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To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin (Revealing History)

Page 28

by Cook, Andrew


  7 Birth Registers, Church of the Mother of God, Pokrovskoe, Fond 205, GATO.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Pokrovskoe Censuses, Fond 177, State Archive of the Province of Tyumen GATO.

  10 See note 4 above.

  11 File of the Tobolsk Ecclesiastical Consistory – Charge made against Grigori Rasputin concerning the spreading of false teachings similar to those of the Khlysti, Fond 156, Tobolsk Branch of the State Archive of the Province of Tyumen (TFGATO).

  12 Investigation of the assassination attempt on Grigori Rasputin in 1914, Fond 164, Tobolsk Branch of the State Archive of the Province of Tyumen (TFGATO).

  13 Fond 164, GARF, Moscow.

  14 Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1461, Schedule 1, Case 567, GARF, Moscow.

  15 See note 9 above.

  16 Rasputin i evrei, Aaron Simanovich (National Reklama, 1923), p.20.

  17 Ibid.

  18 See note 4 above.

  19 Ibid.

  20 Ibid.

  21 Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, GARF, Moscow.

  22 Ibid.

  23 Ibid.

  24 Ibid.

  25 See note 4 above.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, Pierre Gilliard (Hutchinson, 1921), p.79.

  28 Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, GARF, Moscow.

  29 Ibid.

  30 The Life and Times of Grigori Rasputin, Alex De Jonge (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982), p.51ff.

  31 Ibid.

  32 Dissolution of an Empire, Meriel Buchanan (John Murray, 1932), p.87.

  33 Ibid.

  34 Statement of Olga Lokhtina to investigator T.D. Rudnev, Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 100-4, 109-12, GARF, Moscow.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Ibid.

  37 Diary of Tsar Nicholas II, 16 October 1906, Fond 601, GARF, Moscow.

  38 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.91.

  39 Statement of Grigori Sazonov to investigator F. P. Simpson, Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 298-300, GARF, Moscow.

  40 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.134.

  41 Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, Pierre Gilliard (Hutchinson, 1921), p.65.

  42 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.206.

  43 Statement of Alexei Khvostov to investigator F. P. Simpson, Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folio 302-10, GARF, Moscow.

  44 The Life and Times of Grigori Rasputin, Alex De Jonge (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982), p.204.

  45 Ibid., p.205.

  46 Ibid.

  47 Articles and Correspondence on Russia & Romania, J.D. Scale DSO, OBE (Scale Papers).

  48 The Life and Times of Grigori Rasputin, Alex De Jonge (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982), p.226.

  49 Memoirs of a British Agent, R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Putnam, 1932), p.60.

  50 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.154.

  51 Memoirs of a British Agent, R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Putnam, 1932), p.129.

  52 Statement of Alexei Filippov to investigator F. P. Simpson, Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 327-42, GARF, Moscow.

  53 The Life and Times of Grigori Rasputin, Alex De Jonge (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1982), p.237.

  54 Memoirs of a British Agent, R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Putnam, 1932), p.128ff.

  55 Ibid.

  56 Ibid.

  57 Ibid.

  CHAPTER SIX: ON THE BRINK

  1 Source Records of the Great War, Vol. IV, p.185ff.

  2 The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), Monday 5 June 1916, Tuesday 6 June 1916.

  3 The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol. I, David Lloyd George (Odhams, 1938), p.418ff.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ibid., Letter marked ‘Secret’, From H. H. Asquith to David Lloyd George.

  6 Telegram from the Tsarina to the Tsar, 17 April 1915, Fond 640, GARF, Moscow. Edvard Radzinski also draws attention to documents burnt by the Tsarina in February 1917 that were believed to be compromising in terms of contact with Germany; Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.405ff.

  7 Edvard Radzinski, ibid., p.408.

  8 Ibid., p.409.

  9 This section draws on The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family, Ron Chernow (Random House Inc., New York, 1993), and Jacob Schiff: a study in American Jewish Leadership, Naomi W. Cohen (Brandeis University Press, 1999). The British (S.G. Warburg) bank did not start up until 1935.

  10 Money from the American Warburgs saved the Hamburg bank from collapse post-war. See Chernow, ibid.

  11 Chernow, ibid. The ‘financial talks in London’ must have been the trip accompanied by Scale.

  12 Kuhn, Loeb collaborated with Cassel, Rockefeller & J. P. Morgan. See Cohen, 1999, ibid.

  13 Cohen, ibid.

  14 www.britannica.com; Jack P. Morgan.

  15 The diary of Alexei Raivid, Soviet Consul in Berlin, 1927, 6 July 1927: conversation with Baron Hochen Esten, Fond 612, Schedule 1, Case 27, pp.4-6, GARF, Moscow.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: WAR GAMES

  1 Entry 358, Register of Births in the Registration District of Merthyr Tydfil in the County of Glamorgan, John Dymoke Scale, 27 December 1882.

  2 The Ordeal of a Diplomat, K.D. Nabokov (Duckworth, 1921). As chargé d’affaires in London between 1917 and the end of the war, he was the senior Russian representative in London – the Ambassador having been sent home and no replacement supplied. Some of his papers on India were later published by Trotsky in pamphlet form.

  3 Nabokov, ibid.

  4 Articles & Correspondence on Russia and Roumania 1915–1917, J.D. Scale DSO, OBE (The Scale Papers).

  5 Typed letter from Capt. J.D. Scale (Petrograd) to London headed ‘Dear Cox’, 7 November 1916, initialled (The Scale Papers).

  6 Muriel Harding-Newman, Scale’s eldest daughter, referred to his friendship with Felix Yusupov in her interview with the author. She recalls that he was often a guest at the Yusupov Palace (interview 28 May 2003, Easter Ross, Scotland). According to Betty Aikenhead, his younger daughter, Scale last saw Yusupov in 1948, a year before he died (interview 9 February 2004, Toronto, Canada).

  7 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.29ff.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.47.

  11 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.95.

  12 Telegram from the Tsarina to the Tsar, 7 September 1916, Fond 640, GARF, Moscow.

  13 Letter from David Lloyd George to H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister, ‘Confidential’, 26 September 1916, The Lloyd George Papers, LG/E/223/5, House of Lords Record Office.

  14 Telegrams from the Tsarina to the Tsar, 18 and 24 September 1916, Fond 640, GARF, Moscow.

  15 Sworn Statement of Sergei Trufanov, Sergei Trufanov v. The Metropolitan Magazine Company, Supreme Court, New York County, sworn 17 October 1916 (reproduced in full in Appendix 1).

  16 New York Times, 27 December 1916, p.4.

  17 William Wiseman Papers, Group 666, f.260, Russia, [1917] 1, Sterling Library, Yale University.

  18 War Memoirs of David Lloyd George,Vol. I, David Lloyd George, p.464.

  19 From Switzerland, notes from a reliable source, ‘Secret’, 3 October 1916, The Lloyd George Papers, LG/E/3/27/2, House of Lords Record Office. Theodor Bethmann-Holweg was the German Premier.

  20 Statement of Anna Vyrubova to investigator F. P. Simpson of the Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 347-63, G
ARF, Moscow.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: CARDS ON THE TABLE

  1 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.185.

  2 Author’s interview with Betty Aikenhead, 9 February 2004, Toronto, Canada.

  3 Author’s interview with Muriel Harding-Newman, 28 May 2003, Easter Ross, Scotland.

  4 Rasputin, the Saint who sinned, Brian Moynahan (Random House, 1997), p.320; Statement of Ioann Aronovich Simanovich (son of Rasputin’s secretary Aron Simanovich) to investigator V.M. Rudnev of the Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, Folios 182-3, GARF, Moscow.

  5 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.60ff.

  6 Ibid.

  7 In Rasputin,Yusupov does not name this person but simply says he is too old to take action; in Lost Splendour he identifies Rodzyanko.

  8 See note 5 above.

  9 Stopford’s diary (which, unlike Yusupov’s account, was written within days or hours of the events) has Dmitri Pavlovich in Petrograd quite specifically on 6/19 and 7/20 December, on which latter day Pavlovich and Stopford had lunch together privately in the Sergei Palace, and Stopford had supper there at midnight. If both accounts are correct, Pavlovich (presumably briefly in town to celebrate the Tsar’s name-day on 6/19 December) was to spend only about thirty-six hours back at the Stavka.

  10 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.199.

  11 This is one of many contradictory aspects of Yusupov’s story. Yusupov had twice visited the Golovinas when Rasputin was there, and their house was right next door to that of his in-laws. Admittedly these were both large mansions, but it would seem he was taking rather a risk that his own parents would soon know all about it. According to Yusupov, when Rasputin suggested mentioning Felix’s name to Vyrubova they both agreed that this wouldn’t be a good idea at all as it would get back to his family. Yusupov says that he knew Vyrubova would be suspicious.

  12 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.112.

  13 Yusupov, ibid., p.115.

  14 Letter from Princess Irina Yusupova to Prince Felix Yusupov, 25 November 1916, Fond 1290, Russian State Archive of Early Acts, (RGADA), Moscow.

  15 Letter from Prince Felix Yusupov to Princess Irina Yusupova, 27 November 1916, Fond 411, State Historical Museum (GIM), Moscow.

  16 The Murder of Rasputin, V.M. Purishkevich, translated from the original Russian by Bella Costello, ed. Michael Shaw (Ardis Publishers, Ann Arbor, 1985), annex: correspondence between Maklakov and Paris publisher of 1923.

  17 A pood weighs about 36lbs, i. e., well over 16 kilos.

  18 See note 16 above.

  19 Ibid.

  20 Ibid.

  CHAPTER NINE: A ROOM IN THE BASEMENT

  1 Police Department Report, 17 December 1917, CUL.

  2 The author of the memorandum is unknown, although Stopford is the most likely. His book, published in 1919, did not appear under his own name, and if he was the author of the memorandum, he would not want his name to link the two publications.

  3 ‘The True and Authentic Story of the Murder of Grigori Rasputin, As Recounted to Me on 6th June 1917, At Yalta by the Perpetrator’, The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.83.

  4 Report of the Autopsy of Grigori Rasputin, Professor Kossorotov, 20 December 1916, Museum of Political History, St Petersburg.

  5 Rasputin, The Man Behind the Myth, Maria Rasputina & Patte Barham, p.231ff. According to Barham, a servant of Yusupov’s was one of the sources for what happened in the basement dining room. In an interview with the author on 21 February 2005, Maria Rasputina’s granddaughter, Laurence Huot-Soloviev, expressed the view that Barham had somewhat embellished her grandmother’s account.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Ibid., and My Father, Maria Rasputina (Cassell & Co, 1934), p.111.

  8 Ibid.

  9 See note 4 above.

  10 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.477.

  11 Ibid., p.482.

  12 Ibid., p.480.

  13 See note 4 above.

  14 Ibid.

  15 Rasputin, the Last Word, Edvard Radzinski (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p.482.

  16 Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, was commissioned by the author in February 2005 to carry out a review of the ballistics evidence and concluded the forehead wound was caused by an unjacketed bullet. The Browning pistol fires only jacketed bullets.

  17 A revised edition, Rasputin: The History of the Crime, was published by Yauza, Moscow, in 2004.

  18 Ibid., chapter 18.

  19 A Watchman Makes His Rounds, Sir Samuel Hoare (unpublished 1959 memoir of Hoare’s time in Russia), p.72, Templewood Papers, Part II, File 1 (34), CUL.

  20 The Fourth Seal, Sir Samuel Hoare (Heinemann, 1930), p.156.

  CHAPTER TEN: ONCE UPON A TIME

  1 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.62.

  2 Ibid., p.63.

  3 Ibid., p.65.

  4 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.133.

  5 Ibid., p.134.

  6 Ibid., p.138ff.

  7 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.80ff.

  8 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.134/135.

  9 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.62/63.

  10 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.135.

  11 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.65.

  12 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.148.

  13 Ibid., p.149.

  14 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.70–74.

  15 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.149.

  16 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.70–74.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.150.

  19 Dnevnik, V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.75. For Yusupov’s June 1917 account see The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Anon. (the Hon. Albert Stopford), (Heinemann, 1919), p.83.

  20 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.153.

  21 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.79.

  22 Ibid., p.81.

  23 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.157/158.

  24 Irina Yusupov v MGM 1933, Fanny Holtzman Papers, Series A, Sub-series 1, Box 16, Folders 5-10, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio; Felix Yusupov v CBS 1965, Series A, Sub-series 1, Box 15, Folders 5-12, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. See also The Times Law Reports, Friday 17 August 1934, Vol. 1, p.581ff.

  25 ‘The Assassination of Rasputin’, Source Records of the Great War, Stanislaus Lazovert, Vol.V, ed. Charles F. Horne (National Alumni, 1923), p.86.

  26 Ibid.

  27 Ibid., p.87.

  28 Lost Splendour, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1953), p.228.

  29 ‘The Assassination of Rasputin’, Stanislaus Lazovert, p.88.

  30 Dnevnik,V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.80ff.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: END OF THE ROAD

  1 Report of Autopsy on the Body of Grigori Rasputin by Professor Kossorotov, 20 December 1916, Museum of Political History, St Petersburg.

  2 My Father, Maria Rasputina (Cassell & Co, 1934), p.111.

  3 The Yusupov Palace, Galina Sveshnikova, p.75.

  4 Report by Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, August 2004, commissioned by the author.

  5 Dnevnik, V.M. Purishkevich (National Reklama, 1923), p.21.

  6 See note 1 above.

  7 Statement by Stepan Beletski to Provisional Government Extraordinary Commission 1917, Fond 1467, Schedule 1, Case 567, GARF, Moscow.

  8 Rasputin, Prince Yusupov (Jonathan Cape, 1927), p.163.

  9 Dnevnik, V.M. Purishkevich (National R
eklama, 1923), p.70ff.

  10 Report The Opinion of the Specialists, 18-30 June 1993, by V.V. Zharov, Igor Panov and Valery Vasilevsky of the Moscow Forensic Medical Analysis Bureau (unpublished review of the 1916 autopsy undertaken by Professor Kossorotov).

  11 Interview of Vladimir Zharov by Richard Cullen and Ilya Gavrilov, Who Killed Rasputin?, Timewatch, broadcast BBC 2, Friday 1 October 2004, 8.00p.m.

  12 See note 1 above.

  13 This conclusion, articulated by Richard Cullen in the BBC Timewatch episode Who Killed Rasputin? (see broadcast details in note 11 above), is the most plausible explanation.

  14 Report by Professor Derrick Pounder, Senior Home Office Pathologist and Head of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, February 2005, commissioned by the author.

  15 Ibid.

  16 Ibid.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Ibid.

  19 See note 10 above.

  20 On Rayner’s death in 1961, Rose Jones gave a brief account of his life to the Nuneaton Observer (10 March 1961). The story was featured under the headline ‘Was in Palace When Rasputin was Killed’.

  21 Diary of William J. Compton, 1916; also, General Index of Personnel from World War 1, William John Compton #9440, Red Cross Archive, London.

  22 Scale recalls the events surrounding the Romanian oil fields operation in a letter to General C. Ismay dated 19 September 1940 (Scale Papers).

  23 Letter from Capt. Stephen Alley to Capt. J.D. Scale, 7 January 1917 (Alley Papers).

  24 To the Chief of the Public Security Department, Petrograd, 22 February 1917, Fond 102, Schedule 357, Case 115, GARF, Moscow.

  25 See note 7 above.

  26 Rasputin: A History of the Crime, Oleg Shishkin, chapter 21ff.

  27 ‘Britain “helped Rasputin’s killers”’ by Phil Tomaselli, BBC History Magazine, April 2003, p.6.

  28 Interview with Mark Lane, grandson of William Compton, 5 February 2005.

  29 Entry 148, Register of Births in the Registration District of Upton-on-Severn, in the Sub-district of Kempsey in the County of Worcester, William John Compton, 27 January 1881.

  30 Entry 330, Register of Deaths in the Registration District of Abingdon in the County of Berkshire, 6 March 1961, Oswald Rayner, Barrister at Law (retired).

 

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