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The Rise of Rasputin: The Mad Monk Who Ran Russia

Khalid Elhassan March 3, 2025 18 min

4. Transforming Russia’s Rulers Into Puppets

Rasputin - Contemporary cartoon depicting Rasputin's hold on the Tsar and Tsarina — Contemporary cartoon depicting Rasputin’s hold on the Tsar and Tsarina. Pinterest

A few months into Rasputin’s banishment, Tsarevich Alexei suffered a severe bout of hemophilia. His desperate mother telegraphed Rasputin asking him to pray for her son, and the kid got better soon after Rasputin replied. Alexandra made her husband bring the strannik back to St. Petersburg. From then on the Tsar, anxious for peace at home, and convinced that Rasputin had a beneficial impact on his son, ignored all allegations of wrongdoing. Gradually, Rasputin transformed the royal couple – particularly Tsarina Alexandra – into puppets. He offered Russia’s rulers disastrously bad advice, which they accepted, in the mistaken belief that Rasputin was a holy man blessed by God, and so would not steer them wrong. He steered them catastrophically wrong.

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.