stylistic:tone
Death

While travelling from Paris to The Hague, Pavlova became very ill and iller upon arrival. She sent to Paris for her personal physician, Zalewski, to attend her. She was told that she had pneumonia and required an operation. She was also told that she would never be able to dance again if she went ahead with it. She refused to have the surgery, saying "If I can't dance, then I'd rather be dead". She died of pleurisy, in the bedroom next to the Japanese Salon of the Hotel Des Indes in The Hague, twenty days short of her 50th birthday.

Victor Dandré wrote that Pavlova died a half hour past midnight on Friday, 23 January 1931, with her maid Marguerite Létienne, Zalevsky and himself at her bedside. Her last words were "get my 'Swan' costume ready". Dandré and Létienne dressed her body in her favorite beige lace dress and placed her in a coffin with a sprig of lilac. At 7 am, a Russian Orthodox priest arrived to say prayers over her body. At 7:30 am, her coffin was taken to the mortuary chapel attaching the Catholic hospital in The Hague.

In accordance with old ballet tradition, on the day she was to have next performed, the show went on, as scheduled, with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where Pavlova would have been. Memorial services were held in the Russian Orthodox Church in London. She was cremated and her ashes placed in a columbarium at Golders Green Crematorium, where her urn was adorned with her ballet shoes (which have since been stolen).

Pavlova's ashes have been a source of much controversy, following attempts by Valentina Zhilenkova and Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov to have them flown to Moscow for interment in the Novodevichy Cemetery. These attempts were based on claims that it was Pavlova's dying wish that her ashes be returned to Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union. These claims were later found to be false, as there is no evidence to suggest that this was her wish at all. The only documentary evidence that suggests that such a move would be possible is in the will of Pavlova's husband, who stipulated that, if Russian authorities agreed to such a move and treated her remains with proper reverence, then the crematorium caretakers should agree to it. Despite this clause, the will does not contain a formal request or plans for a posthumous journey to Russia.

The most recent attempt to move Pavlova's remains to Russia came in 2001. Golders Green Crematorium had made arrangements for them to be flown to Russia for interment on 14 March 2001, in a ceremony to be attended by various Russian dignitaries. This plan was later abandoned after Russian authorities withdrew permission for the move. It was later revealed that neither Pavlova's family nor the Russian Government had sanctioned the move and that they had agreed the remains should stay in London.