WI: Rasputin gets the Tsarina pregnant

This just came to me after listening to the Rasputin song. Rasputin was a famed womansier and he arrived in St Petersburg in 1905 and met the Tsarina in 1907,she was 35 and had her last child in 1904.What if Rasputin gets the Tsarina pregnant,would it be covered up or would she be able to pass it off as one of Tsars?. Could a Royal Scandal lead to greater civil unrest within Russia?.
 
There lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow
Most people looked at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dear
He could preach the bible like a preacher
Full of ecstacy and fire
But he also was the kind of teacher
Women would desire

RA RA RASPUTIN
Lover of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone
RA RA RASPUTIN
Russia's greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on

But in all honesty there's nothing to say they won't just call the kid the true king, it's not like they had DNA testing. It's much easier than messing with all the problems of new royalty.
 
This might just be the best thing to happen to the Russian Monarchy. Nicholas isn't going to accept his wife having a son with another man, certainly not some monk from the back of beyond. Rasputin is almost certainly executed, the child probably sent to an orphanage or a minor noble family. The Tsarina would likely spend a few years in unofficial internal exile, possibly at Ai Todor in the Crimea, possibly helping Elisabeth Feodorovna, widow of the assassinated Grand Duke Sergei, in her efforts with the Convent of Sts. Martha and Mary. The Grand Duchess' particular work with orphans might resonate with the Tsarina, and it's just the right mixture of Imperial dignity and orthodox piety to get away with.

Meanwhile the Tsar is going to be more receptive to those who councelled him against Rasputin, which is the same group who tended to be more supportive of democratic reform...
 
Well, there is also the distinct possibility that without anything like modern DNA profiling no one acknowledges anything. Perhaps Rasputin finds an unfortunate end, but if he does it would be entirely unofficial. I'd guess that there would be just enough evidence of the whole thin to produce endless conspiracy theories.
 
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Well, there is also the distinct possibility that without anything like modern D A profiling no one acknowledges anything. Perhaps Rasputin finds an unfortunate end, but if he does it would be entirely unofficial. I'd guess that there would be just enough evidence of the whole thin to produce endless conspiracy theories.

Right. A good role model was the Czars cousin (second I think),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_of_Romania

She had a child out of wedlock in Romania and was said to be screwing everything that moved (of high station anyway). Prime ministers, generals, etc. When she blurted it out that the child would be her husband's they clucked but the family covered it up just as you mention. At least it was not the heir apparent first male child. Maybe she sterlized after that, but the frigging in the rigging did not stop and only had begun (circa 1913)!

Queen Mum of UK (George V wife) dispised Marie by 1920, despite the British connection (granddaughter of Victoria), for saying something to the newspaper press like Mae West's statement of needing a man every night. Quite a bitter pill for the old establishment to deal with.

In Russia they had another way to deal with it, also behind the scenes. Rasputin would be dead some how, the child rejoiced as a new source of blood for the Romanovs, and hush is mush. The bigger problem is if the only other male a sickly child (who had a severe hemophilia, which means he bleeds very easily and a lot for vampires or under any other pretext) some how dies, and the newborn is male.

Tongues would wag, putting it mildly. IOTL circa 1916 it was considered an honor that Rasputin would cuckhold a member of the court of somewhat lesser rank, just not ever the head dame, in part because only the royal couple knew why Rasputin was around -- he was thought to have magical powers over the heir's hemophila. Rasputin was not a chaste monk putting it mildly with the Ladies In Waiting, though. Also there were also tons of non court people, often of much less rank like the middle class, who absolutely hated Rasputin. The commoners sort of loved him as one of their own who made it to the top, figuratively speaking only.

But a bit ASB, as Rasputin is said to have more care for self preservation than to get frisky with the Empress -- not not impress the empress with the holy loins so to speak. Word did get around on that score. One of the rumors of how Tchaikovsky, the famed composer, died was that he had a gay relationship with a royal, and was discretely put to death.

Have no idea on that one, and we just do not know the murky details of the composer's demise, but since Rasputin met his end by mere rumors AFAIK is now believed by historians to be rumors completely unfounded, the chance is extremely great that he would be killed quickly and quietly as possible with substance in the flesh. He need not be caught flagrant dilicti.

Also of note, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_the_Great was believed to have concieved out of wedlock, under threats of death to concieve by the mother of the Czar, who was "anatomically deficient or uninterested husband". The mother took care of the details, probably introducing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Saltykov. She ended up having three children, all illegitimate, one from the future king of Poland. Sort of a behind the scenes 1700's welfare mother. Times were more cloistered, and revolutionary inflamation would be sure to spread rumors. In war, these would be hard to suppress.
 
If Rasputin gets the Czarina pregnant, it sets in motion a chain of events.

- Firstly, the secret is buried. Buried so deep that it would never come to light in public, save through the DNA testing of putative descendants. The Romanovs have had paternity questions dogging them since Catherine the Great's time, and this would be a monstrous blow to the house's prestige if it got out.

- Rasputin is quickly, and quietly murdered.

- Nicholas, devastated, would have to make a public show of face to acknowledge the child as his. Between the tears, and the possible beatings, Alexandra would have to appear in public smiling and waving.

- Assuming there is no abortion (big if - my guess is that the story ends here), the child is born and raised as a Romanov while Alexandra goes into internal exile as soon as practical, so as not to raise eyebrows. If the child is a daughter, the long-term damage is negligible, but if it's a son, he might well be a haemophiliac like his brother Alexei. Nonetheless, he'd still be a viable heir.

- Nicholas spends the rest of his reign in deep melancholy, praying that Alexei lives long enough to secure the legitimate Romanov line without calling on the services of the pretender. If Alexei dies, well... nobody can say what that would do to Nicholas. After that, he becomes a bit of a wildcard.
 
I think it would depend on who knew about this. The scenario where the Romanovs are aware of the fact and Rasputin is quietly murdered sounds spot-on. However, if only Alexandra knows the truth and the only closest things are rumours:

- Rasputin becomes even more influential with the Romanovs if she chooses to keep him around. She could do so feasibly, under the excuse that he was helping ensure her health and safety during pregnancy and then the child's. This could make it seem less supicious, paradoxically, but more on that in a sec. In this scenario, he is still murdered: his popularity and influence is bigger now, and that does not sit well with various members of the aristocracy.

- Maybe Alexandra would be afraid of keeping him around, thinking that this would make her secret safer. He is driven away and never enjoys quite the same prestige as he once did. However, the rumours become stronger as such a sudden break would be strange.

Assuming that they don't die in the Russian Revolution, then there are even more possible scenarios:

- If the child is a girl, she's the youngest of several so she's probably not going to be as prominent as some of her sisters. There's no harm done in the short term. However, she may carry hemophilia (I read somewhere that the tests that confirmed that Alexei had hemophilia and that Alexandra was a carrier, also confirmed that Anastasia was a carrier as well) so if she marries into a royal house she might have hemophiliac sons too.

- If the child is a boy, he may have hemophilia. If he survives Alexei he might end up ruling, but we don't really know if his health would be better or worse than his brother's -- or what Alexei's physical condition would have been in the future.

Ultimately, even if they all survive the Revolution, nobody can really prove the child's paternity. There may be rumours based on the ones about her having an affair with him, and Rasputin may get in trouble, but unless there is very strong evidence it's likely that her family won't really think much of it. If there is that suspicion, perhaps in the ensuing decades his descedants would guard his remains jealously, to avoid the truth coming out once DNA testing exists.

(As an aside, I don't actually believe that she was having an affair with him.)
 
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