Name: The mysterious life and death of Rasputin - Eden Girma
Uploaded: 2020-02-27T02:14:47.000Z
Duration: 5 min 14 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Felix Yusupov anxiously prepared  to pick up his dinner guest.

If all went as planned,  his guest would be dead by morning,

though four others had already tried and failed to finish him off.

The Russian monarchy  was on the brink of collapse,

and to Yusupov  and his fellow aristocrats,

the holy man they'd invited to dinner  was the single cause of it all.

and how could a single monk  be to blame for the fate of an empire?

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin  began his life in Siberia,

He might have lived a life of obscurity  in his small village,

if not for his conversion  to the Russian Orthodox Church

Inspired by the humbled monks  that wandered endlessly

he spent years on pilgrimages  across Russia.

On his travels, strangers were captivated  by Rasputin's magnetic presence.

Some even believed he had mystical gifts  of prediction and healing.

Despite Rasputin's heavy drinking,  petty theft, and promiscuity,

his reputation as a monk  quickly spread beyond Siberia

and attracted both laypeople  and powerful Orthodox clergymen.

When he finally reached the capital,  St. Petersburg,

Rasputin used  his charisma and connections

to win favor with the imperial family's  spiritual advisor.

Rasputin was finally introduced  to Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

Nicholas and his wife Alexandra  devoutly believed in the Orthodox Church,

as well as in mysticism  and supernatural powers,

and this Siberian holy man  had them transfixed.

It was a particularly tumultuous period  for Russia and their family.

The monarchy  was barely clinging to control

Their political struggles  were only intensified by personal turmoil:

had a life-threatening blood disease  called hemophilia.

When Alexei suffered  a severe medical crisis in 1912,

Rasputin advised his parents  to reject treatment from doctors.

Alexei's health improved,  cementing the royal family's belief

that Rasputin had magical healing powers,

and guaranteeing  his privileged place on the royal court.

Today, we know that  the doctors had prescribed aspirin,

After this incident,  Rasputin made a prophecy:

if he died,  or the royal family deserted him,

both their son and their crown  would soon be gone.

Outside the royal family,  people had mixed views on Rasputin.

On one hand, peasants regarded him  as one of their own,

amplifying their often-unheard voice  to the monarchy.

But nobles and clergymen  came to despise his presence.

Rasputin never ceased  his scandalous behavior,

and they were skeptical  of his so-called powers

and thought he was corrupting  the royal family.

they were convinced  the only way to maintain order

was to eliminate this sham  of a holy man.

Yusupov began  to plot Rasputin's assassination.

Though the exact details  remain mysterious,

our best guess at how it all unfolded  comes from Yusupov's memoirs.

He served Rasputin a number of pastries,  believing they contained cyanide.

one of his co-conspirators  had a change of heart,

and substituted the poison  with a harmless substance.

To Yusupov's shock,  Rasputin ate them without ill effect.

In desperation,  he shot Rasputin at point-blank range.

But Rasputin recovered,  punched his attacker, and fled.

finally killing Rasputin  with a bullet to the forehead

and dumping his body  in the Malaya Nevka river.

But far from stabilizing  the monarchy's authority,

his murder was swiftly followed  by that of the royal family.

Whether the downfall  of the Russian monarchy

or the result of political tensions  decades in the making,

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The mysterious life and death of Rasputin - Eden Girma

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