Grigori Rasputin (22 January 1869 - 29 December 1916) was a Russian mystic with an influence in the later days of Russia's Romanov dynasty. Rasputin played an important role in the lives of the Tsar Nicholas II, his wife the Tsarina Alexandra, and their only son the Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia coming from Queen Victoria.
Rasputin has often been called the Mad Monk or Icha although the origins of the second name are not known. He was never a monk and made no secret of being married. Some considered him to be a "strannik" (religious pilgrim) or even a starets (ста́рец) ("elder", a title usually reserved for monk-confessors) and believed him to be a psychic and faith healer. He can be considered one of the more controversial characters in 20th century history, although Rasputin is viewed by most historians today as a scapegoat. He played a small but spectacular role in the downfall of the Romanov dynasty.
For a great while, Rasputin's birth date remained questionable. "It is still not known with any certainty when Rasputin was born, and all the books which deal with him and his career give differing dates; not even his biographers — and there have been many — have been able to agree. The closest one can come with certainty is sometime between the years 1863 and 1873." (Heinz Liepman, Rasputin and the Fall of Imperial Russia, 21). It was not until recently that new documents surfaced revealing Rasputin's birthdate as January 10, 1869 O.S. (Radzinsky, Edvard, The Rasputin File, 25).
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)
