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KILLING RASPUTIN is now available from WildBlue Press! Order your copy today!
At last a book about the so-called “Mad Monk” of Imperial Russia that lays to rest the myths and reveals the truth about one of the most controversial characters in human history while exploring the impact his murder had on a dynasty, a people, and a country.
Written in three parts, KILLING RASPUTIN begins with a biography that describes how a simple unkempt “holy man” from the wilds of Siberia became a friend of Emperor Nicholas II and his empress, Alexandra, at the most crucial moment in Russian history. Part Two examines the infamous murder of Rasputin through the lens of a “cold case” homicide investigation. And lastly, the book considers the connection between a cold-blooded assassination, and the revolution that followed; a revolution that led to civil war and the rise of the Soviet Union.
Unique about this book on Rasputin, is that the author combines Russian heritage, (her parents were forced out of Russia during World War II and arrived as refugees in Australia in 1948) with medical science and legal training. Nelipa relied on Russian-language sources that she translated rather than depend on the interpretations of others. Her primary sources include police documents and witness testimonies, an autopsy report, diaries, letters and memoirs written in their native language by the participants in these historic events. Secondary sources include Russian-languages newspapers and other publications from that era. The narrative is copiously referenced and augmented with photographs (including graphic forensic photographs) and other documents, some of them published here for the first time.
Step into the imperial court of a 300-year-old dynasty in its final days with one of the most fascinating characters ever to grab our imaginations, judge whether the author Margarita Nelipa makes her case regarding his death, and if you agree that it was “the murder that ended the Russian empire.”
“A fresh and compelling look at one of history’s most controversial, and perhaps misunderstood, characters. You can almost hear the whispering conspiracies and intrigues in the court of Nicholas and Alexandra. … A dramatic history with a touch of true crime.”—Steve Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of NO STONE UNTURNED
From The Book:
POLICE PHOTOGRAPHS No. 5 and 6. CRIME SCENE TWO. The relationship between the Bolshoi Petrovskii Bridge and the location where the body was retrieved, which is lying on a wooden plank by the Malaya Nevka riverbank. Rope binds the beaver coat to the corpse and the hands were tied with twine that snapped after retrieval, 19 December 1916.
On Saturday afternoon, 17 December 1916, at the northern limit of the city, two workers crossing the Petrovskii Bridge noticed stains on the fresh white snow, which looked like blood. Their vigilance set off a cascade of events that would signal the beginning of the death throes of the Russian Empire. The gendarmes who swarmed onto the bridge all had the same thought. They had arrived at the site where Rasputin’s corpse was most likely dumped into the part of the river that was not yet covered with ice. The painstaking search for Rasputin’s corpse came to a halt on Monday 19 December, after one of the river policeman who was sweeping the ice surface with his broom close to the riverbank, noticed where he stood, a dark patch. With considerable effort the corpse was raised to the surface by several policemen using gaffs and a wooden platform. The twine that originally bound the hands snapped, allowing them to separate as the corpse was uplifted onto the surface. When the river debris was removed off the head, a battered and bloodied swollen male face became visible, everyone was glaring at Rasputin’s corpse.
Author Margarita Nelipa
From The Author:
This book is a fully revised edition of my earlier work, The Murder of Grigorii Rasputin: A Conspiracy that Brought Down the Russian Empire that was published in 2010. Though six years have passed, my interest concerning Grigorii Rasputin’s murder never waned. For this revised edition, I added new material, discovered after regularly searching for the release of additional documents from the imperial era by the Russian archives or recent published articles in Russian history journals as well keeping aware of new books offered either by global bookstores or private individuals. In 2016, one century after Rasputin’s death that undertaking enabled me to review every chapter and incorporate new factual material extracted from letters and telegrams that were inaccessible to me before 2010.
