Grigori Rasputin. The Life and Death of the Most Mysterious Figure in Russian History

The book by René Fülöp-Miller, a cultural historian, is a successful attempt to unveil the phenomenon of Grigori Rasputin, the "great elder," the "friend of the tsar," the "seer and healer." Based on official documents—police reports, letters, authentic testimonies, etc.—the author has tried to objectively present the portrait of an extremely extraordinary, unconventional, and complex person, on whom the label "devil in the flesh" was placed. Being strong-willed and generously gifted by nature, Rasputin is neither perfectly good nor absolutely bad; he is depicted with all his weaknesses. The contradictory attitudes towards him from the people around him—ranging from pious reverence to furious hatred—only intensify the interest in his personality. Against the backdrop of Rasputin’s image, the characteristics of that complex pre-revolutionary time are given.