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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Radzinsky's Time Machine, March 19, 2000
Edvard Radzinsky is like the character in the HG Wells story who has successfully built and operated a time machine. His chosen destination is the Court of Tsar Nicholas II and he inhabits that world like a native as anyone familiar with "The Last Tsar" knows. Radzinsky's readers become more like his traveling companion as he takes us through the former Soviet archives piecing his story together from first hand documents that no other author on this period has had access to. It is this ability to fuse the past with the present, so brilliantly done in the first book, that makes "The Rasputin File" equally intense and immediate. One example from many: "I received the last batch of unpublished documents about Rasputin in the Siberian archives. Among them was an inventory of property belonging to Rasputin immediately after his murder...I now knew every chair in his house and every glass on his table...Now I had seen what he saw. And I had heard his way of speaking, too, which had been left behind in his writings." I think the passage just quoted shows how Radzinsky's interest functions on a multiplicity of levels - a detective's love of uncovering the unknown; a scientist's fascination with minute detail; a mystic's compulsion to enter the very spirit of his subject, and even a portrait painter's need to capture as accurate a likeness as possible. Add to this the fact that the author is a Russian engaged in an act of almost public expiation for a National Crime and you have a work that packs an emotional charge far beyond the fantastic events of the story itself. The National Crime is, of course, the execution of the Romanovs. Despite the fact that the book focuses on Rasputin, it is their tragedy that underpins the narrative and the circumstances of their deaths are never far from the author's mind. As he demonstrated in "The Last Tsar" Radzinsky continues to be a master of the dramatic association, pulling together isolated events from the past and finding the common, often ironic, connection: "At the tsar's expense, a magnificent pavilion was erected over St. Simeon's shrine. And the procession of the cross...was headed by Father Ioann Storozhev. The same Ioann Storozhev, a priest from the city of Ekaterinburg, who two days before their execution in 1918 would celeberate holy communion with them and give them the blessing that would be their last." These books, and I consider "The Last Tsar" and "The Rasputin File" to be all of a piece, succeed as history, biography, drama, literature, and, on a subtler level, as a mystical exploration of the Russian character and soul. I hope Radzinsky will complete a trilogy with a work devoted to the Empress Alexandra.
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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well-written and Informative, April 13, 2000
Once again, the author of "The Last Tsar" has given us an insight into the final years of the Romanov dynasty. I always felt, when reading other books about this era, that the character of Rasputin was somewhat one-sided, and reading in other works that there was a missing file piqued my interest. Now we have the File brought into the open after decades, and Rasputin stands revealed as a much more understandable person. His influence on the tsar and tsarina was strong, with unfortunate consequences for their family and country. The information set out in this book is fascinating, particularly the quotes from the interrogation of witnesses we have often read about, but never before had the chance to hear "speak". My one quibble is that, either the author or the translator has a quirky writing style, and the unusual grammar and sentence structure caught my attention initially, and kept interfering with my reading. Once I became accustomed to it, however, it faded into the background and didn't prevent me from thoroughly enjoying this book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in early 20th century Russian history.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Revealing insights into influential figure, but too detailed, October 10, 2000
Having read Radzinsky's THE LAST TSAR and found it difficult to put down, I was eager to dive into his new book on Rasputin. In the earlier book, Radzinsky combined historical insights with the captivating writing style that has made him a popular playwright in Russia. The new book also promised new revelations based on his discovery--through the help of the author's friend, the conductor/cellist Mistislav Rostropovich--of the voluminous, long-lost Kerensky government police files on Rasputin, based on interviews with the people (outside of the tsar's immediate family) who knew him most intimately. All of this said, I found the new book rather disappointing. It lacks the riveting style that characterized THE LAST TSAR. (It is difficult to tell whether the fault lies with the author or the translator.) And the book gets bogged down in details, seeming to dwell endlessly on Rasputin's misdeeds and his intrigues to influence the shape of the Russian imperial government. Of the entire 500 pages of the book, the middle three-fifths seem to be a morass of minute facts and figures. Like one of the most monstrously long Russian novels, this book also seems to get lost in minor characters. This is not to say, however, that this is a book without merit. It offers new insights into Rasputin himself, his incredible power over the imperial court, and his role in bringing down the government of Nicholas II. Radzinsky also does a convincing job of reconciling the seemingly contradictory facets of Rasputin's personality, alternating between the saint and the sinner, the holy man and the orgiast. He also explains Rasputin and his influence in the larger context of Russian religious history, explaining the tradition of sectarianism in Russian orthodoxy as well as the unique influences of "holy fools" in Russian history. And his detective work on how Rasputin actually died is impressive. (That alone almost makes the book worth reading.) In conclusion, I would not discourage people who are intensely interested in Russian history and the pre-revolutionary period from reading this book. But it is not a volume for casual readers, especially those lacking any grounding in this period. And even those who consider themselves Russian history afficionados might be advised to read this book selectively.
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