h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This leans toward the typical anti-Rasputin bias. There is other sides and parts to the story. I
suggest reading ‘Rasputin, a Life’. Rasputin was at times more popular with the common people
than Alexandra. It was the nobility that came to hate him. He was completely anti-war for one.
He pushed in his own way toward democratic reform that would have possibly changed the
course of Russian and world history by avoiding the Bolshevik revolution. Worst of all he was a
peasant!

It is beyond me as to how he became stigmatized as evil when all he did was sleep around, with
the permission of his wife no less! My only possible explanation is that history is always written
by and for the ruling class.

that is all wrong

there is a letter in Beineke Library ( at Yale) , written by Rasputin.
He was one of smartest advisiers of Russian Kings. This why he was killed by secret services.
And - he never was a monk. He was a married man!

I am shocked to read something like that at BBC. This was a good information source in the past. Shame on you, guys.

I think his title was 'starets' not monk. Starets meaning A spiritual adviser, often a religious hermit, in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Sometimes they were monks, but most of the time they where lay people. They where highly respected none the less. He was elected for sainthood by the Eastern Orthodox Church. I cant remember if he ever officially became one however.

I would like to add that Rasputin was notorious for holding council with the peasants. The poor would line up around the block to see him, and he would do them favors, offer advice, and freqently pass on piles of his own money to the needy.

He just wasn't that bad of a guy....