Sensationalism in the case of Rasputin
I thought some of you might be interested in the following:
Some of the earliest sensationalism concerning Rasputin came from one of his earliest supporters, later to become a bitter enemy, a charismatic monk named Father Iliodor (Sergei Mikhailovich) Trufanov, who was born in 1881 in the village of Bolshaya Marinskaya in the Don region in southern Russia. Have any of you ever heard of him?
Father Iliodor was a graduate of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and became a priest in the city of Tsaritsyn (later called Stalingrad, and today called Volgograd), where he earned a reputation for his fiery sermons.
Iliodor and Rasputin became friends and were often seen in each other’s company. Over the years, Iliodor’s vitriolic zeal became too much for him to handle. Unable to control the vehemence of his tongue, he moved frequently to stay one step ahead of the police.
Things ended sadly for Iliodor. Extremely unbalanced, he eventually renounced his priestly and monastic calling. On November 20, 1912, he slashed his arm with a razor and sent a message, signed in his own blood, to the Holy Synod, stating:
I renounce your God. I renounce your faith. I renounce your Church. I renounce you as hierarchs.... Former Hiermonk Iliodor (Sergei Trufanov), Holy Devil, Moscow, 1917, p. 175 (My translation, TRB) Iliodor wrote his book on Rasputin in 1914, entitling it The Holy Devil, an appalling and libelous account alleging amorous ties between Gregory Rasputin and the Empress.
The idea for such a book was supported enthusiastically by author Maxim Gorky (20th century Soviet writer and close friend of Lenin) in a letter to a journalist friend, S.S. Kondurushkin, in March 1912:
It seems to me, - more than that, I am convinced, that a book by Iliodor on Rasputin would be extremely opportune and essential and could be of undoubted benefit to many people. If I were in your place, I would insist that Iliodor write this book. I will see that it makes it abroad. Literary Inheritance, Gorky and Russian journalism at the beginning of the 20th century, Moscow, 1988, Vol. 95, p. 985 (My translation, TRB) Iliodor, dressed as a woman, fled to Norway at the beginning of 1916 to avoid being imprisoned on libel charges for his slanderous writings. His flight was assisted by Maxim Gorky, the Soviet writer, who had promised to help get his slanderous book published abroad. Iliodor’s book was finally published in Moscow in 1917 and in New York by Century Company in 1918. Most of what the world knows today about Rasputin comes from Iliodor’s distorted and sensational writings. Most of the same stories are rehashed over and over again in various books.
Trufanov became a Baptist and in his last years worked as a janitor for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York. He died of a heart attack in 1952 at the age of 71, leaving behind a wife and 7 children.
He was really something. I just came across the manuscript of a work by Iliodor called
Stalingrad Martha. I’ve never heard of it, so it should be interesting.
Todd
