Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs

“This story of credulous, out-of-touch monarchs steering their country into disaster never loses its sinister appeal.”—The New York Times

"A beautifully written, clear-eyed biography of a very Russian tragedy.”—The Sunday Times

From one of our most acclaimed historians, a major new biography of one of history’s most disturbing, dubious masterminds, showing how a Siberian peasant, through his seduction of the imperial household, contributed to the collapse of the greatest autocracy in the world

When Russia's Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she 'lived under the pressure of the prophecy'. Did the prophecy come true with the arrival at court of a mysterious, barely literate moujhik from Siberia, Grigori Rasputin?

In this extraordinary portrait of an enigmatic character, Antony Beevor brings readers closer than ever before to Rasputin’s scandalous life and death. Though he had no official position at court, Rasputin’s hold over the Romanovs became the stuff of legend. Exaggerated accounts of political and financial corruption swirled around him, to say nothing of the stories of his debauchery with the Empress and even her daughters. The consequences of the rumor and conspiracy theories were devastating—when the February revolution broke out in 1917, hardly a sword was raised in the Tsar’s defense.

Through extensive use of previously unpublished reports, interviews, and interrogations, Beevor shows the truth of Rasputin’s rampant lust and opportunism, victimization of poor and vulnerable women, and deep hypocrisy and corruption. Part political thriller, part gothic mystery, Rasputin is a fascinating story of human perversity.