Maria Rasputin

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Maria Rasputin
Maria Rasputin, third from right, with her father Grigori Rasputin, left, and an unidentified woman in 1914.
Born	March 26, 1898 Pokrovskoye, Russia
Died	September 1977 Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Writer, circus performer, riveter
Parents	Grigori Rasputin and Praskovia Dubrovina

Maria Rasputin (March 26, 1898- September 1977),^[1][2] born Matryona Grigorievna Rasputina,^[2] was the daughter of the starets Grigori Rasputin and his wife Praskovia Fyodorovna Dubrovina.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, she wrote several memoirs about her father's life, murder, and association with Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna.

[edit] Early life

Maria was born in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, but came to St. Petersburg as a teenager, where her first name was changed from Matryona to Maria to better fit with her social aspirations.^[2] Rasputin had brought Maria and her younger sister Varvara to live with him and attend Steblin-Kamensky private preparatory school in St. Petersburg in 1913 with the hope of turning them into "little ladies."^[3] Maria was Rasputin's favorite child.^[4]

The writer Vera Zhukovskaya later described sixteen-year-old Maria as having a wide face with a square chin and "bright-colored lips" that she frequently licked in a movement Zhukovskaya thought was predatory. Her strong body seemed about to burst out of its cashmere dress and smelled of sweat.^[5] Society ladies kissed the tall teenager and called her by her pet names "Mara" and "Marochka" during one gathering at her father's modest apartment. Zhurovskaya thought it was odd to see Rasputin's daughter receiving so much attention from princesses and countesses.^[6]

Maria later told her grandchildren that her father taught her to be generous even in times when she was in need herself. Rasputin said she should never leave home with empty pockets, but should always have something in them to give to the poor.^[7]

[edit] Death of Rasputin

Rasputin's daughters were living with him in a small apartment in St. Petersburg in December 1916 when he was lured to his death at a party at the home of Felix Yussupov, whom Rasputin called "The Little One."^[8] They reported their father's movements to police investigators the following day and identified boots pulled out of the river as belonging to their father.^[9]

In April 1918, as the Tsar and Tsarina were traveling to their final exile at Ekaterinburg, Alexandra looked out the window of the train at Pokrovskoye and saw Rasputin's family and friends staring back at them from the window of Rasputin's house.^[10]

[edit] Life following the Revolution

Maria was briefly engaged during World War I to a Georgian officer surnamed Pankhadze. Pankhadze had avoided being sent to the war front thanks to Rasputin's intervention and was doing his military service with the reserve battalions in St. Petersburg.^[11]

After Rasputin's murder, Rasputin's followers persuaded her to marry Boris Soloviev, the charismatic son of Nikolai Soloviev, the Treasurer of the Holy Synod and one of her father's admirers. Boris Soloviev quickly emerged as Rasputin's successor after the murder. Soloviev, who had studied hypnotism, attended meetings at which Rasputin's followers attempted to communicate with the dead through prayer meetings and séances. ^[12] Maria also attended the meetings, but later wrote in her diary that she couldn't understand why her father kept telling her to "love Boris" when the group spoke to him at the séances. She said she didn't like Boris at all.^[13] Soloviev was no more enthusiastic about Maria. In his own diary, he wrote that his wife wasn't even useful for sexual relations, because there were so many women who had bodies he found more attractive than Maria's.^[14] Nonetheless, she married Soloviev on October 5, 1917. They returned to Siberia and lived for several weeks in Rasputin's house at Pokrovskoye.^[15] Later, Soloviev took jewels from the Tsar and Tsarina to help arrange for their escape, but kept the funds for himself. Later, after the Bolsheviks took power, Soloviev turned in the officers who had come to Ekaterinburg to plan the escape of the Romanovs. Soloviev lost the money he had obtained from the jewels during the civil war that followed.^[16] There were also several reports of young people in Russia passing themselves off as Romanov escapees following the Revolution. Soloviev defrauded prominent Russian families by asking for money for a Romanov impostor to escape to China. Soloviev also found young women willing to masquerade as one of the grand duchesses for the benefit of the families he had defrauded.^[17]

[edit] Exile

Soloviev and Maria eventually emigrated to Paris, where Soloviev worked in an automobile factory and later died of tuberculosis in 1926.^[18] Maria found work as a governess to support their two young daughters. After Felix Yussupov published his memoir detailing the death of her father, Maria sued Yussupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in a Paris court for damages of $800,000. She condemned both men as murderer and said any decent person would be disgusted by the ferocity of Rasputin's killing. ^[19] Maria's claim was dismissed. The French court ruled that it had no jurisdiction over a political killing that took place in Russia.^[20]

Maria published the first of three memoirs about Rasputin in 1932. It was entitled Rasputin, My Father. ^{[21] [22]} She also later co-authored a cookbook, which includes recipes for jellied fish heads and her father's favorite, cod soup.^[23] She also worked as a cabaret dancer in Bucharest, Romania ^[24] and then found work as a circus performer for Ringling Brothers Circus. During the 1930s she toured Europe and America as a lion tamer, billing herself as "the daughter of the famous mad monk whose feats in Russia astonished the world."^[25] She was mauled by a bear in Peru, Indiana, but stayed with the circus until it reached Miami, Florida, where she quit and began work as a riveter in a defense shipyard during World War II.^[24] She settled permanently in the United States in 1937 and became a United States citizen in 1945. She was married at one point to a man named Gregory Bernadsky, whom she married in 1940.^[26]

Maria worked in defense plants until 1955, when she was forced to retire because of her age. After that, she supported herself by working in hospitals, giving Russian lessons, and babysitting for friends.^[27]

Maria claimed to be psychic in 1968 and said Betty Ford had come to her in a dream and smiled.^[24] At one point she said she recognized Anna Anderson as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. A friend called her "Little Mother" because Maria fretted over whether handbags were in reach of strangers in restaurants, open suitcases in hotel rooms, and whether a reporter who was interviewing her had been given a comfortable enough chair.^[24] She also obtained an income from Social Security payments.^[2] She lived near the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles during the last years of her life.^[28] At one point she had two pet dogs, whom she called Youssou and Pov after Felix Yussupov.^[29]

[edit] Legacy

One of Maria's two daughters married the Dutch ambassador to Greece and later became friends with Yussupov's daughter, Irina Felixovna, during the 1940s.^[30] Maria told her four grandchildren that their infamous great-grandfather was a "simple man with a big heart and strong spiritual power, who loved Russia, God, and the Tsar," her granddaughter Laurence Huot-Solovieff, the daughter of Maria's daughter Tatyana, recalled in 2005.^[7] Maria's descendants live today near Paris.^[2] A fictionalized account of Maria's life recently appeared in the 2006 novel Rasputin's Daughter, by Robert Alexander.^[2]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Robert Alexander, Rasputin's Daughter, Penguin Books, 2006, ISBN 978-0-14-303865-8
• Greg King, The Man Who Killed Rasputin, Carol Publishing Group, 1995, ISBN 0-8065-1971-1
• Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1967, Dell Publishing Co., ISBN 0440163587
• Michael Occleshaw, The Romanov Conspiracies: The Romanovs and the House of Windsor, Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 1993, ISBN 1-85592-518-4
• Edvard Radzinsky, The Rasputin File, Doubleday, 2000, ISBN 0-385-48909-9
• Edvard Radzinsky, The Last Tsar, Doubleday, 1992, ISBN 0-385-42371-3