Aleksei's reaction to Rasputin's death

[Alixz]

It seems the various sources are not in agreement.  Even the primary sources such and the diaries of Nicholas and the rest of his family.

However 17 people (thank you Belochka - would you please list them all?) is quite a lot and some diarists must have only noted those that they felt were important.

As for Alexandra making Alexei aware of Rasputin as his "healer" I would think that since Alix considered Rasputin a conduit for God that she would not have impressed on Alexei that Rasputin healed him, but that through Rasputin, God had healed him.

Not that Rasputin healed him at all.  He seems to have simply managed to lessen the bleeding or slow the flow so that absorption could take place.  As I said in another thread, Rasputin was kind of a "band aid" until Alexei's body could get to work on itself.

And as for Anna Vyrubova, her memoirs would only show Rasputin and Alix in a shining light.  She worshiped both of them.

[RealAnastasia]

Healing not being possible in medicine (even today), Rasputin doesn't heal the Tsarevich, but undoubtly, he would give him some relief. He stopped the bleedings better than anyone. The facts are simple: he calmed the little boy in a very special way , and calming down is a very important think to any hemorrage to stop. Just talk to a doctor and he'll tell you about it. Relaxed and calmed down, bleedings would stop and Alexei will feel grateful to his "healer". That's not so strange.

I'm one of these who doesn't actually believe that Rasputin was this evil man that legends tell us he was. He was, for sure a drunkard and a womanizer, but this wasn't harm anyone but himself. It actually seems that the women that had personal relationships with him fully agreed about it.

As for Vyrubova 's depiction of the Imperial Family...Yes. It could be a little too flattering, but I don't think she basically lies there. It's something good that she would write about the Empress in such a way, since most of the tales after Alix death were awfully against her and presented her as a cold, narrow-minded, hysterical, tyranical, manipulative woman. I have a very different idea of Alix and the whole Imperial Family. The way they were killed it's enough to mee to see them under a very different light than I saw them when I was a teenager who believed in the "people's revenge" legend. I read a lot more since these times, and I became convinced about how wrong I was about this woman and her family. In fact, I admire her a great deal.

And poor Tsarevich loved his "friend". He would feel better when he would came. This was the only thing that surely counted for him. Call it suggestion? call it real powers of the Siberian mystagogue? All can be. But Alexei DID feel better when he came.It's very understable he was so sad when Rasputin dead.

RealAnastasia.

[Bob_the_builder]

Healing not being possible in medicine (even today), Rasputin doesn't heal the Tsarevich, but undoubtly, he would give him some relief. He stopped the bleedings better than anyone. The facts are simple: he calmed the little boy in a very special way , and calming down is a very important think to any hemorrage to stop. Just talk to a doctor and he'll tell you about it. Relaxed and calmed down, bleedings would stop and Alexei will feel grateful to his "healer". That's not so strange.

I don't think many doctors would agree necessarily that calming someone would make them quit bleeding. Come to think of it, it's kind of hard to believe someone would be calmed when they are bleeding internally.

[Sarushka]

I don't think many doctors would agree necessarily that calming someone would make them quit bleeding.

Stress accelerates the heartbeat, blood pressure, and thus the flow of blood. Remaining calm can indeed have an affect on the rate of bleeding, though I doubt it would halt the flow completely.

Come to think of it, it's kind of hard to believe someone would be calmed when they are bleeding internally.

You'd be surprised, actually. People can die from internal hemmorhages without even knowing they're injured. After a car accident, for example -- victims have been known to walk away from the scene of an accident visibly unscathed, then drop dead of internal hemmorhage. Internal bleeding does not necessarily equal hysteria.

[Greenowl]

[quote author=RealAnastasia link=topic=9430.msg262260#msg262260 date=1180671706]

I'm one of these who doesn't actually believe that Rasputin was this evil man that legends tell us he was. He was, for sure a drunkard and a womanizer, but this wasn't harm anyone but himself. It actually seems that the women that had personal relationships with him fully agreed about it.
[/quote]

Well said, RealAnastasia!! I totally agree with you. While Rasputin was a drunkard and a womanizer and intent on "feathering his own nest" he was not evil, and much of the advice he gave to Nicholas and Alexandra (such as keeping Russia out of the First World War and avoiding or preventing food shortages in the cities) was basically sound. In his excellent book "Nicholas and Alexandra" Robert Massie makes the point that Rasputin never actually killed anyone. While he intrigued against government ministers and had them demoted, he never went any further and did not have them liquidated.

As I have stated in another thread, I believe that Rasputin had extremely strong powers of suggestion, akin to those of a horse whisperer (something I have personally witnessed in the past few weeks), which enabled him to calm Alexandra and consequently Alexei, thus relaxing the child and slowing the flow of blood. Unfortunately Rasputin managed to conceal his less savory attributes from the Imperial Family, thus they were unable to understand the general criticism of him, while society at large, which was familiar with Rasputin's excesses, could not believe that Nicholas and Alexandra were unaware of his "bawdy" behaviour. More negative is the fact that when Alexandra and Rasputin began to demote government ministers they opted for second-rate people, the sole criterion being that they were "sympathetic" to Rasputin, which further alienated other members of the imperial family and society and led to a rift that was impossible to heal. Why Nicholas allowed this to happen I do not know, although I have read that mentally, physically and emotionally he was at a very low ebb at that time, so perhaps it was just "too much" for him to cope with. At any rate the consequences were tragic

[ChristineM]

It is a fact that dentists and surgeons can, with the use of hypnosis, cause the blood to coagulate.   It has been suggested that, probably unbeknown to himself, Rasputin employed a similar technique.

However, none of these explanations can answer the 'miracle' of Spala.   It was Rasputin's ''intervention at that critical time which finally persuaded Nicholas that there was perhaps more to the man and his powers of healing.   Of course, the bleeding could have run its course and natural absorption taken place.

tsaria

[Bob_the_builder]

But the fact is of course that the doctors all said Alexei was going to be dead by next morning, Rasputin said he wouldn't. And then he wasn't. I don't think it was coincidence.

[Sarushka]

All interesting points, but we're straying off topic...
 

[ChristineM]

You are quite right - sorry, Sarushka.   

The question is - did Alexei have any idea of what an ill boy he was, and IF so, did he relate recovering from near fatal bleeds with the intervention of Rasputin?

If the answer is 'yes' - Alexei, naturally, would have been petrified by the loss of his saviour.   

All this belongs in the realms of speculation, so there really is no answer to the question posed and the topic of this thread.   We simply do not, and never will, know Alexei's reaction to the death of Rasputin.

tsaria

[Alixz]

Alexei was keeping a diary by 1916.  Has that diary been released?  Or if it has, please direct me to where I can read it or about  it

Surely if Alexei had any thoughts about Rasputin's death he might have put them in his diary.

Alexei was 11 at the time of Rasputin's death and had known Rasputin since infancy.  N&A were introduced to him in 1905 about a year after Alexei was born.  So for almost 10 years, Alexei had to have associated Rasputin with his terrible illnesses.  The question I think is whether Alix told Alexei that Rasputin was the source of his improvements or if she told Alexei that Rasputin was only conduit and that God had actually been the source of his improvements.

That would determine a lot how Alexei would have perceived Rasputin and how much he would have mourned his death. (Aside from mourning a "Friend" of his mother and father).  But at 11, I wonder if he was old enough to understand his mother's attachment to and dependency on Rasputin. 

Alexei, of course, would know nothing of the rumors and the reports from St. Petersburg.

[Sarushka]

Alexei was keeping a diary by 1916.  Has that diary been released?  Or if it has, please direct me to where I can read it or about  it

Aleksei's 1916 diary is printed in the Russian-language book, Tsesarevich. Unfortunately, it ends just before Rasputin's murder.

[Georgiy]

No, it doesn't end before Rasputin's murder. As I posted earlier, there is a gap of a couple of days in his diary after getting back to Petrograd when he and the Tsar returned from Mogilev in December 1916.

[Sarushka]

No, it doesn't end before Rasputin's murder. As I posted earlier, there is a gap of a couple of days in his diary after getting back to Petrograd when he and the Tsar returned from Mogilev in December 1916.

Whoops -- you're quite right. Sorry!

At any rate, there's no mention of Rasputin's death, which as Georgiy said previously, could be interpreted to suggest that Aleksei was to distressed to write of the murder.

[Alixz]

One thing I need to clarify    When I said that Rasputin had not "healed" Alexei, I do know that hemophilia was not then and is not now curable.

What I meant was that if Rasputin was truly a "miracle worker" he should have been able to cure him.  Stopping or slowing the bleeding was not a healing.  It was a temporary measure which then allowed Alexei's body to begin re-absorption and to begin to heal itself.

I admit that I don't have a clue as to why Rasputin was able to do what he actually did.  I know that "something" happened between Rasputin and Alexei.  I guess I am being stubborn because in truth it is always our bodies which "heal" themselves.  No matter what the surgeon or the physician does for us, in the end we live or die by our own body's ability to hold on.   

[Bob_the_builder]

You are quite right - sorry, Sarushka.   

The question is - did Alexei have any idea of what an ill boy he was,

Well, he would have to be really stupid not to realize his disease was not something every normal person has. And I don't think he was, so probably so.