Myths of Rasputin make him sound like an evil scary wizard from a Robert E Howard story.
That is probably why they picked rasputin, an evil dark magic user is a much more interesting villain than a peasant revolt.
In reality, rasputin was probably just a hedonistic drunkard who had a way with words, however, one of his friends and associates was an orthodox priest who was known to fly into rants about how much he hated jews.
"We have to remove all of these monsters because it is anti-semitic."
That is probably why they picked rasputin, an evil dark magic user is a much more interesting villain than a peasant revolt.
In reality, rasputin was probably just a hedonistic drunkard who had a way with words, however, one of his friends and associates was an orthodox priest who was known to fly into rants about how much he hated jews.