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发帖数: 4796 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: WCNMLGB (CCC), 信区: Military
标 题: 今天是俄国末代沙皇宠臣拉斯普廷遇害100周年
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Dec 30 23:00:42 2016, 美东)
One hundred years since Russia’s controversial mystic Grigory Rasputin was
poisoned, shot, beaten, and thrown into freezing waters by a group of
aristocrats, historians are still divided over his murder and influence on
the Tsar’s family.
The Siberian faith healer’s close relationship with the Romanov royal
family caused ruptures among Russian aristocrats fearful of his influence.
Rasputin became a trusted advisor to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna after she
was convinced that he had saved her son Alexey, who had hemophilia, from
near death.
This incident was credited with eventually giving Rasputin an enormous level
of influence even over foreign policy. The controversial “man of God” was
provided with police bodyguards on the direct order of the Romanovs as the
family defended their relationship with their son’s alleged savior.
Tsar Nicholas II reacted angrily when one noble, Prince Orlof, tried to
convince him of the dangers of associating with a man who was considered a
promiscuous drunkard and refused to receive the prince again, according to a
memo by Lord Bertie held in Britain’s National Archives.
On December 30, 1916, a plot to kill Rasputin involving Prince Felix Yusupov
, the Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, Lieutenant Sergei Sukhotin, Vladimir
Purishkevich and the doctor Stanislaus Lazovert was carried out in St.
Petersburg.
A memo sent a day after Rasputin’s killing reported that “mystery
surrounds his death” but there was no doubt he was murdered at the Yusupov
Palace.
The account from Prince Felix claims that Rasputin was lured to the palace,
where 11 men were said to be present. They reportedly gave him the option to
kill himself but he refused and allegedly fired a shot at one of the grand
dukes instead.
Another telegram published by the National Archives from January 1, 1917
reveals “news just in” that Rasputin’s body had been recovered from near
the Petrovsky Bridge. It states that “His Imperial Highness did not know
who actually killed Rasputin, but believed the body had been dropped in the
Neva through a hole in the ice.”
“The Empress has been thrown into a state of nervous excitement by the news
and it was by her orders that the Grand Duke Dmitry was placed under arrest
,” the telegram added.
© nationalarchives.gov.uk
The Interior Minister launched an investigation into the disappearance and
then murder of Rasputin, which was run by General Pyotr Popov. An autopsy
carried out by Dr Dmitry Kosorotov found that Rasputin had been shot three
times – one shot was on the left side of his chest, one in his back and the
fatal shot was in his forehead.
He found no traces of poison in Rasputin’s body nor water in his lungs,
leading him to conclude he was dead before he was thrown into the water,
dismissing the extraordinary claims of his killers that this demonic being
was near impossible to kill.
The doctor involved in the murder, Lazovert, later admitted he put a
harmless substance in the cakes, instead of powdered cyanide, after having
second thoughts.
Yusupov’s own account of the murder and his motivations, which he provided
in testimonies and memoirs over the years 1917 to 1965, changed several
times and contradicted those of the original investigation.
Grigory Rasputin © Sputnik
This was not the first attempt on Rasputin’s life, however, as he survived
a stabbing in the stomach two years earlier by a fanatically religious woman
, Khionia Guseva. Eyewitnesses claimed that as Rasputin’s entrails fell
from his stomach, she shouted, “I’ve killed the anti-Christ.” Guseva was
a follower of Hieromonk Iliodor, who for years attempted to slander Rasputin
with the allegations that he was a member of a sect, that he practiced
ritual dances and abused women.
Another rumor circulating at the time was that the British Secret Service
had been involved in Rasputin’s murder.
© nationalarchives.gov.uk
While no evidence of British involvement was established a memo was
retrieved, revealing that British Ambassador George Buchanan had knowledge
of the plot to kill Rasputin a week before it happened.
One theory was that British spy Oswald Rayner fired the fatal shot because
the British government suspected Rasputin was pushing for a peace agreement
between Russia and Germany that would take Russia out of the 1914-18 World
War, while advocating against an alliance with Britain.
The perpetrators of the murder escaped serious punishment and were hailed by
some as heroes. Prince Yusupov was banished to a provincial estate over the
murder. After the February 1917 Revolution, he boarded a British warship
with his family from Crimea to Malta. They spent some time in London after
the February Revolution, before returning to Paris in 1920, where Yusupov
eventually died in 1967. |
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