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... firing ministers and ordering the Emperor and Empress to do his evil bidding. As the situation with the war worsened, and public dissatisfaction grew, the rumblings against Rasputin became louder; it was only a matter of time before those who believed Rasputin evil would try to seek their vengeance. (Baker 88). This is the letter Rasputin wrote before his horrible death he foresaw. He predicted that if he should happen to die because one of the Romanov or Romanov relatives killed him, the entire Romanov family, including the children, would die within 1 or 2 years. Two months later, the Romanov family was murdered by the Bolsheviks.
No one knows how Rasputin's so-called curse worked, he had no affiliation with neither Lenin or the Revolutionists. Many Russian Gypsies thought Rasputin might have made a pact with the devil for the curse. (Path, Rasputin par. "I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1...
If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia... if it was your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in the family, that is to say, none of your children or relations, will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people... You must reflect and act prudently. Think of your safety and tell your relations that I have paid for them with my blood. I shall be killed.
I Gregory (Path, Rasputin par. 37). Rasputin is as famous for his life as well as for his death. Frustrated by their inability to break down the walls built by Nicholas and Alexandra, some members of the Romanov family took events into their own hands. How many of the Romanov's were involved in the actual plotting to assassinate Rasputin will never be known for certain.
What is widely accepted is that the Tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich and Prince Felix Youssoupov, husband of Nicholas II's niece Princess Irina Alexandrovna of Russia, were among the leaders of the plot to strike against Rasputin. The monk, always frustrated by the Romanov's opposition to his role in Russia, was invited by Youssoupov to attend an evening gathering at his vast Petrograd palace. Felix promised Rasputin that his wife Irina would be there to greet him. The monk fell in the trap and willingly arrived at the Youssoupov palace in the evening of December 16, 1916. He did not survive the evening. (Clarson 512 - 513; Massie 510 - 511; Krieger 596; Baker 96). The three men, Prince Felix, Vladimir Mitrofanovich, and the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich devised an intricate plan, the three invited Rasputin over to the Yusupov Palace on December 30, 1916 to meet the Tsar's beautiful niece.
While waiting for her to appear Rasputin was led to the cellar and fed cakes and wine laced with poison, but these had no affect on him. Yussupov then shot Rasputin at point blank range and Rasputin collapsed on the floor. When Yussupov went to tell his fellow conspirators Rasputin was dead, they sent him back to make sure. On returning to inspect the body, Rasputin suddenly regained consciousness. The Prince fled the cellar, screaming for help. When Yussupov and Grand Duke Dmitri returned, Rasputin was gone.
They found him in the yard crawling towards the gate and proceeded to shoot and bludgeon him. They then bound him and tossed him into the Neva river. When Rasputin's body was found the next day, his ties were broken and his lungs were filled with water, showing that he didn't actually die until he was submerged in the frozen waters. (Clarson 512 - 513; Massie By the next day Prince Felix Youssoupov was under questioning by the Petrograd police. So messy had been the assassins that proof of their deed was found all over the Youssoupov palace.
Within hours of the report concerning Rasputin's disappearance, the Petrograd police by orders of Alexandra, forbid the conspirators from leaving the Russian capital. As soon as he received news of events in Petrograd Nicholas boarded his train and hurriedly returned to the capital. Rasputin's corpse was discovered under the ice of the Neva on December 19. The fury and outrage expressed by Nicholas and Alexandra knew no bounds as they sought to punish all of the conspirators. At the same time, news of Rasputin's death caused widespread eruptions of rapture in Petrograd. Dimitri and Felix were heralded as heroes and many believed that the "alleged" German influence represented by Alexandra was going to stop. (Clarson 512 - 513; Massie 510 - 513; While the Petrograd elite enjoyed their supposed liberation from Rasputin's clutches, the vast majority of the Russian population saw the events in a completely different light.
For 80 % of the Russian population Rasputin was a "man of the people. " He was their hope that the imperial couple would never forget the plight of the peasantry. His assassination at the hands of aristocrats, and even members of the imperial family, robbed the upper classes of much support among the inhabitants of their estates. (Massie 514). In the end, Nicholas sent his two wayward relatives into exile. Ironically enough, it was this punishment what allowed Dimitri and Felix to avoid falling in the hands of Bolsheviks during the revolution. Within three months of Rasputin's death, Nicholas lost his throne, the imperial family were imprisoned and many of the Romanov cousins arrested. In then end almost twenty members of the Romanov family were massacred by Bolshevik firing squads.
No other epitaph to Rasputin's death better exemplifies the repercussions of the monk's death than that written by Grand Duchess Maria Pavlova, sister, in her Memoirs: "His death came to late to change the course of events. His dreadful name had become too thoroughly a symbol of disaster. The daring of those who killed him to save their country was miscalculated. All of the participants in the plot, with the exception of Prince Youssoupov later understood that in raising their hands to preserve the old regime they struck it, in reality, its final blow. (Path Rasputin par. 41). Although many true facts about Rasputin have been lost what now remains is the undying legend and myth of Rasputin.
When People speak of Rasputin's myth they talk of the curse that he laid upon the Romanov family, some say he sold his soul to the devil in order to place that curse on the family... (Rasputin par. The dreadful night of July 16, 1918, at midnight the chief executioner Yakov dark man Yurovsky, went upstairs to awaken the Romanov family. In his pocket he had a Colt pistol with a cartridge clip. Dr. Bortkin, the family doctor was alert, he was already awake writing a letter which would turn up to be his last letter.
Yurovsky explained his intrusion saying, Because of unrest in the town, it has become necessary to move the family downstairs, he said. It would be dangerous to be in the upper rooms if there was shooting in the streets. (Rasputin par. 16 - 17). Booking understood and went to awake the family and tell them to get dressed quickly. Nicholas, 50, and Alexis, 13, dressed in simple military shirts, trousers, boots, and cap.
Alexandra, 46, and Olga, 22, Tatiana, 21, Marie, 19, and Anastasia, 17, quickly dressed. From there Yurovsky led all of them downstairs, to a bare room with no furniture. Then he announced; "In view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to... execute you. " (Rasputin par. Yurovsky then used Colt in his pocket and fired at the Tsar. Soon the entire squad began to fire at the family, each of the soldiers had been told beforehand whom they were assigned to shoot and ordered to aim for the heart to avoid excessive quantities of blood.
The empress and Olga each tried to make a sign of a cross as a prayer but they did not have time. Now Alexis and Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia remained alive. It is said bullets fired at the daughters chest but they seemed to bounce off, (later Historians found out the daughters sowed jewels on their dresses to act as a shield). While Alexis grasping for support was kicked in the head by a executioner. Then the executioners stabbed Alexis, Marie, and Anastasia. Blood was everywhere. (Rasputin par. 19 - 21).
Sheets off the beds were collected to drag out the bodies. When they picked up Anastasia's body and put her on a sheet she cried out. She was still alive. But then she got still and they continued, till they got to a abandoned place in the dense forest called the Four Brothers.
There they undressed the family and collected their items and the jewels from the duchesses to resell them in a To get rid of any evidence of carnage, bones, and a rotting corpse they chopped the bodies up into fine pieces which looked like chopped meat, ... then the bodies were destroyed with sulfuric acid and by burning on the bonfires with the aid of gasoline. The fatty matter in the corpses melted and spread over the ground where it became mixed with the earth. (Rasputin par. 25). Now, ever since the night of the Romanov massacre took place, there has been two missing corpses which is that of Anastasia and her brother Alexis. Anastasia was the one who executioners claimed was still alive when they put her on the sheet to drag her out. When they dumped the bodies, the executioners could not find Anastasia's.
So they left the situation alone and moved on. So, ... if Anastasia was still alive from the shooting, and was not buried alive because they didnt find her body, then... what could have happened? (Rasputin par 27 - 29). Some say Anastasia burns in the fiery pits of Hell alongside Rasputin answering his every whim. No matter where Anastasia did go and whether or not she survived her soul will never lay at rest peacefully for it is tainted, as are her families, with the harsh regrets of a single mystical myth known only as Rasputin; the cause for the downfall of the Imperial government, the cause for the collapse of her family. (Rasputin par. 31; Clarson 517).
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