March 24th was once the birthday of Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov or Yussopov (1887-1967), one of the wealthiest members of the Russian aristocracy and a rather colorful character. Aside from his riches and slenderly handsome style, Yusupov found further distinction by being a key figure in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin, the charismatic mystic who came to have a great deal of influence over Tsarina Alexandra, deeply concerned Yusupov and his fellow aristocrats/assassins until they felt it was time he was stopped. As in murdered. Felix befriended Rasputin by claiming to have a medical problem that he wanted Rasputin to heal with his mystical powers, and eventually this friendship led to a little get-together that turned out to be Rasputin's last party.
Though Yusupov and his companions tried to plan Rasputin's murder with care and plenty of cyanide, the man just wouldn't die, despite Yusopov's account that Rasputin had consumed several deadly doses. So then they shot him, and then they clubbed him. According to Felix's memoirs, originally published in 1952 and titled Lost Splendor:
I stood rooted to the flagstones as if caught in the toils of a nightmare.
Then a terrible thing happened: with a sudden violent effort Rasputin leapt to his feet, foaming at the mouth. A wild roar echoed through the vaulted rooms, and his hands convulsively thrashed the air. He rushed at me, trying to get at my throat, and sank his fingers into my shoulder like steel claws. His eyes were bursting from their sockets, blood oozed from his lips. And all the time be called me by name, in a low raucous voice....[t]his devil who was dying of poison, who had a bullet in his heart, must have been raised from the dead by the powers of evil. There was something appalling and monstrous in his diabolical refusal to die.
There are varying versions and facts surrounding Rasputin's death, and an autopsy report noted that there was no cyanide found in his system. He was shot and beaten as Yusopov later detailed, and his body was found in the Neva River. Felix and his accomplices had wrapped Rasputin in a carpet and slipped him through an opening in the ice. Yusopov would recount the story throughout his life and in his memoirs with pride, and it doesn't seem that he or his buddies faced any criminal charges for the murder. Yusupov and his wife Irina left Russia following the 1917 Revolution and spent the rest of their days in Paris in elegant exile.
Yusupov was said to be something of a braggart regarding the Rasputin incident and a tad spoiled, although given his wealth and pampered upbringing that's hardly a surprise. He was also praised for his generosity and charm. His memoirs are most interesting reading, however, and can be found online here. Whether more fiction than truth or whether Felix penned them himself or had a ghost writer, the tone is sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, sometimes dramatic -- and otherwise a recounting of a time and place long gone, even though it was only just a century or so ago.
Night and day, I could think of nothing but the ethereal being who held whole audiences under her spell, fascinated by the quivering of the swan's snow-white feathers on which a huge ruby blazed like a great drop of blood. In my eyes, Anna Pavlova was not just a great artist and as beautiful as an angel: she brought the world a message from Heaven! She lived in Hampstead at Ivy House, a charming place, and I often went to see her there. She had a genius for friendship, which she rightly held to be the noblest of all sentiments...[s]he knew me inside out: "You have God in one eye and the devil in the other," she used to say to me sometimes.
[Felix Yusopov's memories of ballerina Anna Pavlova, from Lost Splendor.]
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Pictured: Prince Felix Yusupov and Grigori Rasputin -- Wikimedia Commons
