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Terrible Schemes that Governments and People Have Tried

Khalid Elhassan November 1, 2019 29 min

Grigori Rasputin - Rasputin and the Empress

4. Russia’s Rulers Trust an Illiterate Religious Charlatan

One of history’s worst decisions was that of Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra to believe in Grigori Rasputin, a religious charlatan. After gaining their confidence with his holy man act, Rasputin transformed Russia’s rulers, particularly the airheaded Empress Alexandra, into his puppets. He offered them advice on governance, which the royal couple accepted in the belief that Rasputin was blessed by God, and so would not led them astray. He ended up leading them not only astray, but to outright disaster.

Rasputin kept up a pretense of being a humble and holy man in the royal family’s presence. Beyond their gaze, however, he was a depraved drunk who claimed that his body had holy healing powers and led a Christian cult that engaged in wild sensual enjoyment. The Emperor and Empress were unwilling to hear any criticism of their pet holy man, however, and turned on those who spoke ill of Rasputin. Towards the end of his life, Rasputin was wielding such influence over the imperial nincompoop couple that ministers, high-ranking officials, and generals, were appointed and dismissed based upon his advice.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.