Subject
The song references Grigori Rasputin's alleged healing of hemophiliac Tsarevich Alexei of Russia, and how this endeared him to the boy's mother, the Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna (former Princess Alix of Hesse). It also claims that Rasputin was Alexandra's paramour ("Ra Ra Rasputin: lover of the Russian queen") and that Rasputin's political power overshadowed that of the Tsar himself. While the song accurately indicates that many unfavorable rumors damaged Grigori's reputation, there is no verifiable evidence to suggest that he had an affair with Alexandra.
The end of the song recounts a modified version of a popular description of the events that culminated in Rasputin's assassination, as perpetrated by Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Purishkevich, and Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia on December 16, 1916 (O.S.). Specifically, the song states that Rasputin's assassins fatally shot him after he survived the poisoning of his wine with a very large dose of cyanide.
Read more about this topic: Rasputin (song)
Famous quotes containing the word subject:
“But he [Bramhall] adds that we must subject them, according to that presentiality which they have in eternity, which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, but only by them that conceive it as an indivisible point. To which I answer, that as soon as I can conceive eternity to be an indivisible point, or anything be an everlasting succession, I will renounce all that I have written on this subject.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“And thou, thou rich-haired youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!”
—William Collins (1721–1759)
“The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a limit of the world.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)