Rasputin - And the Downfall of the Romanovs

When Russia''s Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she ''lived under the pressure of the prophecy''. Rasputin had no official position. A barely literate moujhik from Siberia, he had no forces at his command. He was a devoted monarchist, not a revolutionary. And yet, through his uncanny seduction of the imperial household, he contributed more than any other individual to the collapse of the greatest autocracy in the world. ''This man was unique'', observed one writer. ''Like a character out of a novel, he lived in legend, he died in legend, and his memory is cloaked in legend.'' In this extraordinary new work, Antony Beevor, master of narrative history on the grandest scale, sharpens his focus to pierce the fog of fantasy that has only grown denser over time. The result is an unparalleled portrait of one of history''s most dubious masterminds.

About the author

ANTONY BEEVOR is the author of 13 works of nonfiction, including Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (1991), which was awarded a Runciman Prize; Stalingrad (1998), which won the first Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature; and D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (2009), which received the Prix Henry Malherbe in France and the Westminster Medal from the Royal United Services Institute, and was a No 1 Bestseller in seven countries. His most recent work is the 2023 Sunday Times bestseller Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921. Educated at Sandhurst, Beevor served as regular officer with the 11th Hussars, leaving the Army after five years to write.

Product details

• Authors: Antony Beevor
• Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 12.03.2026
• EAN: 9781399617628
• ISBN: 978-1-399-61762-8
• No. of pages: 384
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Biographies, autobiographies; Biography: historical, political & military, General & world history, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History: earliest times to present day, Later 19th century c 1850 to c 1899, General and world history, Biography: historical, political and military, Siberia, 1917–1923 (Russian Revolutionary period), HISTORY / Russia / General, HISTORY / Russia / Imperial, Slavic religion and mythology, HISTORY / Revolutions, Uprisings & Rebellions, Animism / Shamanism, Relating to presidents, prime ministers, political leaders