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The Murder of Rasputin: The Whodunnit of the 20th Century
On the night of December 16, 1916, a group of conspirators murdered Grigory Rasputin, Russia’s “Mad Monk”. While meant to strengthen the Romanov dynasty, this murder brought on their downfall merely two months later and ushered in a year of two revolutions that ended with the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the eventual murder of the Tsar and his family. In many ways, Russia and the rest of the world are still dealing with the consequences of that murder. And yet the killers got away with it, with one of them remaining completely in the shadows — until now!
This lecture — part history, part murder mystery — will shed new light on what happened that night, who killed Rasputin, and what motivated them. In this lecture, Dr. Pereltsvaig will share the results of her latest archival research in British, American, French, and Russian archives and will present her historical novel based on her findings, Murder in Petrograd.
PRESENTER:
Asya Pereltsvaig received a degree in English and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Linguistics from McGill University. She taught at Yale, Cornell, and Stanford universities, and has been teaching in lifelong education programs since 2010. Her expertise is in language, culture, and history, and the relationship between them. Asya has published seven scholarly books with Cambridge University Press. Asya is a popular instructor for several Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes.
