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Grigori Rasputin was a trusted friend of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia around 1915.

There is a popular rumour that he was having an affair with Nicholas's wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna

Wiki briefly says:

Iliodor, hinting that Rasputin was Alexandra's paramour, showed Makarov a satchel of letters, one by the Tsarina and four by her daughters written in 1909 and 1910.

Singing group, Boney M. obviously thought so, from their song "Rasputin" where they described him as the "Lover of the Russian queen".

As far as actual historical research proves/disproves, did Grigori Rasputin have a sexual relationship with Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna?

Oddthinking
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user5341
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    You can thank @Shog for putting that particular song into my head for the last 2 days. – user5341 Jan 10 '17 at 02:48
  • This needs more context. Is the question is "Did Rasputin have an affair with Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna?" – Oddthinking Jan 10 '17 at 02:53
  • @Oddthinking - yep. I didn't think this was ambiguous in any way, sorry. Edited – user5341 Jan 10 '17 at 02:53
  • Not everyone knows who Rasputin was, or who Boney M was, or what their song was. Added context. – Oddthinking Jan 10 '17 at 03:03
  • @Oddthinking - context is fine, but since the "main" source of the claim is the song lyrics, i'd rather keep the title true to the claim wording. – user5341 Jan 10 '17 at 03:05
  • The song takes poetic licence: "Russia's greatest love machine"? It is hard to argue that it makes clear claims. But the rumour is wider spread than that - it is notable, without having to rely on the song as its "main" source. – Oddthinking Jan 10 '17 at 03:11
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    @Oddthinking - there was historical basis for the quoted claim in your comment, actually, but I suspect elaborating on it is a bit beyond the site's TOS. – user5341 Jan 10 '17 at 03:12
  • Question I'd like to see some time: was Rasputin hard to kill? – Andrew Grimm Jan 10 '17 at 19:48

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We will probably never know. No evidence.

Historians will normally stress that what's important is not whether claims about (im-)morality of rulers are factually true, but whether people actually believe that these claims are true. Popular rumours about the Romanov family during 1WW played a substantial part in the overthrow of the regime in 1917.

Orlando Figes, A Russian Revolution Scholar writes in his 2014 book Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991:

Similar credence was given to the rumours of sexual scandals at the court. It was said that the Empress was the mistress of Rasputin and the lesbian lover of Anna Vyrubova, her lady-in-waiting, who took part in orgies with them both. Alexandra’s ‘sexual corruption’ became a kind of metaphor for the diseased condition of the monarchy. Similar pornographic tales about Marie Antoinette and the ‘impotent Louis’ had circulated on the eve of the French Revolution in 1789. None of these rumours had any basis in fact (Vyrubova was a dim-witted spinster infatuated with the mystical powers of Rasputin and medically certified to be a virgin by a special commission appointed to investigate the charges against her in 1917). But the point of the rumours was not their truth or untruth: it was their power to mobilize an angry public against the monarchy. In a revolutionary crisis it is perceptions and beliefs that really count. Without this ‘atmosphere’ – created out of gossip, half-truths, facts and fabrications, bits of information from the press which were then distorted into fantasies – it is impossible to understand the ‘revolutionary mood’ or the ways in which the revolution turned on the interpretation of hearsay and events.

Source: Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A Pelican Introduction

kongharald
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