [music] mean, the royal family, you know, amongst many people was not popular.

The Zarina was considered a foreigner.

The Zar was considered weak.

So attacking Rasputin was kind of a way to attack the royal family without explicitly attacking the royal family.

And let’s face it, you know, people have said a lot about Rasputin on, you know, all sides down the years, but you’ve got to face it, he wasn’t doing himself any favors with his behavior.

So, you know, it wasn’t as though, you know, Rasputin was this victim out of nowhere of these rumors that were accusing him of being dissolute.

You know, he was absolutely helping this along.

Rasputin has made himself indispensable to the royal family.

Now, he’s also really polarized opinion across Russia.

Most of it is very anti- him.

[music] Things that are appearing in the press are extraordinary.

In fact, he’s so unpopular in many ways that he’s done what nobody else could do.

He started to [music] unite the opposition to Thesar.

I mean, these these are all people of such sort of wide [music] range of beliefs and opinions that nothing could really ever bring them together except for a bogey man or a supposed bogey man like Rasputin.

After the assassination of Archie France Ferdinand, Rasputin basically tries to get in touch with the Zar desperately.

He sends letters.

He sends telegrams and he’s begging the Zar not to go to war.

Now, this isn’t on anyone’s advice.

The fascinating thing about Rasputin is that he’s not interested in other people’s advice because God is speaking through him.

God’s telling him.

This is why he’s such a loose cannon.

He’s a terrible person to be giving advice because it’s not based on anything.

I mean, it is.

It’s based on, you know, God’s belief, but that just so happens to coincide with Rasputin’s belief, which is based on very little.

So, at this point, he gives some advice to the Zar, you know, really forceful advice.

He says, “If you get involved in the war, all will be lost for you.

” I mean, he’s surrounded by voices who are urging caution.

There’s only one direction Russia can go in from here.

And once the war starts going badly, it’s hard to see any results coming but the end of [music] the royal family.

They were still together.

They were still a family.

They had each other.

They got through it.

He used to call him the Georgian.

As we would see later in his life, violence and using violent people and manipulating [music] them and also terrorizing them became his modus oparandi.

Stalin from [music] the early 20th century essentially balances violence, terror, and interpersonal relationships.

Heat.

Heat.

 

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