BSB #16 Grigori Rasputin

https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/52480042/download.mp3 Alright, welcome back to another episode of Bite Size Bios, BSB, this week we are gonna learn about Grigori Rasputin. I did not know much about this guy going in.  I knew he was kinda weird looking and that he was connected to Russia. That’s about it. We are gonna dive into the life of a man who was basically Russian royalty for a period of time. Don’t at me.  But before we get to the episode as always since this is a HDTH mini episode we have to talk about last week’s topic. Tattoos. That was also a subject that I knew little about. If you listened to the ep then you know that I don’t have any tattoos.  We found out that tattoos were common in basically all cultures and civilizations and that most of the early ones were used as some form of acupuncture or to help with child birth. The next evolution saw them being used to mark criminals and that is where the criminal aspect of tattoos really begins to take shape. As always if you like what you hear here there is more where that came from over at HDTHappen.com. there you will find episode transcripts as well as work cited. There is also a blog there with interesting articles written by yours truly. Be sure to like and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast. It helps the pod grow. The goal is to be top 100 history podcast on Apple Podcast! Give us 5 stars if you feel so inclined or if you wanna give us 2 stars and explain why you didn’t  want to give us 5 stars that is fine as well. Early Life Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River in the Tobolsk Governorate (now Tyumen Oblast) in the Russian Empire. According to official records, he was born on 21 January [ 9 January] 1869 and christened the following day. There are few records of Rasputin's parents. His father, Yefim, was a peasant farmer and church elder who had been born in Pokrovskoye in 1842 and married Rasputin's mother, Anna Parshukova, in 1863.  Yefim (the father) also worked as a government courier, ferrying people and goods between Tobolsk and Tyumen. Although he attended school, Grigori Rasputin remained illiterate, and his reputation for licentiousness (lewd behavior) earned him the surname Rasputin, Russian for “debauched one.” He evidently underwent a religious conversion at age 18, and eventually he went to the monastery at Verkhoture, where he was introduced to the Khlysty (Flagellants) sect.  Rasputin perverted Khlysty beliefs into the doctrine that one was nearest God when feeling “holy passionlessness” and that the best way to reach such a state was through the sexual exhaustion that came after prolonged debauchery. Rasputin did not become a monk. In 1886, Rasputin traveled to Abalak, Russia, some 250 km east-northeast of Tyumenand 2,800 km east of Moscow, where he met a peasant girl named Praskovya Dubrovina. After a courtship of several months, they married in February 1887.  Praskovya remained in Pokrovskoye throughout Rasputin's later travels and rise to prominence and remained devoted to him until his death. The couple had seven children, though only three survived to adulthood: Dmitry (b. 1895), Maria (b. 1898), and Varvara (b. 1900). In the presence of the royal family, Rasputin consistently maintained the posture of a humble and holy peasant. Outside court, however, he soon fell into his former licentioushabits.  By the early 1900s, Rasputin had developed a small circle of followers, primarily family members, and other local peasants, who prayed with him on Sundays and other holy days when he was in Pokrovskoye.  Building a makeshift chapel in Efim's root cellar—Rasputin was still living within his father's household at the time—the group held secret prayer meetings there. These meetings were the subject of some suspicion and hostility from the village priest and other villagers.