A Very Russian Scandal - Rasputin's Assassin and his Romanov Rose

Handsome, charming, wealthy beyond anything one could possibly imagine and married to one of the great beauties of Imperial Russia – there was nothing in Prince Felix Yusupov’s life that could have hinted at what he would eventually become: the man who killed Rasputin and lit the fuse on the powder keg that saw three centuries of Romanov rule end in a dismal basement. In many ways, Felix was the embodiment of the Russian aristocracy at the beginning of the 20th century. Plagued by a nervous, corrosive aimlessness, bored by the world at his feet, his vices nurtured by the seemingly unending wealth into which he was born. A glittering, bejeweled exterior hiding a dark inner world of decay. To his billionaire family and to many other counts, barons, princes and dukes, the future must have stretched out endlessly in front of them. The thought of anything changing for anything but the better after centuries of prosperity must have never entered their mind, a mathematical impossibility. But they were about to find out what their French counterparts discovered in 1789 – that things can change. They can always change. It will shock you, how easily they can change. It certainly shocked them. 00:00 Introduction 01:54 The House of Yusupov 05:33 The Difficult Little Prince 19:29 The Tragic Affair: Nicholas Yusupov & Marina de Heyden 39:32 The Oxford Interlude 44:16 The Surprising Match 56:34 The Interloper 1:05:18 The Murder Plot 1:07:26 The Aftermath 1:34:00 The Exile 1:46:33 The House of IRFĒ 1:47:20 The Luck Never Runs Out: MGM & Château de Kériolet 1:50:00 The Line is Drawn Sources: Books and publications: 1. "Lost Splendour and the Death of Rasputin" by Felix Yusupov, G. P. Putnam's Sons, January 1 1953. 2. "Prince Felix Yusupov: The man who murdered Rasputin" by Christopher Dobson, W.H. Allen / Virgin Books, January 1 1989. 3. "Rasputin's Killer and his Romanov Princess" by Corynne Hall, Amberley Publishing, 15 March 2023. 4. "Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy" by Douglas Smith, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2, 2012. 5. "His Brother's Keeper" by Gretchen Haskin, originally published in Atlantis magazine, Vol. 2, number 3 and 4, 2000. 6. "Les rubis portent malheur" (Rubies Bring Misfortune) by Marina de Heyden, Editions Regain, Monte-Carlo, 1967. 7. "Archive of Felix and Irina Yusupov: Correspondence" (Архив Феликса и Ирины Юсуповых: Переписка) compiled by Natalia Ganina, Stephanos, Moscow 2018. Online sources: 1. The Instagram and Flickr accounts of sledstvie publish thousands of previously unseen photographs of the Romanovs, including Irina and her family: https://www.flickr.com/photos/1495529... 2. A blog publishing the translated letters of Felix and Irina: https://www.tumblr.com/theyusupovletters 3. A blog collecting photographs of the Yusupovs and their relatives and friends: https://www.tumblr.com/lesyoussoupoff 4. Article in Russian about Maison IRFĒ: https://www.domrz.ru/map/parizh/dom-m... 5. Article in Russian about the 2017 visit of Xenia Sfiris and her family to the Moika Palace: https://tvspb.ru/news/2017/06/27/vozv... 6. "The Princess on the Witness Stand: Irina Yusupova vs. MGM" by fellow creator The Girl in the Tiara: The Princess on the Witness Stand: Irina Y...