Note 50 — Chapter XIV · POLITICAL TENSION—THE DEATH OF RASPUTIN

The circumstances of Rasputin’s death are to be found in the newspapers of the time. I will briefly recapitulate them here. His death was the result of a plot in which some of the participants were the Grand-Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, first cousin of the Czar, Prince Yussoupoff, whose wife was the niece of Nicholas II., M. Purichkevitch, a monarchist deputy in the Duma, and Dr. Lazarevsky, who accompanied him. The Grand-Duke wished to show by his presence that it was not a case of an act of rebellion against the Czar, but merely the execution of a miscreant whom the nation had judged and found guilty of abusing the confidence of his sovereign.

Rasputin was killed on the night of December 30th. Prince Yussoupoff had gone to fetch him in his car very late in the evening, and brought him to his house. They first tried to poison him, but as the poison was slow in taking effect, Prince Yussoupoff and the deputy killed him with revolvers. His corpse was thrown into the Neva and was picked up two days later.