Marianne Pistohlkors - Murder of Rasputin

Murder of Rasputin

During World War I, when things began going badly on the Russian Front, the newspapers accused Rasputin of exercising a dark and malevolent influence over the Tsar and Tsarina. Considering it their duty to defend the empire and the honor of the royal family, some of the wealthiest families in St. Petersburg began to plot against him.

Marianne von Pistohlkors was allegedly one of two women and several men present in the palace belonging to Felix Yussupov on the night that Rasputin was lured there in December 1916. "Malanya's also taking part," Yussupov wrote to his wife Princess Irina of Russia in the weeks before the murder. Pistohlkors' nickname was Malanya.

She, like Grand Duke Dimitri, was later arrested by the Tsar's secret police following the murder. However, the Tsar later ordered her release. Sympathies were on Pistohlkors' side, according to her mother's memoirs, Memories of Russia 1916-1919. "When we arrived at 8 Theatre Square, where Marianne lived, we were stopped by two soldiers who let us through only after taking down our names. All the highest society was at Marianne's! Some ladies she barely knew arrived in order to express sympathy with her. Officers came up to kiss her hand."

None of the male co-conspirators ever publicly denounced Pistohlkors or the other woman suspected of involvement, ballerina and film star Vera Karalli. Neither were these women prosecuted in the subsequent legal trials.

According to one author, the Tsar kept their names out of the case because he did not want more public displays of sympathy for the murderers of Rasputin. He also knew that his sickly uncle Grand Duke Paul was very upset by Dimitri's involvement in the murder and was taking badly the Tsar's decision to exile Dmitri to the Persian front. The Tsar presumably did not want to add to the grand duke's suffering by also charging his stepdaughter.