Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and faith healer. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, through whom he gained considerable influence in the final years of the Russian Empire.

Maria Rasputin was the daughter of Grigori Rasputin and his wife Praskovya Fyodorovna Dubrovina. She wrote three memoirs about her father, dealing with Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, the attack by Khionia Guseva, and his 1916 murder. The third one, The Man Behind the Myth, was published in 1977 in association with Patte Barham. In her three memoirs, the veracity of which have been questioned, she painted an almost saintly picture of her father, insisting that most of the negative stories were based on slander and the misinterpretation of facts by his enemies.