DOLGORIJKI, VASSILI LUKICH, COUNT i39), Russian diplomatist and minister, was one of the first group of young Russians whom Peter the Great sent abroad to be educated. On his return home he entered the diplomatic service, and served on a series of important missions. During the reign of Peter II. (1727-3o) Dolgoruki was appointed a member of the supreme privy council, and, after procuring the banishment of Menshikov, he took charge of the young emperor, whom he would have forced to marry his niece Catherine but for Peter's sudden death. He then drew up a letter purporting to be the last will of the emperor, appointing Catherine Dolgoruki his successor, but had to abandon the scheme as impracticable. He supported the election of Anne of Courland to the throne on condition that she first signed nine "articles of limitation" which left the supreme power in the hands of the Russian council. Anne, who repudiated the "articles" on the first opportunity, never forgave Dolgoruki. He was banished first to his country seat and then to the Solovetsky monastery. Nine years later the charge of forging the will of Peter II. was revived, and he was tortured and then beheaded at Novgorod on Nov. 8, See Robert Nisbet Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great (1895).