Rasputin with Antony Beevor

Was Grigori Rasputin a visionary, a fraud, or a victim of history? Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad , searches for the truth about the great seducer of the Romanovs, the wild mystic who laid the ground for the Russian Revolution.About the speaker
Sir Antony Beever is a renowned historian of war. His books include Stalingrad , (Samuel Johnson Prize, Wolfson History Prize and Hawthornden Prize for Literature), Berlin The Downfall , D-Day , (Prix Henry Malherbe, Prix de Saint-Cyr, RUSI Westminster Medal) The Battle for Spain , (Premio La Vanguardia), and The Second World War and Russia Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 . His work has appeared in thirty-eight languages and sold more than nine million copies. His latest book Rasputin: And the Downfall of the Romanovs explores the life of Grigori Rasputin, a barely literate peasant from Siberia, who became one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in modern history. Just as Rasputin cast a spell over the Romanovs, his legend has bewitched historians. More than a century later, we still fail to comprehend fully the collapse of the greatest autocracy on Earth. Was there any truth to the wild tales that brought down the empire? Or was his true legacy an unsettling lesson on the potency of myth? Using eye-witness accounts and the vast resources of the Russian archives at a difficult time, the book weaves a fascinating story of human perversity.