The myth

"Father" Grigori Rasputin, the "Mad Monk" who was chief adviser to the last Tsar of Russia, was assassinated by monarchists in December 1916. Because of his devil-derived magic powers (or superhuman strength, or protective insanity, or immunity to poisons) he refused to die, despite being fed a gigantic dose of cyanide, being shot at point-blank range in the back (or chest), further shot in the head and shoulders, and beaten seemingly to death by several men. He was tied up and thrown into a frozen river, in which he finally drowned - or else escaped from, subsequently freezing to death on the bank. This version persists in history books today, albeit usually stripped of its mystical aspects.

The "truth"

Modern writers, using newly available Bolshevik and Soviet-era official documents, claim that the post-mortem found no trace of poison, and that Rasputin died simply of gunshot wounds. He was no harder to kill than any other mortal, and stories of him repeatedly rising from the dead that night originate solely with his killers-who were merely trying to turn a squalid murder into an act of demon-slaying heroism.