Rasputin

Starred review from September 26, 2016
In this monumental and soul-shaking biography, historian and translator Smith (Former People) demystifies the figure of Grigory Rasputin a century after his gruesome murder in 1916 at age 47. He portrays the Siberian peasant and Romanov family confidante as earthy, complex, and innocent of the worst claims against him: that he was a German spy, royal seducer, and de facto head of state. Smith relies on diaries, letters, police files, and memoirs to dispel long-held rumors about Rasputin’s relationship with Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra. With a Dostoyevskian flair for noir and obsession, Smith exposes the base motivations behind Rasputin’s enemies—including Duma members, church fathers, noble families, government ministers, and heads of secret police—while being frank about his subject’s love of Madeira and women. Smith expertly handles the intricacies of the salacious scandals that enveloped the empire in anti-Rasputin hysteria and that eerily presaged the fall of the Romanovs in 1917. Displaying commendable detective work and a firm understanding of the Russian silver age and the synod, Smith articulates even the most obscure cultural nuances with fluidity, sometimes slowing the pace but never losing his focus on his worthy and mesmerizing subject. Smith’s depravity-laden history of turn-of-the-20th-century Russia hinges on his insightful readings of myth and motive, and their tragic consequences.

September 15, 2016
On the centenary of his death, a vigorous attempt to penetrate the monstrous myths surrounding Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin (1869-1916).A historian and translator concentrating on Russian history, Smith (Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy, 2012, etc.) grapples with the legend that grew around Rasputin during his life and after his death. In this massive, winding journey, the author essentially concedes that Rasputin's mythmaking after his gruesome murder in December 1916 by political intimates has become more important that the actual events--and most are disputed. The public excoriation of this "simple" devout Christian peasant from Siberia, who nonetheless had the ear of the Romanov dynasty, became the key to undermining the indecisive, rudderless leadership of Czar Nicholas himself. Rasputin was illiterate until his adulthood, facing a life as a hardscrabble farmer, fond of the bottle, married at age 18 to Praskovya, a woman devoted to him and the mother of his children. He was like most Russian souls at the time, "keeping the eternal rhythm of peasant life in motion." Yet he was restless and touched by a religious vision; he set off on pilgrimages in his late 20s to become a "holy seeker," a spiritual awakening that the author describes as certainly sincere. Further along in this overly long narrative, Smith shows how Rasputin's fame as a "starets" (a kind of captivating pious elder) spread and the circles of his acquaintances grew ever wider, encompassing the aristocracy and the court of Nicholas and Alexandra. The royal couple desperately needed him to direct the tumultuous country and heal their hemophiliac son. Smith demonstrates how gradually the mystic lost his way in the flashy capital of St. Petersburg and was corrupted by the rapture he inspired. At the same time, he preached the importance of disdaining wealth and status to his numerous devotees, especially wives and widows. A tour de force of research from the Russian archives, the book is a deeply detailed, occasionally plodding biography of one of history's most malleable characters.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2016

Coinciding with the centenary of Grigory Rasputin's (1869-1916) murder, Smith (Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy) stuns with a scrupulously exhaustive biography of the monk's role in the Russian empire's downfall and the rise of Bolshevism. An omnipresent figure in pop culture, Rasputin's true story is cloaked in conjecture. Smith seeks to "track Rasputin through time, to drag him...down into the quotidian banalities of daily life." To this end, his dedication to extricating Rasputin's experience from newly available Soviet Union primary sources and international archives surpasses all previous academic works in breadth and scope, including Joseph Fuhrmann's highly regarded Rasputin: The Untold Story. Smith presents a comprehensive analysis of Rasputin and his significant influence on the Romanovs, illuminating his prescient prophecy, "When I die, Russia will perish." In criticism, the minutiae of constantly changing political appointments on top of a cast of dozens if not hundreds are overwhelming. VERDICT This account of the intertwined fates of Rasputin, the Romanovs, and Russia will be a true challenge for nonacademics. Yet, Smith's study will surely be considered the seminal scholarly work on Rasputin, an essential read for students of Imperial Russia's downfall. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16.]--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
The holy man who drove the Romanov dynasty into the ground is the common take on the unkempt Russian monk who rose spectacularly through Saint Petersburg society to sit at the side of the emperor and empress. Rasputin reputedly offered the monarchs spiritual and even political guidance as the heir to the throne continued to fail in health (suffering from hemophilia) and the seams holding the Russian Empire together threatened to burst open. Historian Smith (Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy, 2012) performs a nearly miraculous feat himself in this amazingly detailed, deeply researched biography ( Russian archives have finally begun to give up their secrets ). He carefully lifts the myths away from the real story, which nevertheless is presented here as a greatly compelling picture of a figure who at the zenith of his influence was known all over Russia, ultimately becoming possibly the most recognized name in Russian history. To get to the most truthful understanding of Rasputin's consequence, Smith advocates viewing him through a prism of what people at the time believed he was up to rather than what he was actually doing. Devil or saint? Smith steers a realistic course between those poles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)