Felix Yusupov and the murder of Rasputin

[ALEXEI_P]

Hello Annie,

Yes, my Grandmother knew both FF & IA in passing, socially, but, after the revolution.  She ran into them a few times over the decades at various parties and functions.  The Russian emigree community wasn't as large that a lot of people mingled socially that probablly would not have before 1917.  I grew up with many stories about Imperial Russia, as I was primarily raised by her and travelled with her a great deal.  

She lived in St. Petersburg before the revolution and attended the Smoly. She had so many stories about so many of the personages we discuss here and on other sights.  Of course, she knew lots of the emigrees and frequently visited many of them.  I wish I would have kept a journal in those days, or that my father had---most of the stories are lost, but for my occasional remembrance.

I think I've mentioned on this site, that when I was about ten or twelve, I actually met FF.  He stopped by my grandmother's table during lunch once in Paris.  He reminded me then of Lon Chaney in the original Phantom of the Opera film--creepy.  He was altogether charming and polite though.  It was fascinating, for me at that age, to meet , not only a really famous and notoroius Russian Prince, but a confessed murderer as well.

I saw him on another occassion a few years later getting into a taxi outside the Alexander Nevsky after mass, with a crippled lady  (IA?). I hadn't seen them inside, but he was unmistakable.

I've posted some "stories from my childhood" on Greg and Penny's website.

Regards,
Alexei

[Valmont]

It seems Felix and everyone else except the police seem to deny there were even women present that night. The other woman was named Mariana, I forget her last name, she was Dmitri's stepsister, the daughter of his father's new wife by her first husband. Anna Vyrobova mentioned her being there, she knew her personally. Both of the women were seen being put out of the house around 6am, seemingly against their will but by someone inside who thought it for their own good. As for the young brothers of Irina, there is a report of three men leaving in a car just before dawn. Felix tells in his account that he drove back to his parents-in-law's home (where he had said he'd been staying looking after the boys while the parents were out of town) where he was met as he came in the door by one of the boys begging for details of the murder. It is very possible to me that the 'three men' were Felix and these two boys, they were tall teenagers. Of course he'd want to cover for them and hide their involvement, as well as cover his own hide for exposing them to such a bad situation. Same for the women. Felix's account has left out a lot of people who were there that night though evidence supports it (don't forget Oswald Raynor, his friend from Oxford, the British agent now rumored to have fired the fatal shot on Rasputin) So in this way, even as a murderer, Felix kept his word of honor by not ratting these people out. This is one reason I have wondered if maybe this is why Dmitri was so mad at him, because he didn't cover for him?

You know, Annie?... I had never thought of that p[osibility regarding  Dimitry being so mad at Felix.... But  after I read it... It makes a lot of sense and Iwould not be surprised if you were right.. But I also guess we will never know for sure... I don't know if it is true or not but I read  Felix's daugther burned all of Felix's Diaries after his death.. If it is not true.. maybe one day they will come to light and then we might get an idea of what happened... but then again... Felix  is not a relieble sorce of information for me  (What a contradiction)....

Arturo Vega-Llausás

[Richard_Cullen]

Hi

You should not believe all your read.  there is no police report that 'three men left in a car'.  This is a fiction for which theer is no supportive evidence.  The problem is that Radzinsky, Cook and others use pieces of what is in the GARF files and part of what was a document created by Albert Stopford, a man of dubious reliability.

Other than Stopford, who says he saw the police report, no one else has ever seen it it is not in GARF.  I believe it is a fabrication created by Stopford probably with the help of Rasputin's secretary.

We don't know what happened but if you read the Stopford account it does not read at all like any other police report of the time and is in complete disagreement with the live witnesses we have in policemen Efimov and Vlasuk.

Most of this has been done to death in the Rasputin strand.

Vera had a relationship with Dimitri (or so it seems) you can find mention of her in a letter on theis site between Dimitry (after his exile) and Felix.

The problem is so many stories were circulating at the time that information becomes confused.  In fact in his statement to police Y actually said ladies were present on the night, but Rasputin was not.  He later retracts this.

Richard

[Johnny]

Recently I was reading somewhere on the internet about the early Russian movie industry where Vera Koralli's name was mentioned among others as an actress. By the way, I believe her last name is Koralli and not Korelli. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[rudy3]

Grand Duke alleged mistress, Vera Alexeyevna Koralli was born in 1889. After finishing theatre college, she joined the Bolshoy Theatre Ballet in 1906. She participated in Diaghilev’s “Saisons Russes”, and danced abroad  in Europe and the Usa. She was one of the first russian filmstars, 1914-1917. Emigrated to the west in 1918. Lived and worked in Lithuania, Romania (1930-1935 Balletmeister of the Romanian opera), France, Austria. Died in Vienna in 1972.

[Johnny]

Now, if there's anyone out there who could kindly teach me how to post a picture with our messages ( I have no clue how to do it) I will post a picture of Vera Karalli. According to the Russian online encyclopedia there are two variants for her last name: Koralli and Karalli. Korelli is not one of them.

[griffh]

I posted this on another thread but thought it would help to fill in her career as a silent film star.  Robert Cullen has already stated that there apparently was no police files so my information quoted from Edvard Radzinsky is apparently not reliable.  I am fascinated by her family connection with Prince Yousoupoff.   

VERA CORALLI [KARELLI] [CARALLI], 1916

Vera Coralli, [Karelli], [Caralli], Sakharov and Orlov Studios, Moscow, 1916. 

Miss Coralli’s smart dance frock is exactly like the evening gown she would have worn to the Yousoupov Palace the night of the Rasputin’s murder.  Just a note to say that American gramophone records of the latest dance tunes had become the rage in wartime Russia as had all the new dances.  This is why the gramophone upstairs was playing one of the latest dance hits, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”  As you can see from the 1916 photo, the tone of that fatal night was met to be very glamorous, very smart, very young, and something to whet the appetite of that tired, doomed, old Rasputin.     

Vera was one of the ravishing silent screen stars of Russia.  She was also a ballerina but had turned to the cinema after an injury to her foot had temporarily halted her career.  However, as the mistress of the Grand Duke Dimitri, and through his power, she was able to keep her contract with the Imperial Ballet after becoming a silent screen star.  Vera worked for the famous Russian Film producer Alexandre Khanzhonkov whose films were directed by the brilliant, Yevgeni Bauer.

VERA CORALLI IN “SINGED WINGS,” 1915

Vera Coralli, “Singed Wings” 1915, directed by Yevgeni Bauer and co-staring Vitold Plonsky. (photo, Photoplay Magazine, 1915) 

Jay Ledya states in “Kino” say the Coralli was used as part of the plot to lure Rasputin to the Yousoupov Palace, stating: …”Able then to enter films without fear of losing her Imperial contract, she added her ballet fame to her film fame, and altogether she must have been a very tempting morsel whom Rasputin had long wished to meet.” 

Edvard Radzinsky, in “The Rasputin File” mentions a Police Department file on her:

“I easily found the ballerina’s name in the Department of Police case file.  There are several whole reports about Vera Karalli, whom the police suspected of taking part in the murder night.  ‘Vera Karalli, a performer with the ballet company of the Imperial Theaters, twenty-seven-years old.  During her stays in the capital, she was visited by the Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich,’ and agent reported.  Vera Karalli’s presence at the Yusupov palace on the night of the murder was also claimed by Simanovich, who went to the police station on the Moika canal on 17 December with Bishop Isidor.  After looking into it, however, the security branch agents reported that “there was no note of her being absent [from her hotel].’  ‘There was no note of her being absent.’  But that was the very reason for the cunning “rehearsals”: the sly substitution of another woman at the hotel for Vera Karalli on the night of the murder in order to give the latter an ‘alibi’—not a complicated thing.”   

After the Bolshi coup, Vera fled to Finland and Rudy said "Emigrated to the west in 1918. Lived and worked in Lithuania, Romania (1930-1935 Balletmeister of the Romanian opera), France, Austria. Died in Vienna in 1972."

[griffh]

Johnny I am dying to hear about your Opera.  I am rather embarrassed that my pictures of Vera were so large.  Johnny I love Vera in that hat.  I don’t know if you have seen “A Slave of Love” but it really captures Russian Cinema and the elegant and fashionable Silent Screen Stars of Imperial Russia.  I am almost sure Vera is wearing a Callot Soeurs evening gown, because of the beading.  It is totally amazing to me how that beaded pattern in her photo already looks like Art Deco. 

CALLOT SOEURS EVENING GOWN, 1915

Even though the silhouette of this Callot Soerus frock is cut in an Empire styles of 1915, the general feeling of the gown and the use of rich beading and embroidery remind me of Vera's frock.  There is a similar chicness to me, but it is only a guess and I suppose it is not that important after all.   

Vera’s chinchilla coat in my former post which is so casually slung over the side of her chair, reminds me of a story my grandmother told of one of her society friends who had just acquired from her adoring husband a fabulously expensive Chinchilla coat which she planned to wear to the Opera for the first time.  All of society had heard about the coat but on one had seen it.  All eyes, including my grandmother who was in an adjoining box were riveted on the lady’s beautiful coat as she entered her box at the Opera.  My grandmother said, as her society friend simply let her Chinchilla coat drop off on to the back of her chair without the slightest concern and gracefully sat down, that an involuntary hush swept the audience.  Vera might have been a bit too "demimonde," for an exact comparison with my Grandmother's story, but to me Vera embodied the same smart-set feeling of the times.   

I just wanted to add that I was equally amazed at how the set from “Singed Wings” is so much like future Constructivist set designs for the Soviet Theater of the Revolution, and almost like something one would have expected to see in German set design the early 1920's. 

But anyway I just thought I might add a note about Khanzhonkov, the Russian motion picture producer that made Vera a star only because it helps to build an historic context for Vera and her prestige as one of Khanzhonkovs Silent Screen Stars.  It is so easy to discount Russian cinema prior to the Revolution.  Khanzhonkov and the Duma’s official photographer, A. O. Drankov had waging a battle for supremacy every since Drankov opened his Cinematographic Studio in 1907.  At the same time Khanzhonkov and Drankov were involved in a battle with Pathé and Graumont in France and Vitagraph and Lubin in America for control of the motion picture industry in Russia, which by then had penetrated far into the interior of Russia.  By 1911 Khanzhonkov had managed to gain the upper hand and his position was considerably strengthened by receiving an Imperial commission to produce first Russian historic epic, “The Siege of Sebastopol;” a motion picture that was able to compete on the world market with the extravagant historic epics of the French and especially of the Italian Cinema of the time.   Khanzhonkov was able to inform the Russian public in 1911 that:

“With the sanction of the Sovereign, His Imperial Majesty, the Tsar Emperor—the manufacturer of Russian cinematographic films, officer of the reserves, Captain of the Cossacks Khanzhonkov, enters into the production of a grandiose battle film, “The Siege of Sebastopol.”  His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Alexander Michailovich, organizer and builder of the Sebastopol Museum (together with those officers of the various departments of the Museum) assumes the work of preparation of this film under his exalted personage.” 

Khanzhonkov sent notices of the production of his film to all the movie publications in Europe and America, and by August 12, 1911, “Moving Picture World Magazine,” was announcing to the world that the Emperor Nicholas the II was going to attend the shooting of “The Siege of Sebastopol,” adding that an immense number of harmless shells will be used to create a realistic performance on film.  To add prestige to the film, it was privately premièred for the Emperor and his family and guests in Livadia, the newly constructed Italianate palace of the Nicholas II in the Crimea on November 15, 1911.  Khanzhonkov renamed his epic “The Defense of Sevastopol,” when it opened at the end of November at the Moscow Conservatory of Music where it two orchestras, a choir and battle sounds added to the solemnity and grandeur of the film.  It was acclaimed by Russian and foreign film critics as equal in quality to the latest French historic epic, “The Fall of Rome.” 

I think that knowing some of these facts is helpful, especially since the debacle that occurred during the muddled murder of Rasputin which put in on the level of a “Penny Thriller.”  As one of Khanzhonkov’s silent screen stars, not to mention her place in the Imperial Ballet, Vera was a personage to be reckoned with.  I suppose by December 1916 there was little sympathy for the IF, but I wonder what Khanzhonkov felt.   

[griffh]

Isn't anyone going to add anything more, or is the discussion over?  I hope not.

[Vassili_Vorontsoff]

Some have said that the house of Rasputin can not be actually visited,according to http://yusupov-palace.ru/afisha_en.htm
website it is false,special tours are actually organized...

Grigory Rasputin: Life in St. Petersburg City Bus Tour

"ÝThe tour will begin near the Yusupov Palace on the Moika embankment, on the spot where Grigory Rasputin was murdered. You will hear about how Rasputin first came to St. Petersburg, his first meeting with the Imperial Family, his relations with the Orthodox Church hierarchs, and the tragic political and historical events in which he took part. During the tour you will visit the building on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa where Rasputin lived in the last years of his life. You will also stop by the Petrovsky Island near Malaya Nevka River where Rasputin’s body was presumably dumped after his murder. During the tour you will hear not only the version of the plotters, but other versions of Rasputin’s murder as well. The bus tour will finish in the interiors of the Yusupov Palace where you will see the wax figures of the main participants of the plot."

Vassili

[Belochka]

Some have said that the house of Rasputin can not be actually visited,according to http://yusupov-palace.ru/afisha_en.htm
website it is false,special tours are actually organized...

Grigory Rasputin: Life in St. Petersburg City Bus Tour

"ÝThe tour will begin near the Yusupov Palace on the Moika embankment, on the spot where Grigory Rasputin was murdered. You will hear about how Rasputin first came to St. Petersburg, his first meeting with the Imperial Family, his relations with the Orthodox Church hierarchs, and the tragic political and historical events in which he took part. During the tour you will visit the building on Gorokhovaya Ulitsa where Rasputin lived in the last years of his life. You will also stop by the Petrovsky Island near Malaya Nevka River where Rasputin’s body was presumably dumped after his murder. During the tour you will hear not only the version of the plotters, but other versions of Rasputin’s murder as well. The bus tour will finish in the interiors of the Yusupov Palace where you will see the wax figures of the main participants of the plot."

Vassili

Hi Vassili,

The apartment in which Rasputin lived is occupied by a private person.

The tour (as described on the website) only takes the tour group outside the building at # 64 Gorokhovaya Ulitsa. Thus the website is not so much inaccurrate with its information, but it may be a little misleading for some who read the tour description.

Margarita

[Vassili_Vorontsoff]

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Previous | Next12345678910Did British Secret Agent Shoot Dead Rasputin?
Tuesday, 17th January 2006, 14:14
Category: Healthy Living
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shocking new ballistics evidence reveals that a British secret agent was the deadly assassin who shot dead Russia's 'mad monk' Rasputin 90 years ago, it was claimed today.

A professor has travelled back in time to investigate the 1916 autopsy report, autopsy materials and photographs before finally shedding new light on the mystery death of Russia's famed 'love machine'.

Rasputin, born Grigori Yefimovich Novykh, earned himself a dark, sexual and bestial image in Tsarist Russia. His nickname, Rasputin, means debauched one but, contrary to popular belief, he was neither a monk nor a priest, but a wandering peasant who went on to gain a powerful influence over Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Imperial Russia.

Since his death he has been immortalised in several films and made universally famous by Boney M's 1978 disco classic 'Rasputin' which called him 'Russia's greatest love machine.'

Now Professor Derrick Pounder, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Dundee and a senior forensic pathologist, is about to publish an independent review debunking myths which have been accepted for nine decades.

Historians have long questioned reports of Rasputin's murder on the night of 16-17 December 1916 in which it was claimed he was poisoned, then shot and finally drowned in a frozen river by Russian aristocrats who feared his influence over the Tsar.

However, after studying the autopsy materials, Professor Pounder said that ballistics evidence linked a British Secret Service officer to the fatal shot fired into Rasputin's forehead.

Professor Pounder also denounced the myth that Rasputin had drowned or had been poisoned.

He said: "I was asked by the author to study the original autopsy pictures and from these it was clear that the fatal shot to the forehead had been fired from a different weapon to the weapon which caused the other two
gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. The fatal shot had been fired by the largest calibre gun known to be present, and that was the one which was carried by a British agent.

"The actual bullet used would have proved that beyond doubt, but it appears to have been removed by the British agent, ostensibly as a `souvenir', although we can assume he was taking with him the vital piece of evidence."

In a book by history author Andrew Cook, To Kill Rasputin - The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin, this new evidence will be used to show that the British Secret Service were behind the assassination.

In writing the book the author undertook an exhaustive investigation that took him across Russia, Europe and into the heart of the British Secret Service archives. The book is published by Tempus and is available in shops now

I DO NOT KNOW IF WE CAN TRUST in anyway to this new version of the murder...does someone has read the book in question?

Vassili

[Belochka]

Hi Vassili_Vorontsoff,

If you keep your eyes open on the Coronial Inquiry which is due to commence shortly, I as one of the investigators will be able to satisfy your curiosity concerning this particular line of inquiry.

My professional analysis, though revealing, is not so shoking as that asserted by Mr Cook.

Best regards,

Margarita 

[ashdean]

I rather think that Felix was a fella with  too much money   ,too much free times,not alot of common sense,very little focus,no  goals. A type of foolish innocent who gets into one misadventure after another.Only his misadventures were big and serious.In a way, I think  that Alexandras friend,Anna, Vyrubova,was, alittle, like Felix.Both being  in,and causing all sorts of  problems  and mischief, for other people, on a grand scale, but coming out  themselves, fairly unscathed .  

I do not think you are too far wrong Borgia..but we must remember too the Youssoupoff family had risen to their lofty position & immense riches through wisphering into the ears of various Tsars...Felix (and Zenaida too in her intriguing) must have thought they were only carrying on the example set by their illustrious forebears....That a peasant was an intimate of an Empress while the exqusite Princess Youssoupoff with her impeccable pedigree & connections was kept at arms length must have been galling to say the least.No wonder Felix ,carried away with his own importance and angered by slights to both his parents  decided to murder him.....

[Vassili_Vorontsoff]

Hi Vassili_Vorontsoff,

If you keep your eyes open on the Coronial Inquiry which is due to commence shortly, I as one of the investigators will be able to satisfy your curiosity concerning this particular line of inquiry.

My professional analysis, though revealing, is not so shoking as that asserted by Mr Cook.

Best regards,

Margarita 

Please Margarita,

Can you say more about it?Thanks in advance,

Vassili