To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin (Revealing History) (33 page)

That in the November issue, the defendant published on the cover my picture or a picture, which was supposed to be of myself, but the article itself did not appear.

Since that time the defendant has repeatedly attempted to have me accept the $2000 but I refused to do so.

The defendant has committed a breach of its contract in that it failed to pay the money by August 1st, 1916 and has failed to carry out its agreement to publish the said articles and in violation thereof has intended and does intend to suppress the same.

I intend to use the material which I gave to them and the other material which I gave to them and the other material which I have concerning the Russian Emperor, the Czarina and the Russian Court in my own way and I desire an injunction order restraining the defendant from publishing or using the said manuscripts or any information which I gave them or from making the same public or from showing the same to any person, persons or corporation whatsoever until the trial of this action, and from interfering with my publication through other channels.

Russia in conjunction with the allies is now at war with Germany and its allies. The information which I have obtained in my close connection at Russian courts and with the Russian government has a peculiar importance at this time, during the war. It is a problem just how much value this information may have after the war. Russian court life and anything that pertains to the Russian government are now an interesting topic for literature, magazines and newspapers and it is possible that this interest may not exist after the war. Further, and more important, the suppression of this information at this time when it may weaken or destroy the Rasputin influence and intrigues may work an incalculable injury to Russia, and will defeat the purpose for which I am working and have suffered imprisonment.

As appears in the complaint herein I have graduated from the Imperial Sacred College of Petrograd and have been ordained a priest and also a monk priest. I was also a monk priest. I was also a professor of oratory and sermons. I was also a preacher of wide fame throughout Russia. I was also an Abbott at Tsaritsin Convent. I was prominently identified with the revolutions of 1905. I was strongly identified with the suppression of same and throughout Russia have been given the credit of being instrumental in their overthrow.

I was a confidential friend and advisor of Rasputin an illiterate and uneducated peasant who is known as a Pilgrim possessing certain supernatural gifts and he now dominates the Russian Court and the Empress Czarina and the Czar to a certain extent. My relations with Rasputin have been so intimate and friendly that I am acquainted with the secrets of the Russian Court and the wild orgies of the Russian Courtiers headed by the Empress. This Rasputin is strongly pro-German and has such influence over the Czarina through his personal relations with her as to obtain her influence against the allies and in favour of Germany. This has recently resulted in a change of ministry of the Russian government. Rasputin is now engaged in a conspiracy to bring about a separate peace with the Russian government to apply for a loan of three million roubles from the English government with the threat that in case the money is not forthcoming a separate peace will be signed this winter. I am also informed that there is now a Russian officer, a relative of Rasputin, sent specially to spy upon me, from Russia.

All this information furnished and was to furnish the basis for the articles to appear in the Metropolitan and all of which are now suppressed by it.

Mr. Wigham, the president of the defendant, stated that he considered this article and information the property of the magazine, the defendant, and that in the event that I intend to make any arrangements with any other publication, to publish these articles or give the substance or interviews to anybody concerning Rasputin and the Russian Court, they would consider that an interference of their title to said manuscripts and they would prevent the publication thereof and would impair and impede my rights to publish the same in any way that they could. They also claim that they had copyrighted the said articles and that I have no right to publish the same.

They may also publish the information that I gave them to detriment of any arrangements that I may make with any magazine for the publication of these articles.

No application for this has been made. I therefore ask for an injunction restraining the said Metropolitan Magazine from interfering with me in the publication of my articles and giving out any information concerning them, From showing any articles or anything written as a result of my conversations with them to any person or corporations and from making the same public and from doing any other thing that might interfere with the publication thereof by me.

Sworn to by me this 17th day of October 1916

SERGIUS MICHAILOW TRUFANOFF.

Police Report – December 17th 1916

To-day at about 2.30 in the morning, the policeman who stands on guard at the house of the Home Office situated on the Morskaia heard a detonation from the palace of Prince Yusupov situated on the opposite side of the Moika. As this post is a special one and the policeman on duty is forbidden to leave it, he went into the Home Office premises and communicated by telephone with the sergeant on duty at the adjoining station. Then the news of the shooting was passed on to the Kasan police district in which the palace is situated. The chief police officer, Colonel Rogov, with a detachment of men, proceeded to the spot. Examination of the dvornik on duty at the adjoining house elicited the fact that the shot had been fired from the young Prince’s side of the palace. In order to ascertain the causes of the shooting in the palace, the assistant police officer, Captain Krylov, was ordered to enter the building, and he was informed by the butler that a reception was proceeding inside, and that one of the guests, while practising at a target, had missed his aim and fired into the window, in proof whereof Captain Krylov was shown the broken window on the ground floor overlooking the forecourt of the adjoining house. The data obtained through the investigations were communicated by Colonel Rogov the same night to the Police Master of the second division, Major-General Grigoriev, and to M. Chaplygin, the official on duty at the Prefecture.

Scarcely had the police officers left the palace when a motor-car drove up along Moika Canal quay and stopped near a small footbridge almost facing the palace. Four men were seen to alight from the car. The moment they had left it the chauffeur extinguished the lights, and, putting on full speed, made off along the canal. This scene was witnessed by a detective belonging to the Okhrana, named Tihomirov, who had been detailed by the police department to look after Rasputin. Tihomirov – presuming that the men who entered the palace, not by the main entrance, but from a door situated on the side of the palace and opening into the forecourt of the adjoining house, were robbers hurried across the canal to the police station, and thence telephoned a report of what was observed to the Chief of the Secret Police.

Colonel Rogov had no sooner returned to his home than he was notified from the Ochrana that information had been received relative to an attack on the palace of Prince Yusupov. A number of police officers were again dispatched there. The butler came out and explained to them that some very highly placed guests had just arrived from the environs of Petrograd. A report about this was made during the course of the night to the Prefect, General Balk.

Shortly after 6a.m., at the police station beside the palace, while the police officers who had come off duty were being questioned in the ordinary course as to the events of the night, the sound of several police whistles was heard from the street. This drew the police constables and police sergeants to the windows, whence they perceived that from the main entrance of the Prince’s palace two women were being helped out, and that they were offering resistance to their ejection and refusing to enter a motor-car, and doing their best to force a way back into the palace. In response to their protestations the detectives stationed along the canal had sounded the alarm. By the time the police rushed out of the police station the motor-car was already whirling off along the quay. Hastening out after his men, the police inspector, Colonel Borozdin, hailed the motor-car belonging to the Secret Police, which was permanently on duty at the Home Office building, and started off in pursuit. At the same time his men were hurried to the palace. It was impossible to overtake the fugitive car on account of its superior speed; moreover, it carried neither number nor lights. To the police who came to inquire at the palace the explanation was offered that two ladies belonging to the
demi-monde
had been misconducting themselves and been invited to leave the palace.

On the nocturnal adventures on the Moika a joint personal report was made to the Prefect in the morning by Colonel Rogov and Colonel Borozdin. The whole affair seemed to be at an end when suddenly from the forecourt alongside the palace four shots were heard in succession. Once more the alarm was sounded in both police stations, and again detachments of police appeared at the palace. This time an official wearing colonel’s uniform came out to them and announced categorically that within the Prince’s palace there was present a Grand Duke, and that H.I.H. would make in person to the proper quarters any explanations that might be necessary. After such a declaration, the police inspector, unable to obtain any enlightenment whatsoever, returned to his official’s duties, leaving a patrol on the opposite side of the Moika by way of precaution. About an hour had passed when suddenly from the direction of the Blue Bridge a motor-car drove up to the palace. The servants, assisted by the chauffeur, in the presence of an officer wearing a long fur cloak, carried out what looked like a human body and placed it in the car. The chauffeur jumped in, putting on full speed, made off along the canal side and promptly disappeared. Almost the same time General Grigoriev was informed from the Prefecture that Rasputin had been killed in the Yusupov Palace.

The police officials on arriving at the palace were met this time by Prince Felix Yusupov himself, who told them that it would be necessary to draw up a report as to the killing of Rasputin. At first this announcement was not accepted seriously in view of all the strange occurrences of the night. But the police officials were invited to come into the dining-room in the basement, and were there shown the spot where the body had been lying. They saw on the floor a pool of congealed blood, and traces of blood were also visible on the snow in the forecourt of the adjoining house. In answer to the question where the body was, the Prince replied that the body was where it should be, declining to give any further explanation.

Soon afterwards the palace was visited by the Director of the Police Department, the Chief of the Secret Police, and the whole of the Generals of Gendarmerie. The police patrols were then relegated to their various stations, and at the subsequent investigation sent over to the officials of the Police department. At 5 o’clock on the following afternoon with a view to ascertaining the itinerary of the motor-cars, which had come up to the Prince’s palace during the night, and one of the one which had been removed Rasputin’s body in the morning. At the same time numerous police patrols were dispatched to the islands in the Neva and to the suburban districts.

The following three reports (CTG. 91, CTG. 95, and CTG. 119) sent by Sir Samuel Hoare to Mansfield Cumming, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, are reproduced below in full:

CTG. 91

From: Lt Col Sir Samuel Hoare (Petrograd)

To: ‘C’ (London)

January 1st 1917

The Death of Rasputin

In the early morning of Saturday, December 30th, there was enacted in Petrograd one of those crimes that by their magnitude blur the well-defined rules of ethics, and by their results change the history of a generation.

Gregory Efemich Novikh – for Rasputin, ‘The rake’, was only the nickname that his excesses gained him in his village – had governed Russia since the day, four years ago, when first he showed in the Imperial palace in Poland his healing powers over the Tsarevich. To describe the influence that he possessed, the scandals that surrounded his life and the tragedies that followed in his path, is to rewrite a Dumas romance.

Three times he was within an inch of being murdered. Once, an outraged peasant girl from his native Siberia stabbed him – the wound did not prove fatal. Next the monk Heliodor seemed to have him at his mercy in the Petrograd cell of the Metropolitan of Kiev – Rasputin’s great strength and the arrival of help saved his life. Again, only ten months ago in a reserved room of one of the best Petrograd restaurants, the Bear, certain officers of the Chevalier Gardes would have killed him, if his familiars of the secret police had not appeared in time. The papers said nothing of these things. Indeed, to mention his name brought a fine of three thousand roubles. Day and night, the secret police were near him. Because he withdrew them, Khvostov, the Minister of the Interior, was dismissed. Only from time to time the mujik’s uncontrollable appetite for debauch left him defenceless before his enemies. There is in Moscow a former officer of the Guards, now relegated to the Gendarmes, who boasts that the achievement of his career was the beating he gave Rasputin during some wild orgy. There are others who have seen him madly drunk in the streets and public places. Of one of these incidents there is a photograph, and a photograph that is said to have been shown to the Emperor. True to his nickname, it was at an orgy that Rasputin met his death.