Pyotr Stolypin - Assassination

Assassination

In September 1911 Stolypin traveled to Kiev despite police warnings that an assassination plot was afoot. He traveled without bodyguards and refused to wear his bullet-proof vest.

On 1st september 1911 while he was attending a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Tsar and his two eldest daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, Stolypin was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the chest, by Dmitri Bogrov (born Mordekhai Gershkovich), who was both a Jewish leftist radical and a probable agent of the Okhrana. Stolypin was reported to have coolly risen from his chair, removed his gloves and unbuttoned his jacket, exposing a blood-soaked waistcoat. He sank into his chair and shouted "I am happy to die for the Tsar" before motioning to the Tsar in his imperial box to withdraw to safety. Tsar Nicholas remained in his position and in one last theatrical gesture Stolypin blessed him with a sign of the cross. The next morning the distressed Tsar knelt at Stolypin's hospital bedside and repeated the words "Forgive me". Stolypin died four days later. Bogrov was hanged 10 days after the assassination; the judicial investigation was halted by order of Tsar Nicholas II. This gave rise to suggestions that the assassination was planned not by leftists, but by conservative monarchists who were afraid of Stolypin's reforms and his influence on the Tsar. This, however, has never been proven. Stolypin was buried in the Pechersk Monastery (Lavra) in Kiev, the capital of present-day Ukraine.