Rasputin and Reuters

In its issue of 7 January 2017, The Spectator magazine runs a brief archive item from its News of the Week digest for 6 January 1917. Under the headline 'A killing to celebrate', it said nothing had been more sensational "than the murder of the monk Rasputin in Petrograd".

It adds: "Whether those who took his life did so on the grounds of private revenge or of patriotism remains to be seen. In any case, we agree with Reuter's correspondent that the disappearance of this sinister figure is a subject for congratulation for all true friends of Russia."

Could our man in Russia have been so partisan? Does anyone know, is it in the records?

Editor’s note: The following article appeared on Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time:

Petrograd, 6 January 1917 - Endless rumours are circulating in connection with the death of the notorious Russian monk, Rasputin. 

His body was found with 3 bullet wounds, in the head, chest and side. He was killed, it is claimed, in the Petrograd home of an aristocratic Russian family, then transported to the mouth of the River Neva and dropped through the ice.

A Reuters report states that the 'whole of Russia breathes more freely for the removal of a monk of baleful influence'. In recent years, Rasputin was famed for the extent of his influence in Court circles in Russia - this influence was once described as a ‘hideous medieval nightmare’, occasioned by his ‘notorious depravity’.

Century Ireland: Russian monk Rasputin murdered ■