Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How did Rasputin die?
A group of men led by Prince Felix Yusupov decide to murder Rasputin and invite him to the Yusupov palace in December, 1916. Felix feeds Rasputin cakes and wine laced with lethal amounts of cyanide, but is horrified when it seems to have no effect. Felix then shoots Rasputin, who still does not die. Rasputin stumbles through the courtyard to the palace gates before being shot four more times, finally collapsing and dying. His body is thrown from a bridge into the icy Malaya Nevka River.
Alexandra reads a note left behind by Rasputin, revealing his prior knowledge that he would be murdered, and that should the murderers be nobles, the Imperial Family would die within two years.
Some writers – including Oleg Shishkin, Andrew Cook, Richard Cullen, and Michael Smith – have suggested that agents of the British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS) were involved in Rasputin's assassination. According to this theory, British agents were concerned that Rasputin was urging the tsar to make a separate peace with Germany and withdraw from the war, and that this would allow Germany to transfer a large number of troops to the Western Front. The theory suggests, in other words, that British agents played an active role in Rasputin's assassination in order to keep Russia in the war and force Germany to keep defending the Eastern Front. While there are several variants of this theory, in general they suggest that British intelligence agents under the command of Samuel Hoare, and in particular Oswald Rayner – who had attended Oxford University with Yusopov – were directly involved in planning and carrying out the assassination, or that Rayner had personally shot Rasputin. However, historians do not seriously consider this theory. According to historian Douglas Smith, "there is no convincing evidence that places any British agents at the murder scene." Historian Keith Jeffrey has stated that if British Intelligence agents had been involved in the assassination of Rasputin, "I would have expected to find some trace of that" in the MI6 archives, but that no such evidence exists.
The Tsar had been formally sentenced to death by the Executive Committee of "Narodnaya Volya" on August 25, 1879, on the heels of the execution of former "Zemlevolets" Solomon Wittenberg, who had attempted to build a mine to sink a ship carrying the Tsar into Odessa harbor the previous year. An initial plan called for the use of dynamite to destroy a train carrying the Tsar, which ended with an explosion that destroyed a freight car and led to a derailment. A February 1880 attempt used a quantity of dynamite to attempt to blow up the Tsar in a palace dining room. The resulting explosion killed 11 guards and soldiers and wounded 56, but missed the Tsar, who was not in the dining hall as expected.
On the morning of 13 March 1881, her father-in-law Alexander II of Russia, aged 62, was killed by a bomb on the way back to the Winter Palace from a military parade. In her diary, Maria later described how the wounded, still living Emperor was taken to the palace: "His legs were crushed terribly and ripped open to the knee; a bleeding mass, with half a boot on the right foot, and only the sole of the foot remaining on the left." Alexander II died a few hours later. Although the people were not enamoured of the new emperor, they adored Russia's new empress. As Maria's contemporaries said of her: "She is truly an empress." She was not altogether pleased with her new status. In her diary she wrote, "Our happiest and serenest times are now over. My peace and calm are gone, for now I will only ever be able to worry about Sasha." Despite being haunted by her father-in-law's gruesome death and her anxiety over the safety of her husband, at Alexander II's funeral, she was at least afforded the comfort of the presence of her brother-in-law and favourite sister, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the latter of whom, despite her husband's reluctance and Queen Victoria's objections, stayed on in Russia with Maria for several weeks after the funeral.
On 5 March 1953, at 21:50 EET, Joseph Stalin, the second leader of the Soviet Union, died at the Kuntsevo Dacha aged 74 after suffering a stroke. After four days of national mourning, Stalin was given a state funeral and then buried in Lenin's Mausoleum on 9 March. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria were in charge of organizing the funeral.
On Thursday, 26 August 2010, a Russian court ordered prosecutors to reopen an investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, although the Bolsheviks believed to have shot them in 1918 had died long before. The Russian Prosecutor General's main investigative unit said it had formally closed a criminal investigation into the killing of Nicholas because too much time had elapsed since the crime and because those responsible had died. However, Moscow's Basmanny Court ordered the re-opening of the case, saying that a Supreme Court ruling blaming the state for the killings made the deaths of the actual gunmen irrelevant, according to a lawyer for the Tsar's relatives and local news agencies.
Mikhail has made his reappearance and this time had allied himself with Sinister. The two were attempting to assassinate all of the members of the Rasputin family but one, so that the spirit of their forefather Grigory Rasputin may be concentrated and reincarnated in the last remaining member of the lineage. Mikhail teleported himself and his brother to another dimension that was a series of rocky caves. Not wanting to physically kill his brother, he decided to leave him in the rock dimension where he would die in a matter of weeks. However, away from Sinister for a period of time, he was able to overcome his mental manipulations and came to his senses, rescuing his brother. His final decision was to teleport to a world named The Dark Zone, a dimension from which it was impossible to return and also once entered, impossible to die in. This protected the rest of the Rasputin line from the depredations of Sinister as at some point Mikhail would have been the sole surviving Rasputin, which would then trap his ancestor in the dark zone. Colossus tried to persuade him to save himself, but Mikhail determined that it would be best for the possible problem and for his own insanity.
Catherine the Great was succeeded by her son Paul I. In the first days of his reign, the new Tsar (reported by the British Ambassador to be "not in his senses") augmented the number of troops stationed at the Winter Palace, positioning sentry boxes every few metres around the building. Eventually, paranoid for his security and disliking anything connected with his mother, he spurned the Winter Palace completely and built Saint Michael's Castle as his Saint Petersburg residence, on the site of his birthplace. The Tsar announced that he wished to die on the spot he was born. He was murdered there three weeks after taking up residence in 1801. Paul I was succeeded by his 24-year-old son, Alexander I, who ruled Russia during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars. Following Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the contents of the Winter Palace were further enhanced when Alexander I purchased the art collection of the former French Empress, Joséphine. This collection, some of it plundered loot given to her by her ex-husband Napoleon, contained amongst its many old masters Rembrandt's "The Descent from the Cross" and four sculptures by Antonio Canova.
On 16 November 1996, in Kaspiysk (Dagestan), a bomb destroyed an apartment building housing Russian border guards; 68 people died. The cause of the blast was never determined, but many in Russia blamed it on Chechen separatists. Three people died on 23 April 1997, when a bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Armavir (Krasnodar Krai), and two on 28 May 1997, when another bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Pyatigorsk (Stavropol Krai).
Catherine the Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors. The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified; the Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.
Spence died of heart failure September 19, 1892, in the home of a friend, John A. Fairchild, on Burlington Avenue near Ninth Street, in today's Westlake district, Los Angeles. He was 59 years old. The September 22 obsequies, which began in the family home on Burlington Avenue, were said to be "in point of attendance one of the largest ever held in this city" and the funeral procession to Evergreen Cemetery "one of the largest ever witnessed."
Lenin died in January 1924. Stalin took charge of the funeral and was one of its pallbearers; against the wishes of Lenin's widow, the Politburo embalmed his corpse and placed it within a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square. It was incorporated into a growing personality cult devoted to Lenin, with Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" that year. To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist, Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on the "Foundations of Leninism", later published in book form. At the following 13th Party Congress, "Lenin's Testament" was read to senior figures. Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him and he was retained in the position.
The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–94). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. As many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.
The executioners drew handguns and began shooting; Nicholas was the first to die. Yurovsky took credit afterwards for firing the first shot that killed the Tsar, but his protege – Grigory Nikulin – said years later that Mikhail Medvedev had fired the shot that killed Nicholas. "He fired the first shot. He killed the Tsar," he said in 1964 in a tape-recorded statement for the radio. Nicholas was shot several times in the chest (sometimes incorrectly said to have been shot in his head, but his skull bore no bullet wounds when it was discovered in 1991). Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets. First they were stabbed with bayonets and then shot at close range in their heads.
Balmont died on 23 December 1942 in a refuge for Russian emigres, the Russian House, due to complications from pneumonia. He is interred in Noisy-le-Grand's Catholic cemetery, four words engraved on his grey tomb: "Constantin Balmont, poete russe". Among the several people who came to the funeral were Zaitsev, Balmont's daughter Mirra, and Jurgis Baltrushaitis's widow.
Ruth Laredo died on May 25, 2005 in her sleep in her Manhattan apartment. The cause of death was ovarian cancer, a diagnosis which was made four years before her death but which did not stop her from giving concerts. She is buried in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York, only a few meters away from the grave of Sergei Rachmaninoff, who was so important to her life. At the funeral on May 31, 2005, two of her closest colleagues performed: Wei Gang Li from the Shanghai Quartet, and Courtenay Budd, with whom – along with the St. Petersburg String Quartet – she had given her last “Concert with Commentary” on May 6, 2005.
At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rival claimants to the throne existed: Ivan VI (1740–1764), in close confinement at Schlüsselburg, in Lake Ladoga, from the age of six months; and Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Tarakanova (1753–1775). Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed "coup" against Catherine: Catherine, like Empress Elizabeth before her, had given strict instructions that he was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. Ivan was thought to be insane because of his years of solitary confinement, so he might have made a poor emperor, even as a figurehead.
Nicholas died on 2 March 1855, during the Crimean War, at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. He caught a chill, refused medical treatment and died of pneumonia, although there were rumors he had committed suicide. He was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
It is nevertheless undisputed that Frederick was murdered during his journey home by Count Henry VII of Waldeck and his henchmen, who included Friedrich von Hertingshausen and Konrad von Falkenberg. The murder may have served to get rid of a royal candidate; or the story of the royal election may have sprung up to find a motive for the murder. The assassination caused much concern at the time; a stone cross ("Kaiserkreuz") was erected at its location in Kleinenglis near Fritzlar. By order of King Rupert, the murderers had to donate an altar in Saint Peter's Church, Fritzlar to atone for their crime. Frederick was entombed in Brunswick Cathedral.
In the late 1750s Elizabeth's health started to decline. She began to suffer a series of dizzy spells and refused to take the prescribed medicines. She forbade the word "death" in her presence. Elizabeth suffered a stroke on Christmas Eve 1761. Knowing that she was dying, Elizabeth used her last remaining strength to make her confession, to recite with her confessor the prayer for the dying and to say farewell to those few people who wished to be with her, including Peter and Catherine and Counts Alexei and Kirill Razumovsky. The Empress died the next day, 25 December 1761. For her lying in state she was dressed in a shimmering silver dress; she was beautiful in death as she had been in life. She was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg on 3 February 1762 after six weeks lying in state.
According to Vasari, Raphael was a "very amorous man and affectionate towards the ladies". He is said to have painted portraits of his mistress and to have assigned the engraver il Baviera to serve as her page. When commissioned by Agostino Chigi to decorate the Villa Farnesina, he was unable to dedicate himself properly to his work due to his infatuation - until she was allowed to come to live at his side. Again according to Vasari, it was Raphael's immoderate indulgence in "amorous pleasures", one day taken to excess, that brought on the fever which led to the young artist's death in 1520. Although in the Pantheon he lies beside his fiancée Maria, daughter of his patron Bernardo Dovizi, Raphael had long delayed his marriage; on his deathbed he sent his mistress away "with the means to live an honest life".
Valentin Rasputin was born on 15 March 1937 in the village of Ust-Uda in Irkutsk Oblast of Russia. His father worked for a village cooperative store, and his mother was a nurse. Soon after his birth the Rasputin family moved to the village of in the same Ust-Uda district, where Rasputin spent his childhood.
Both villages, then located on the banks of the Angara River, do not exist in their original locations any more, asthe Bratsk Reservoir flooded much of the Angara Valley in the 1960s, and the villages were relocated to higher ground. Later, the writer remembered growing up in Siberia as a difficult, but happy time: "As soon as we kids learned how to walk, we would toddle to the river with our fishing rods; still a tender child, we would run to the taiga, which would begin right outside the village, to pick berries and mushrooms; since young age, we would get into a boat and take the oars..."
As millions of Russians soldiers die in World War I, citizens place the blame on Alexandra and Rasputin. Rasputin stops seeing the Virgin Mary, causing Alexandra and his fellow monks to desert him.
During the summer of 1912, Alexei developed a hemorrhage in his thigh and groin after a jolting carriage ride near the royal hunting grounds at Spala, which caused a large hematoma. In severe pain and delirious with fever, the Tsarevich appeared to be close to death. In desperation, the Tsarina asked Vyrubova to send Rasputin (who was in Siberia) a telegram, asking him to pray for Alexei. Rasputin wrote back quickly, telling the Tsarina that "God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much." The next morning, Alexei's condition was unchanged, but Alexandra was encouraged by the message and regained some hope that Alexei would survive. Alexei's bleeding stopped the following day.
From the start there were persistent murmurs and snickers behind Rasputin's back. Although some of St Petersburg's top clergy accepted Rasputin as a living prophet, others angrily denounced him as a fraud and a heretic. Stories from back home in Siberia chased him, such as how he conducted weddings for villagers in exchange for sleeping the first night with the bride. In his apartment in St Petersburg, where he lived with his two daughters and two housekeepers, Rasputin was visited by anyone seeking his blessing, a healing or a favour with the tsarina. Women, enchanted by the healer's crude mystique, also came to Rasputin for more "private blessings" and received a private audience in his bedroom, jokingly called the "Holy of Holies". Rasputin liked to preach a unique theology that one must first become familiar with sin before one can have a chance in overturning it.