Grigori Rasputin - An Infamous Murder - A Historian Reacts #4

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#History #Reaction

[David-fmgo]

4:51 1. Don't go to war
2. Don't take command at the front
3. Delay the draft until after the harvest
4. Take one day a week to allow supply trains to the cities instead of military supply and troop trains on those days.
All good advice from Rasputin, all ignored.

[eRev]

Not saying Nicholas II didn't make mistakes, but explaining the royal family's actions towards Rasputin with this additional context humanized them to me in a way that other historical sources haven't necessarily done... making their ultimate fate even more saddening. To me personally, it seems like many people, including myself, can easily write off many historical figures' actions as bizarre or unfounded without this type of analysis. Thanks so much for this insight, really liked the series.

[tintim]

Some thing that gets over looked about the Black Hand ( the group that killed the archduke ) is that years earlier they killed the king of Serbia and his wife to put a more friendly king on the throne. So the idea that at least the King knew about or helped the plot isn’t that hard to imagine.

[annieblancken]

I know this is awful, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the sick guy says “I’m not dead yet!” 🤣🤣🤣

[Kriegter]

If we are to believe that Yusupov's account is true, it probably isn't as unbelievable as he makes it out to be. Rasputin surviving so many gunshots as if he was a bullet sponge might make him seem supernatural, but again there are modern day accounts in battle where people are shot 30 times but still move around as if nothing has happened, because of how the body tries to adapt to the situation with adrenaline. Another alternative is that when they shot Rasputin, it was likely that the bullet simply missed any vital organs and he merely went unconscious from the blood loss. It's not as demonic or ghostly as the guy puts it to be, Rasputin might simply had survived a gunshot like many people do.

[peterepeatepete]

To me this is one of the most frustrating examples of how we will never know the whole truth. In one extreme he could have literally been an evil devil worshiping molester and sadist. On the other he could be more like the kind but eccentric Uncle and devout believer of the power of prayer. The truth is almost certainly somewhere in the middle, but from what I have seen he seems like a deeply flawed human who got too caught up in his own “power” but genuinely wanted to do good for people and stop suffering. If nothing else, he was absolutely someone who grew up poor and never forgot that, and tried to use his influence for the benefit of other people like him, in a time and place filled with rich royalty who had no idea what it was like to be poor. For my money, that alone makes me think he couldn’t have been nearly as bad as he was made out to be.

[alotofteeth]

On toxicology we've been told that sugar is a temporary cyanide inhibitor or even an antidote, thus Rasputin would've probably died of poisoning after 3-4 hours since the amount of poison was considerable, but laced into sweet deserts and tea.

[joshuawells]

When the people at Extra Credits said that the real history is more fascinating than the myths and legends, they were referring to Rasputin's death. Growing up, you hear the tale that Rasputin was poisoned, shot, hanged, and then ultimately put in a bag and thrown into a frozen lake to be drowned. Now, you learn there was likely never any poison.

[MrDuckworth]

This was such an interesting series. I learned a lot about Rasputin.

[reverbscherzo]

“… so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you…” -Vizzini

[joshuahunt]

I know that medicine has an expiration date primarily because a lot of medicines become more and more inert when they “go bad” (as opposed to being outright dangerous like expired food).

I guess it makes sense that poison could also go bad in the same sense of slowly losing all effect.

[richeybaumann]

4:50 This is the same warning that Frederick the Great gave to Peter III. Never leave your center of power, especially in the middle of a crisis against your authority.

[stevenkendall]

There's a specific reason why Nicholas II was only 0.7% Russian and the remainder German/Danish. Due to the intro of Pauline Laws for the House of Romanov by Paul I, marriages for succession had to be to only princesses in other European reigning houses to be considered co-equal. And because they had to convert to Orthodoxy this pretty much excluded any Catholic dynasties in Europe from consideration. So the pool was limited to the various German kingdoms and duchies who were Protestant as well as the Oldenburgs of Denmark. Bad luck for WWI sympathies.

[Shifty]

Having a bad day but this brings me so much happiness when you upload. Thank you Chris

[forgottenfamily]

Re Calendar (for anyone reading this, I'm sure VTH knows): the standard calendar used in the west is the Gregorian Calendar, created by Pope Gregory as a minor alteration of the old Julian Calendar. Pope Gregory is a Roman Catholic Pope so Orthodox Christians (amongst others) maintained the Julian Calendar. The two calendars diverge over the 100/400 year rules and so after nearly 2 millennia, they're 13 days apart. Western domination and standardization means that the Gregorian is now the secular standard around the world now but the Julian Calendar is still maintained for religious purposes - so things like Orthodox Easter follow the Julian Calendar dates.

[LordJaric]

7:10 Sadly this still goes on today. Look at the islamophobia that rose after 9/11. Or even with Russians and people of Russian decent over Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

[matthings]

The Belgian royal house who is still of the house Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (and will be the last remaining monarchy with that house after the death of Elisabeth II) also changed the name to 'of Belgium'.

[sonofhawaii]

That was different and very interesting. I hadn’t known much about him other than what I learned in college and had seen in movies. And those eyes are CREEPY! Another good one, Chris! Aloha 🤙🏼

[professorwhat]

Another reason that the accounts of the conspirators should be taken with a grain of salt is that they were all on "liquid courage." That also probably explains their poor marksmanship. That's also where the role of potential involvement by British agents comes into play. Some claim that the British had to finish off a botched job by drunk would be assassins.

It's also a commonly believed myth that he drowned after being thrown into the river. But not only did the reports not mention any poison in his system, but there was also no mention of water in his lungs. That appears to be an example of the myth surrounding the man overpowering facts.

[jackcrawford]

I read that cyanide can be countered if sugar is taken right before it hits, so the whole lacing his cake with cyanide wasn't really a good idea but I'm probably wrong