Product Description
Rasputin: The Man Behind the Myth (A Personal Memoir). Maria Rasputin and Patte Barham. A personal and colorful account of Grigori Rasputin (18969-1916) by his daughter, Maria Grigorievna (1898-1977). Drawing on stories told to her by her father, and by her mother, Praskovya Fyodorovna Dubrovina, and sister, Varvara (1900-1925), as well as a recorded account of Rasputin's life by the family servant, Dunia, who was Rasputin's life-long friend, and later mistress, and a second mother and confidante to Maria, and information supplied by members of the Russian court of Tsar Nikolas and Tsarina Aleksandra. Maria Rasputin created a remarkable memoir of her father. Co-author Patte Barham adds a questionable epilogue with information about a secret sect in Paris that apparently worships Rasputin. This is not the definitive biography, as Rasputin's history is constantly in the sights of revisionist history, but still a worthwhile first-person account of the one who was close to him. Maria, too, lived an interesting life as circus performer with Busch Circus, in which she would don a Russian costume and fend off an actor dressed as her father.
NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977. 1st edition, 2nd printing. 266 pages. Photos section. Illustrated endpapers. Hardcover with dust jacket in a protective clear Mylar cover. Text about fine condition, jacket has slight wear, not price-clipped. Former owner bookplate on first page, otherwise mark-free. 1 copy only.