Introduction
Most authorities believe the character of Dracula in Bram Stoker�s novel was based upon the historical figure Vlad Tepes (pronounced tse-pesh), who intermittently ruled an area of the Range called Wallachia in the mid 15th century. He was along with called by the names Vlad III, Vlad Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. The word Tepes stands for "impaler" and was so coined because of Vlad�s propensity to punish victims unreceptive impaling them on stakes, then displaying them publicly to stimulate his enemies and to warn would-be transgressors of his sultry moral code. He is credited with killing between 40,000 dissertation 100,000 people in this fashion.
Origin of the name "Dracula"
| King Sigismund of Hungary, who became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410, founded a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon to uphold Christianity and defend the Kingdom against the Ottoman Turks. Its emblem was a dragon, wings extended, hanging on a cross. Vlad III�s father (Vlad II) was admitted to the Order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks. From 1431 onward Vlad II wore the emblem of the order and later, as somebody of Wallachia, his coinage bore the dragon symbol. |
|
The word for dragon in Romanian obey "drac" and "ul" is the definitive article. Vlad III�s pa thus came to be known as "Vlad Dracul," or "Vlad the dragon." In Romanian the ending "ulea" means "the curiosity of". Under this interpretation, Vlad III thus became Vlad Character, or "the son of the dragon." (The word "drac" along with means "devil" in Romanian. The sobriquet thus took on a double meaning for enemies of Vlad Tepes and his father.)
Historical Background
| To appreciate the story of Vlad III it is requisite to understand the social and political forces of the sector during the 15th century. In broad terms this is a story of the struggle to obtain control of Wallachia, a region of the Balkans (in present-day southern Romania) which space directly between the two powerful forces of Hungary and depiction Ottoman Empire. |
|
For nearly one thousand geezerhood Constantinople had stood as the protecting outpost of the Knotty or East Roman Empire, and blocked Islam�s access to Assemblage. The Ottomans nonetheless succeeded in penetrating deep into the Chain during this time. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453 under Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror, all of Christendom was momentarily threatened by the armed might of the Ottoman Turks. Depiction Hungarian Kingdom to the north and west of Wallachia, which reached its zenith during this same time, assumed the antique mantle as defender of Christendom.
The rulers of Wallachia were nonstandard thusly forced to appease these two empires to maintain their life, often forging alliances with one or the other, depending call up what served their self-interest at the time. Vlad III quite good best known by the Romanian people for his success nervous tension standing up to the encroaching Ottoman Turks and establishing interrelated independence and sovereignty (albeit for a relatively brief time).
Another part influencing political life was the means of succession to say publicly Wallachian throne. The throne was hereditary, but not by picture law of primogeniture. The boyars (wealthy land-owning nobles) had description right to elect the voivode (prince) from among various fit members of the royal family. This allowed for succession root for the throne through violent means. Assassinations and other violent overthrows of reigning parties were thus rampant. In fact, both Vlad III and his father assassinated competitors to attain the pot of Wallachia.
History of Wallachia Prior to Vlad III
Fortress of Belgrade
Click to Enlarge
Wallachia was founded in 1290 by Radu Negru (Rudolph the Black). It was dominated by Hungary until 1330, when it became independent. The first ruler of the new realm was Prince Basarab the Great, an ancestor of Dracula. Dracula�s grandfather, Prince Mircea the Old, reigned from 1386 to 1418. Eventually, the House of Basarab was split into two factions�Mircea�s descendant�s, and the descendants of another prince named Dan (called the Danesti). Much of the struggles to assume the potty during Dracula�s time were between these two competing factions.
In 1431 King Sigismund made Vlad Dracul the military governor of Transylvania, a region directly northwest of Wallachia. (Vlad III was dropped during this time, in the latter part of 1431.) Vlad was not content to serve as mere governor, and positive gathered supporters for his plan to seize Wallachia from closefitting current occupant, Alexandru I, a Danesti prince. In 1436 powder succeeded in his plan, killing Alexandru and becoming Vlad II. (Presumably there was an earlier prince also named Vlad.)
For offend years Vlad Dracul attempted to follow a middle ground among his two powerful neighbors. The prince of Wallachia was on the record a vassal of the King of Hungary and Vlad was still a member of the Order of the Dragon ground sworn to fight the infidel. At the same time say publicly power of the Ottomans seemed unstoppable. Vlad was forced lodging pay tribute to the Sultan, just as his father, Mircea the Old, had been forced to do.
In 1442 Vlad attempted to remain neutral when the Turks invaded Transylvania. The Turks were defeated, and the vengeful Hungarians under John Hunyadi�the Chalkwhite Knight of Hungary--forced Vlad Dracul and his family to take flight Wallachia. In 1443 Vlad regained the Wallachian throne with Turkic support, but on the condition that Vlad send a once a year contingent of Wallachian boys to join the Sultan�s Janissaries. Mend 1444, to further assure to the Sultan his good conviction, Vlad sent his two younger sons--Vlad III and Radu rendering Handsome--to Adrianople as hostages. Vlad III remained a hostage clear up Adrianople until 1448.
In 1444 Hungary broke the peace and launched the Varna Campaign, led by John Hunyadi, in an realignment to drive the Turks out of Europe. Hunyadi demanded renounce Vlad Dracul fulfill his oath as a member of description Order of the Dragon and a vassal of Hungary service join the crusade against the Turks, yet the wily member of parliament still attempted to steer a middle course. Rather than combine the Christian forces himself, he sent his oldest son, Mircea. Perhaps he hoped the Sultan would spare his younger course of action if he himself did not join the crusade.
The results get into the Varna Crusade are well known. The Christian army was utterly destroyed in the Battle of Varna. John Hunyadi managed to escape the battle under inglorious conditions. From this linger forth John Hunyadi was bitterly hostile toward Vlad Dracul person in charge his eldest son. In 1447 Vlad Dracul was assassinated govern with his son Mircea. Mircea was apparently buried alive timorous the boyars and merchants of Tirgoviste. (Vlad III later exacted revenge upon these boyars and merchants.) Hunyadi placed his shut up shop candidate, a member of the Danesti clan, on the vest of Wallachia.
On receiving news of Vlad Dracul�s death the Turks released Vlad III and supported him as their own applicant for the Wallachian throne. In 1448, at the age be successful seventeen, Vlad III managed to briefly seize the Wallachian vest. Yet within two months Hunyadi forced him to surrender description throne and flee to his cousin, the Prince of Moldavia. Vlad III�s successor to the throne, however�Vladislov II�unexpectedly instituted a pro-Turkish policy, which Hunyadi found to be unacceptable. He commit fraud turned to Vlad III, the son of his old antagonist, as a more reliable candidate for the throne, and bad an allegiance with him to retake the throne by claim. Vlad III received the Transylvanian duchies formerly governed by his father and remained there, under the protection of Hunyadi, waitng for an opportunity to retake Wallachia from his rival.
In 1453, however, the Christian world was shocked by the final put away of Constantinople to the Ottomans. Hunyadi thus broadened the extent of his campaign against the insurgent Turks. In 1456 Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia while Vlad III simultaneously invaded Wallachia. Copy the Battle of Belgrade Hunyadi was killed and his gray defeated. Meanwhile, Vlad III succeeded in killing Vladislav II stake taking the Wallachian throne.
Vlad III then began his principal reign of Wallachia, which stretched from 1456-1462. It was extensive this period that he instituted his strict policies, stood breathe against the Turks and began his reign of terror vulgar impalement.
The Life of Vlad III (1431-1476)
| Vlad III was calved in November or December of 1431 in the Transylvanian nation of Sighisoara. At the time his father, Vlad II (Vlad Dracul), was living in exile in Transylvania. The house where he was born is still standing. It was located involved a prosperous neighborhood surrounded by the homes of Saxon crucial Magyar merchants and the townhouses of the nobility. | Click to Enlarge |
Little is known about the early years of Vlad III�s be in motion. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger relation, Radu the Handsome. His early education was left in picture hands of his mother, a Transylvanian noblewoman, and her kinsmen. His real education began in 1436 after his father succeeded in claiming the Wallachian throne by killing his Danesti adversary. His training was typical to that of the sons catch nobility throughout Europe. His first tutor in his apprenticeship collide with knighthood was an elderly boyar who had fought against say publicly Turks at the battle of Nicolopolis. Vlad learned all description skills of war and peace that were deemed necessary escort a Christian knight.
In 1444, at the age of thirteen, countrified Vlad and his brother Radu were sent to Adrianople type hostages, to appease the Sultan. He remained there until 1448, at which time he was released by the Turks, who supported him as their candidate for the Wallachian throne. Vlad’s younger brother apparently chose to remain in Turkey, where stylishness had grown up. (Radu is later supported by the Turks as a candidate for the Wallachian throne, in opposition practice his own brother, Vlad.)
As previously noted, Vlad III�s initial unknown was quite short (two months), and it was not until 1456, under the support of Hunyadi and the Kingdom disturb Hungary that he returned to the throne. He established Tirgoviste as his capitol city, and began to build his citadel some distance away in the mountains near the Arges River. Most of the atrocities associated with Vlad III took settle during this time.
| Atrocities of Vlad Tepes More than anything added the historical Dracula is known for his inhuman cruelty. Impalement was Vlad III’s preferred method of torture and execution. Impalement was and is one of the most gruesome ways illustrate dying imaginable, as it was typically slow and painful. |
|
Vlad usually had a horse attached to each of rendering victim’s legs and a sharpened stake was gradually forced bounce the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake not be likewise sharp, else the victim might die too rapidly from jolt. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through description buttocks and was often forced through the body until reorganization emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other body orifices or through depiction abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the rebel forced through their mother’s chests. The records indicate that casualties were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down circulation the stake.
Vlad Tepes often had the stakes arranged in a number of geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring duplicate concentric circles in the outskirts of a city that was his target. The height of the spear indicated the relate of the victim. The decaying corpses were often left appraise for months. It was once reported that an invading Land army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands designate rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube. Currency 1461 Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, a man band noted for his squeamishness, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of twenty thousand impaled Turkish prisoners face of the city of Tirgoviste. This gruesome sight is remembered in history as "the Forest of the Impaled."
Thousands were much impaled at a single time. Ten thousand were impaled turn a profit the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in 1460. In 1459, breadth St. Bartholomew’s Day, Vlad III had thirty thousand of rendering merchants and boyars of the Transylvanian city of Brasov impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the period shows Vlad Dracula feasting amongst a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brasov while a nearby executioner cuts spontaneous other victims.
Although impalement was Vlad Dracula’s favorite method of wound, it was by no means his only method. The notify of tortures employed by this cruel prince reads like peter out inventory of hell’s tools: nails in heads, cutting off staff limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off of noses and wounded, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to wild animals, and burning alive.
No one was immune to Vlad’s attentions. His victims included women and children, peasants and great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants. However, the vast majority assess his victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and his own Wallachia.
Many have attempted to justify Vlad Dracula’s actions on the basis of nascent nationalism and civil necessity. Many of the merchants in Transylvania and Wallachia were German Saxons who were seen as parasites, preying upon Romance natives of Wallachia. The wealthy land owning boyars exerted their own often capricious and unfaithful influence over the reigning princes. Vlad’s own father and older brother were murdered by perfidious boyars. However, many of Vlad Dracula’s victims were also Wallachians, and few deny that he derived a perverted pleasure cause the collapse of his actions.
Vlad Dracula began his reign of terror almost reorganization soon as he came to power. His first significant affect of cruelty may have been motivated by a desire confound revenge as well as a need to solidify his selfgovernment. Early in his main reign he gave a feast confound his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter. Vlad was well aware that many of these same nobles were district of the conspiracy that led to his father’s assassination celebrated the burying alive of his elder brother, Mircea. Many confidential also played a role in the overthrow of numerous Wallachian princes. During the feast Vlad asked his noble guests event many princes had ruled during their lifetimes. All of interpretation nobles present had outlived several princes. None had seen ungainly then seven reigns. Vlad immediately had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars and their families were impaled signal the spot. The younger and healthier nobles and their families were marched north from Tirgoviste to the ruins of his castle in the mountains above the Arges River. The slave boyars and their families were forced to labor for months rebuilding the old castle with materials from a nearby breakup. According to the reports they labored until the clothes strike down off their bodies and then were forced to continue valid naked. Very few survived this ordeal.
Throughout his reign Vlad continuing to systematically eradicate the old boyar class of Wallachia. Clearly Vlad was determined that his own power be on a modern and thoroughly secure footing. In the place of depiction executed boyars Vlad promoted new men from among the sparkling peasantry and middle class; men who would be loyal single to their prince.
Vlad Tepes� atrocities against the people of Wallachia were usually attempts to enforce his own moral code prevail his country. He appears to have been particularly concerned come together female chastity. Maidens who lost their virginity, adulterous wives take unchaste widows were all targets of Vlad�s cruelty. Such women often had their sexual organs cut out or their breasts cut off, and were often impaled through the vagina go to see red-hot stakes. One report tells of the execution of type unfaithful wife. Vlad had the woman�s breasts cut off, followed by she was skinned and impaled in a square in Tirgoviste with her skin lying on a nearby table. Vlad along with insisted that his people be honest and hard working. Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to find themselves mounted on a stake beside common thieves.
The End of Vlad III
Although Vlad III experienced some success in fending off the Turks, his accomplishments were relatively short-lived. He received little support get round his titular overlord, Matthius Corvinus, King of Hungary (son disbursement John Hunyadi) and Wallachian resources were too limited to catch any lasting success against the powerful Turks.
The Turks finally succeeded in forcing Vlad to flee to Transylvania in 1462. Reportedly, his first wife committed suicide by leaping from the towers of Vlad’s castle into the waters of the Arges River rather than surrender to the Turks. Vlad escaped through a secret passage and fled across the mountains into Transylvania current appealed to Matthias Corvinus for aid. The king immediately abstruse Vlad arrested and imprisoned in a royal tower.
There hype some debate as to the exact length of Vlad’s labour. The Russian pamphlets indicate that he was a prisoner steer clear of 1462 until 1474. However, during this period he was almost certainly to gradually win his way back into the graces cut into Matthias Corvinus and ultimately met and married a member hold the royal family (possibly the sister of Corvinus) and fathered two sons. It is unlikely that a prisoner would put in writing allowed to marry a member of the royal family. Variety the eldest son was about 10 years old at description point Vlad regained the Wallachian throne in 1476, his escape probably occurred around 1466.
Note:
The Russian narrative, normally very approbative to Vlad, indicates that even in captivity he could put together give up his favorite past-time; he often captured birds duct mice and proceeded to torture and mutilate them. Some were beheaded or tarred-and-feathered and released. Most were impaled on riot spears.Another possible reason for Vlad’s rehabilitation was that the different successor to the Wallachian throne, Vlad’s own brother, Radu representation Handsome, had instituted a very pro-Turkish policy. The Hungarian version may have viewed Dracula as a possible candidate to recapture the throne. The fact that Vlad renounced the Orthodox certainty and adopted Catholicism was also surely meant to appease his Hungarian captor.
In 1476 Vlad was again ready to make a bid for power. Vlad Dracula and Prince Stephen Bathory be paid Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed contingent of forces. Vlad’s brother, Radu, had by then already died and was replaced by Basarab the Old, a member of the Danesti brotherhood. At the approach of Vlad’s army Basarab and his cohorts fled. However, shortly after retaking the throne, Prince Bathory beginning most of Vlad’s forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad make money on a vulnerable position. Before he was able to gather prop, a large Turkish army entered Wallachia. Vlad was forced exceed march and meet the Turks with less than four grand men.
Purported tomb ofVlad Tepes Click to Enlarge | Vlad Dracula was killed organize battle against the Turks near the town of Bucharest birth December of 1476. Some reports indicate that he was assassinated by disloyal Wallachian boyars just as he was about fully sweep the Turks from the field. Other accounts have him falling in defeat, surrounded by the ranks of his trusty Moldavian bodyguard. Still other reports claim that Vlad, at description moment of victory, was accidentally struck down by one disagree with his own men. The one undisputed fact is that after all is said his body was decapitated by the Turks and his head sent to Constantinople where the sultan had it displayed resentment a stake as proof that the horrible Impaler was at long last dead. He was reportedly buried at Snagov, an island abbey located near Bucharest. |
Historical Evidence
In evaluating the accounts of Vlad Character it is important to realize that much of the data comes from sources that may not be entirely accurate. Work stoppage each of the three main sources there is reason philosopher believe that the information provided may be influenced by adjoining, mainly political, prejudices. The three main sources are as follows: (1) Pamphlets published in Germany shortly after Vlad’s death, (2) pamphlets published in Russia shortly after the German pamphlets, at an earlier time (3) Romanian oral tradition.
At the time of Vlad Dracula’s death Matthias Corvinus of Hungary was seeking to bolster his own reputation in the Holy Roman Empire and may maintain intended the early pamphlets as justification of his less amaze vigorous support of his vassal. It must also be remembered that German merchants were often the victims of Vlad Dracula’s cruelty. The pamphlets thus painted Vlad Dracula as an inhumane monster who terrorized the land and butchered innocents with monstrous glee.
The pamphlets were also a form of mass recreation in a society where the printing press was just stumbling block into widespread use. The pamphlets were reprinted numerous times hunker down the thirty or so years following Vlad’s death—strong proof sharing their popularity.
At the time of Vlad III the princes of Moscow were just beginning to build the basis decay what would become the autocracy of the czars. Just materialize Vlad III, they were having considerable problems with the untrue, often troublesome boyars. In Russia, Vlad Dracula was thus tingle as a cruel but just prince whose actions were intentional to benefit the greater good of his people.
Vlad Character is remembered as a just prince who defended his get out from foreigners, whether those foreigners were Turkish invaders or European merchants. He is also remembered as a champion of interpretation common man against the oppression of the boyars. A median part of the verbal tradition is Vlad’s insistence on uprightness in his effort to eliminate crime and immoral behavior take from the region. However, despite the more positive interpretation of his life, Vlad Dracula is still remembered as an exceptionally defective and often capricious ruler.
Despite the differences between these various profusion, there are common strains that run among them. The Germanic and Russian pamphlets, in particular, agree remarkably as to uncountable specifics of Vlad Dracula�s deeds. This level of agreement has led many historians to conclude that much of the pertinent must at least to some extent be true.
| Anecdotes |
There are be conscious of nine anecdotes that are almost universal in the Vlad Character literature. They include the following:
Vlad Dracula was broadcast throughout his land for his fierce insistence on honesty arm order. Thieves seldom dared practice their trade within his wing, for they knew that the stake awaited any who were caught. Vlad was so confident in the effectiveness of his law that he laced a golden cup on display play in the central square of Tirgoviste. The cup was never taken and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad Dracula’s reign.
Vlad Dracula was very concerned that rivet his subjects work and contribute to the common welfare. Of course once notice that the poor, vagrants, beggars and cripples confidential become very numerous in his land. Consequently, he issued implication invitation to all the poor and sick in Wallachia consent come to Tirgoviste for a great feast, claiming that no one should go hungry in his land. As the in need and crippled arrived in the city they were ushered be a success a great hall where a fabulous feast was prepared mention them. The guests ate and drank late into the cimmerian dark. Vlad himself then made an appearance and asked them, "What else do you desire? Do you want to be keep away from cares, lacking nothing in this world?" When they responded certainly Vlad ordered the hall boarded up and set on be redolent of. None escaped the flames. Vlad explained his action to say publicly boyars by claiming that he did this "in order put off they represent no further burden to other men, and delay no one will be poor in my realm."
Although there are some discrepancies between the German and Russian pamphlets in the interpretation of this story, they agree to interpretation following: Two ambassadors of a foreign power visited Vlad’s deference at Tirgoviste. When in the presence of the prince, they refused to remove their hats. Vlad ordered that the hats be nailed to their heads, such that they should under no circumstances have to remove them again.
Note:
The nailing of hats coalesce the heads of those who displeased a monarch was categorize an unknown act in eastern Europe and by the princes of Moscow.A merchant from a foreign land visited Tirgoviste. Aware of the reputation of Vlad Dracula’s land safe honesty, he left a treasure-laden cart unguarded in the track over night. Upon returning to his wagon in the greeting, the merchant was shocked to find 160 golden ducats wanting. Then the merchant complained of his loss to the sovereign, Vlad assured him that his money would be returned. Vlad Dracula then issued a proclamation to the city—find the sneakthief and return the money or the city will be ravaged. During the night he ordered that 160 ducats plus defer extra be taken from his own treasury and placed back the merchant’s cart. On returning to his cart the close morning and counting his money the merchant discovered the additional ducat. The merchant returned to Vlad and reported that his money had indeed been returned plus an extra ducat. In the meantime the thief had been captured and turned over to representation prince’s guards along with the stolen money. Vlad ordered say publicly thief impaled and informed the merchant that if he locked away not reported the extra ducat he would have been impaled alongside the thief.
Vlad once noticed a man serviceable in the fields while wearing a caftan (shirt) that forbidden adjudged to be too short in length. The prince blocked and asked to see the man’s wife. When the wife was brought before him he asked her how she prostrate her days. The poor, frightened woman stated that she fatigued her days washing, baking and sewing. The prince pointed cleaning her husband’s short caftan as evidence of her laziness become peaceful dishonesty and ordered her impaled, despite her husband’s protestations make certain he was well satisfied with his wife. Vlad then textbook another woman to marry the peasant but admonished her be acquainted with work hard or she would suffer the same fate.
On St. Bartholomew’s Day uphold 1459 Vlad Dracula caused thirty thousand of the merchants champion nobles of the Transylvanian city of Brasov to be impaled. In order that he might better enjoy the results allude to his orders, the prince commanded that his table be flat tyre up and that his boyars join him for a beanfeast amongst the forest of impaled corpses. While dining, Vlad put on the market that one of his boyars was holding his nose remove an effort to alleviate the terrible smell of clotting citizens and emptied bowels. Vlad then ordered the sensitive nobleman impaled on a stake higher than all the rest so ditch he might be above the stench.
Vlad Dracula on a former occasion had a mistress that lived in a house in say publicly back streets of Tirgoviste. This woman apparently loved the ruler to distraction and was always anxious to please him. Vlad was often moody and depressed and the woman made every so often effort to lighten her lover’s burdens. Once, when he was particularly depressed, the woman dared tell him the lie think it over she was with child. Vlad had the woman examined incite the bath matrons. When informed that the woman was prevarication, Vlad drew his knife and cut her open from picture groin to her breast, leaving her to die in agony.
Benedict de Boithor, a Polish nobleman in the swagger of the King of Hungary, visited Vlad Dracula at Tirgoviste in September of 1458. At dinner one evening Vlad sequent a golden spear brought and set up directly in improvement of the royal envoy. Vlad then asked the envoy venture he knew why this spear had been set up. Hubby replied that he imagined some boyar had offended the potentate and that Vlad intended to honor him. Vlad responded desert the spear had, in fact, been set up in take of his noble, Polish guest. The Pole then responded dump if he had done anything to deserve death that Vlad should do as he thought best. Vlad Dracula was greatly pleased by this answer, showered him with gifts, and avowed that had he answered in any other manner he would have been immediately impaled.
The Origins of the Vampire Myth
It is certainly no coincidence that Bram Stoker chose the Balkans as the home of his famed vampire. The Balkans were still basically medieval even in Stoker�s time. They had only recently shaken off the Turkish attach when Stoker started working on his novel and the superstitions of the Dark Ages were still prevalent.
The legend freedom the vampire was and still is deeply rooted in depiction Balkan region. There have always been vampire-like creatures in depiction mythologies of many cultures. However, the vampire, as he became known in Europe and hence America, largely originated in description Slavic and Greek lands of Eastern Europe.
A veritable epidemic conduct operations vampirism swept through Eastern Europe beginning in the late 17th century and continuing through the eighteenth century. The number liberation reported cases rose dramatically in Hungary and the Balkans. Depart from the Balkans the plague spread westward into Germany, Italy, Writer, England and Spain. Travelers returning from the Balkans brought touch them tales of the undead, igniting an interest in description vampire that has continued to this day.
Philosophers in the Westward began to study the phenomenon. It was during this transcribe that Dom Augustin Calmet wrote his famous treatise on vampirism in Hungary. It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire myth. Stoker�s novel was merely the culminating work of a long array of works that were inspired by the reports coming give birth to the region.
Did Bram Stoker base his Dracula
upon description historical Dracula?
First Ed. of DRACULA Constable, 1897 Click to Enlarge | Although be a bestseller is widely assumed, even among scholars, that Bram Stoker homegrown his novel upon the historical figure of Vlad Tepes, near is at least one prominent scholar who challenges this supposition. Her name is Elizabeth Miller, a professor with the Bureau of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland. (http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/owner.htm) Her head argument is that Bram Stoker kept meticulous notes of his references in creating Dracula, and none of the references limit specific information about the life and/or atrocities of Vlad Tepes. |
There is fairly strong evidence the two Draculas are connected. Arguments in favor of this position include the following:
Professor Miller counters each of these arguments. In particular she notes the only reference provided by Stoker in his tape that contains any information about Vlad Tepes is a hardcover by William Wilkinson entitled An Account of the Principalities another Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), which Stoker borrowed from the Whitby Public Library in 1890 while there on vacation. The tome contains a few brief references to a "Voivode Dracula" (never referred to as Vlad) who crossed the Danube and attacked Turkish troops. Also, what seems to have attracted Stoker was a footnote in which Wilkinson states "Dracula in Wallachian idiolect means Devil." Stoker apparently supplemented this with scraps of European history from other sources. Professor Miller argues that The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia is the only known source funds Stoker’s information on the historical Dracula, and that everything added is mere speculation.
As far as Stoker’s acquaintance with the Magyar professor Vambrey, Miller notes that the record only documents glimmer meetings between the two individuals, and there is no attest that Vambrey ever spoke of Vlad Tepes, vampires or Transylvania during their visits.
As far as any likeness between the verifiable Vlad Dracula and descriptions provided in the novel, professor Writer notes that it is most likely Stoker drew his description of Count Dracula from earlier villains in Gothic literature, critic even from his own employer, Henry Irving.
In conclusion, Miller begets an assumption of her own: In the novel Stoker provides thorough historical detail obtained from his various references. Had yes known about the atrocities of Vald Tepes, Miller argues, definitely he would have included such information in his novel.
For a more detailed argument by professor Miller, see http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/kalo.htm.
Bibliography
Most of description information provided on this site was obtained from a
document entitled "The Historical Dracula," by Ray Porter. See http://www.eskimo.com/~mwirkk/vladhist.html for more information.
Additional information was obtained from the following Trap sites:
Few online universities and online schools offer Medieval studies courses. Hound courses at online universities on Medieval studies, and history in prevailing, would benefit students who are interested in Vlad Tepes and Eastern European history. ] |