Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476/77), was a member of the
House of Drăculești, a branch of the
House of Basarab, also referred to nowadays as
Dracula. He was posthumously dubbed
Vlad the Impaler (Romanian:
Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), and was a three-time
Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the
incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father,
Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the
Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect
Christianity in
Eastern Europe. Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in
Romania as well as other parts of Europe for his protection of the
Romanian population both south and north of the
Danube. A significant number of Romanian and
Bulgarian common folk and remaining
boyars (
nobles) moved north of the Danube to
Wallachia, recognized his leadership and settled there following his raids on the
Ottomans.
[1]
As the
cognomen 'The Impaler' suggests, his practice of
impaling his enemies is part of his historical reputation.
[2] During his lifetime, his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad, to
Germany and elsewhere in
Europe. The name of the
vampire Count Dracula in
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel
Dracula was inspired by Vlad's
patronymic.
[2]
Name
Bust of Vlad the Impaler in
Sighișoara, his place of birth
During his life Vlad wrote his name in
Latin documents as
Wladislaus Dragwlya, vaivoda partium Transalpinarum (1475).
[3]
His
Romanian patronymic Dragwlya (or
Dragkwlya)
[3] Dragulea, Dragolea, Drăculea,
[4][5] is a diminutive of the epithet
Dracul carried by his father
Vlad II, who in 1431 was inducted as a member of the
Order of the Dragon, a
chivalric order founded by
Sigismund of Hungary in 1408.
Dracul is the Romanian definite form, the
-ul being the suffixal definite article (deriving from Latin
ille). The noun
drac "dragon" itself continues Latin
draco. Thus, Dracula literally means "Son of the Dragon". In Modern Romanian, the word
drac has adopted the meaning of "devil" (the term for "dragon" now being
balaur or
dragon). This has led to misinterpretations of Vlad's epithet as characterizing him as "devilish".
Vlad's nickname of
Țepeș ("
Impaler") identifies his favourite method of execution but was only attached to his name posthumously, in
c. 1550.
[3] Before this, however, he was known as
Kazıklı Bey (Sir Impaler) by the Ottoman Empire after their armies encountered his "forests" of impalement victims.
[citation needed]
Family
Early life
Vlad was born in
Segesvár,
Kingdom of Hungary, in the winter of 1431 to
Vlad II Dracul, future
voivode of
Wallachia. Vlad's father was the son of the celebrated Voivode
Mircea the Elder. His mother is unknown, though at the time his
father is believed to have been married to Princess Cneajna of
Moldavia (eldest daughter of
Alexander "the Good", Prince of Moldavia and aunt to
Stephen the Great of Moldavia) and also to have kept a number of mistresses.
[1] He had two older half-brothers,
Mircea II and
Vlad Călugărul, and a younger brother,
Radu III the Handsome.
In the year of his birth, Vlad's father, known under the nickname
Dracul,
[citation needed] had traveled to
Nuremberg where he had been vested into the
Order of the Dragon.
[1]
Vlad and Radu spent their early formative years in Sighișoara. During
the first reign of their father, Vlad II Dracul, the Voivode brought
his young sons to
Târgoviște, the capital of Wallachia at that time.
The
Byzantine chancellor Mikhail
Doukas
showed that, at Târgoviște, the sons of boyars and ruling princes were
well-educated by Romanian or Greek scholars commissioned from
Constantinople. Vlad is believed to have learned combat skills, geography, mathematics, science, languages (
Old Church Slavonic, German, Latin), and the classical arts and philosophy.
Life in Edirne
In 1436, Vlad II Dracul ascended the throne of Wallachia. He was
ousted in 1442 by rival factions in league with Hungary, but secured
Ottoman support for his return by agreeing to pay the
Tribute to the Sultan.
Vlad II also sent his two legitimate sons, Vlad and
Radu cel Frumos, to the Ottoman court, to serve as hostages of his loyalty. After the death of
Vlad II Dracul,
Radu cel Frumos converted to
Islam and entered the service of the Ottoman court.
[6]
During his years as hostage, Vlad was educated in logic, the
Quran and the
Turkish language and works of
literature. He would speak this language fluently in his later years.
[1]
He and his brother were also trained in warfare and riding horses. The
boys' father, Vlad Dracul, was awarded the support of the Ottomans and
returned to Wallachia and took back his throne from
Basarab II and some disloyal
Boyars.
Genealogy
In October 2011,
Prince Charles
publicly claimed that he is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler. The claim
accompanied his announcement of a pledge to help conserve the forested
areas of Transylvania.
[7]
Radu Florescu documented on page 193 of his book, "Dracula: Prince of
Many Faces" that the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I granted Ladislas
Dracula and his brother John recognition as Dracula's direct
descendants. Based on their documentation, the Emperor granted them
letters patent (a patent of nobility) on January 20, 1535, in which
their descent is described and also specific mention is made in the
patent of "the ancient insignia of Ladislas's family" as being the same
as that of the Bathory family—a gules (red) sword covering three wolf
teeth.
First reign and exile
In December 1447,
boyars in league with the Hungarian regent
John Hunyadi rebelled against Vlad II Dracul and killed him in the marshes near Bălteni.
Mircea II of Wallachia, Dracul's eldest son and heir, was blinded and buried alive at
Târgoviște.
To prevent Wallachia from falling into the Hungarian fold, the
Ottomans invaded Wallachia and put young Vlad III on the throne.
However, this rule was short-lived as Hunyadi himself now invaded
Wallachia and restored his ally
Vladislav II, of the
Dănești clan, to the throne.
Vlad fled to Moldavia, where he lived under the protection of his uncle,
Bogdan II.
In October 1451, Bogdan was assassinated and Vlad fled to Hungary.
Impressed by Vlad's vast knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of
the Ottoman Empire as well as his hatred of the new sultan
Mehmed II, Hunyadi reconciled with his former rival and made him his advisor.
After the
Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453, Ottoman influence began to spread from this base through the
Carpathians, threatening mainland Europe, and by 1481
conquering the entire
Balkans peninsula. Vlad's rule thus falls entirely within the three decades of the
Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.
In 1456, three years after the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople, they threatened Hungary by
besieging Belgrade. Hunyadi began a concerted counter-attack in
Serbia:
while he himself moved into Serbia and relieved the siege (before dying
of the plague), Vlad led his own contingent into Wallachia, reconquered
his native land and killed Vladislav II in hand-to-hand combat.
[citation needed]
Second reign
Internal policy
Vlad found Wallachia in a wretched state: constant war had resulted
in rampant crime, falling agricultural production, and the virtual
disappearance of trade. Regarding a stable economy essential to
resisting external enemies, he used severe methods to restore order and
prosperity.
Vlad had three aims for Wallachia: to strengthen the country's
economy, its defense, and his own political power. He took measures to
help the peasants' well-being by building new villages and raising
agricultural output. He understood the importance of trade for the
development of Wallachia. He helped the Wallachian merchants by limiting
foreign merchant trade to three market towns: Târgșor, Câmpulung and
Târgoviște.
Vlad considered the
boyars
the chief cause of the constant strife as well as of the death of his
father and brother. To secure his rule he had many leading nobles
killed. He also gave positions in his council which had traditionally
belonged to the greatest boyars to persons of obscure or foreign origin
who would be loyal to him alone. For lower offices, Vlad preferred
knights and free peasants to boyars. In his aim of fixing up Wallachia,
Vlad issued new laws punishing thieves. Vlad treated the boyars with the
same harshness, believing them guilty of weakening Wallachia through
their personal struggles for power.
The army was also strengthened. He had a small personal guard, mostly
made of mercenaries, who were rewarded with loot and promotions. He
also established a militia or ‘lesser army’ made up of peasants called
to fight whenever war came.
Vlad Dracula built a church at Târgșor (allegedly in the memory of
his father and older brother who were killed nearby), and he contributed
with money to the Snagov Monastery.
Raids into Transylvania
Since the Wallachian nobility was allied with the
Transylvanian Saxons,
Vlad also acted against them by eliminating their trade privileges and
raiding their resident castles. In 1459, he had several Saxon settlers
of
Brașov (Kronstadt) impaled.
[citation needed]
War with the Ottomans
Vlad the Impaler and the Turkish Envoys. Painting by
Theodor Aman.
In 1459,
Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans, at the
Congress of Mantua. In this crusade, the main role was to be played by
Matthias Corvinus, son of
John Hunyadi
(János Hunyadi), the King of Hungary. To this effect, Matthias Corvinus
received from the Pope 40,000 golden coins, an amount that was thought
to be enough to gather an army of 12,000 men and purchase 10 Danube
warships. In this context, Vlad allied himself with Matthias Corvinus,
with the hope of keeping the Ottomans out of the country (Wallachia was
claimed as a part of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed II).
Later that year, in 1459,
Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed
tribute[6]
of 10,000 ducats and 500 recruits into the Ottoman forces. Vlad
refused, because if he had paid the 'tribute', as the tax was called at
the time, it would have meant a public acceptance of Wallachia as part
of the Ottoman Empire. Vlad, just like most of his predecessors and
successors, had as a primary goal to keep Wallachia as independent as
possible. Vlad had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they
had refused to raise their "hats" to him, by nailing their
turbans to their heads.
Meanwhile, the Sultan received intelligence reports that revealed Vlad's domination of the
Danube. He sent the
Bey of Nicopolis,
Hamza Bey (also known as
Hamza Ceakirdjiba), to make peace and, if necessary, eliminate Vlad III.
Vlad Țepeș planned to set an ambush. Hamza Bey, the Bey of Nicopolis,
brought with him 1000 cavalry and when passing through a narrow pass
north of Giurgiu, Vlad launched a surprise attack. The Wallachians had
the Turks surrounded and defeated. The Turks' plans were thwarted and
almost all of them caught and impaled, with Hamza Bey impaled on the
highest stake to show his rank.
In the winter of 1462, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire Bulgarian land in the area between
Serbia and the
Black Sea. Disguising himself as a
Turkish Sipahi
and utilizing the fluent Turkish he had learned as a hostage, he
infiltrated and destroyed Ottoman camps. In a letter to Corvinus dated 2
February, he wrote:
[citation needed]
I have killed peasants men and women, old and young, who lived at
Oblucitza and Novoselo, where the Danube flows into the sea, up to
Rahova, which is located near Chilia, from the lower Danube up to such
places as Samovit and Ghighen. We killed 23,884 Turks (most probably Tatars)
without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads
were cut by our soldiers...Thus, your highness, you must know that I
have broken the peace with him (Sultan Mehmet II).
Sultan Mehmed II's invasion of Wallachia
In response to this, Sultan Mehmed II raised an army of around 60,000
troops and 30,000 irregulars, and in spring of 1462 headed towards
Wallachia. This army was under the Ottoman general
Mahmut Pasha and in its ranks was
Radu cel Frumos.
Vlad was unable to stop the Ottomans from crossing the Danube on June
4, 1462 and entering Wallachia. He constantly organized small attacks
and ambushes on the Turks, such as
The Night Attack when 15,000
Ottomans were killed.
[1] This infuriated Mehmed II, who then crossed the Danube.
Radu cel Frumos, brother of Vlad III and ingratiate of the
Ottoman Empire, was left behind in
Târgoviște with the hope that he would be able to gather an anti-Vlad clique
Wallachia that would ultimately establish
Radu cel Frumos as the new
Voivode of the region.
Vlad the Impaler's attack was celebrated by the Saxon cities of
Transylvania, the Italian states and the Pope. A Venetian envoy, upon
hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on 4 March, expressed
great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate Vlad
Țepeș's successful campaign. The Genoese from Caffa also thanked Vlad,
for his campaign had saved them from an attack of some 300 ships that
the sultan planned to send against them.
[8]
Defeat
Vlad's initial victory against the Ottomans was short-lived and he soon withdrew to
Moldavia leaving behind detachments in Wallachia that were overrun by the Ottoman
Sipahi commander
Turhanoghlu Omer Bey who was rewarded by being appointed governor of
Thessaly.
Vlad's younger brother
Radu cel Frumos and his
Janissary battalions were given the task by the Ottoman administrator
Mihaloghlu Ali Bey on behalf of the Sultan, of leading the
Ottoman Empire to victory. As the war raged on, Radu and his formidable
Janissary battalions were well supplied with a steady flow of
gunpowder and
dinars; this allowed them to push deeper into the realm of Vlad III. Radu and his well-equipped forces finally besieged
Poenari Castle, the famed lair of Vlad III. After his difficult victory Radu was given the title
Bey of Wallachia by Sultan
Mehmed II.
Vlad III's defeat at Poenari was due in part to the fact that the
Boyars, who had been alienated by Vlad's policy of undermining their
authority, had joined Radu under the assurance that they would regain
their privileges. They may have also believed that Ottoman protection
was better than
Hungarian.
By 8 September, Vlad had won another three victories, but continuous
war had left him without any money and he could no longer pay his
mercenaries.
Imprisonment
Vlad traveled to Hungary to ask for help from his former ally,
Matthias Corvinus.
Instead of receiving help, he found himself arrested and thrown into
the dungeon for high treason. Corvinus, not planning to get involved in a
war after having spent the Papal money meant for it on personal
expenses,
[citation needed]
forged a letter from Vlad III to the Ottomans where he supposedly
proposed a peace with them, to give an explanation for the Pope and a
reason to abandon the war and return to his capital.
[citation needed]
Captivity in Hungary
Vlad was imprisoned at the
Oratea Fortress located at today's
Podu Dâmboviței village. A period of imprisonment in
Visegrád near Buda followed, where the Wallachian prince was held for 10 years. Then he was imprisoned in Buda.
The exact length of Vlad's period of captivity is open to some
debate, though indications are that it was from 1462 until 1474.
Diplomatic correspondence from
Buda
seems to indicate that the period of Vlad's effective confinement was
relatively short, his releasing occurring around 1466 when he married
Ilona Szilágyi.
[9] Radu's openly pro-Ottoman policy as voivode probably contributed to Vlad's rehabilitation. Moreover,
Ștefan cel Mare,
Voivode of
Moldavia
and relative of Vlad intervened on his behalf to be released from
prison as the Ottoman pressure on the territories north of the Danube
was increasing.
After Radu's sudden death in 1475, Vlad III declared his third reign
in 26 November 1476. Vlad began preparations for the reconquest of
Wallachia in 1476 with Hungarian support. Vlad's third reign had lasted
little more than two months when he was killed in battle against the
Turks. The exact date of his death is unknown, presumably 31 October or
the end of December 1476, but it is known that he was dead by 10 January
1477. The exact location of his death is also unknown, but it would
have been somewhere along the road between
Bucharest and
Giurgiu. Vlad's head was taken to Constantinople as a trophy, and his body was buried unceremoniously by his rival,
Basarab Laiota, possibly at
Comana, a monastery founded by Vlad in 1461.
[10] The Comana monastery was demolished and rebuilt from scratch in 1589.
[11]
In the 19th century, Romanian historians cited a "tradition",
apparently without any kind of support in documentary evidence, that
Vlad was buried at
Snagov, an island monastery located near Bucharest. To support this theory, the so-called
Cantacuzino Chronicle was cited, which cites Vlad as the founder of this monastery. But as early as 1855,
Alexandru Odobescu
had established that this is impossible as the monastery had been in
existence before 1438. Since excavations carried out by Dinu V Rosetti
in June– October 1933, it has become clear that Snagov monastery was
founded during the later 14th century, well before the time of Vlad III.
The 1933 excavation also established that there was no tomb below the
supposed "unmarked tombstone" of Vlad in the monastery church. Rosetti
(1935) reported that "Under the tombstone attributed to Vlad there was
no tomb. Only many bones and jaws of horses." In the 1970s, speculative
attribution of an anonymous tomb found elsewhere in the church to Vlad
Țepeș was published by Simion Saveanu, a journalist who wrote a series
of articles on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Vlad's death.
[11] Most Romanian historians today favor the
Comana monastery as the final resting place for Vlad Țepeș.
[10]
Legacy
Reputation for cruelty
Even during his lifetime, Vlad III Țepeș became famous as a tyrant taking
sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing.
[citation needed] He is shown in
crypto-portraits
made during his lifetime in the role of cruel rulers or executioners.
After Vlad's death, his cruel deeds were reported with macabre gusto in
popular pamphlets in
Germany, reprinted from the 1480s until the 1560s, and to a lesser extent in
Tsarist Russia.
As an example of how Vlad Țepeș soon became iconic for all horrors
unimaginable, a typical German pamphlet from 1521 gives numerous
examples of lurid incidents, such as the following:
[12]
He roasted children, whom he fed to their mothers. And (he) cut off
the breasts of women, and forced their husbands to eat them. After that,
he had them all impaled.[12]
Estimates of the number of his victims range from 40,000 to 100,000.
[13]
According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was
at least 80,000. In addition to the 80,000 victims mentioned he also
had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground.
[14]
Impalement
was Vlad's preferred method of torture and execution. Several woodcuts
from German pamphlets of the late 15th and early 16th centuries show
Vlad feasting in a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside
Brașov, while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims. It was
reported that an invading
Ottoman army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses on the banks of the Danube.
[citation needed] It has also been said that in 1462
Mehmed II, the
conqueror of Constantinople,
a man noted for his own psychological warfare tactics and the
impalement of subjugated peoples in the Ottoman Empire, returned to
Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled
corpses outside Vlad's capital of Târgoviște.
[15]
Allegedly, Vlad's reputation for cruelty was actively promoted by
Matthias Corvinus,
who tarnished Vlad's reputation and credibility for a political reason:
as an explanation for why he had not helped Vlad fight the Ottomans in
1462, for which purpose he had received money from most Catholic states
in Europe.
[6]
Matthias employed the charges of Southeastern Transylvania, and
produced fake letters of high treason, written on 7 November 1462.
[citation needed]
German sources
1499 German woodcut showing
Dracule waide dining among the impaled corpses of his victims.
The German stories circulated first in
manuscript
form in the late 15th century and the first manuscript was probably
written in 1462 before Vlad's arrest. The text was later printed in
Germany and had a major impact on the general public, becoming a
best-seller of its time with numerous later editions adding to and
altering the original text.
In addition to the manuscripts and pamphlets the German version of the stories can be found in the poem of
Michael Beheim. The poem called
"Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei" ("Story of a Madman Named Dracula of Wallachia") was written and performed at the court of
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor during the winter of 1463.
[16]
To this day four manuscripts and 13 pamphlets have been found, as
well as the poem by Michel Beheim. The surviving manuscripts date from
the last quarter of the 15th century to the year 1500 and the found
pamphlets date from 1488 to 1559–1568.
Eight of the pamphlets are
incunabula,
meaning that they were printed before 1501. The German stories about
Vlad the Impaler consist of 46 short episodes, although none of the
manuscripts, pamphlets or the poem of Beheim contain all 46 stories.
All of them begin with the story of the old governor,
John Hunyadi,
having Vlad's father killed, and how Vlad and his brother renounced
their old religion and swore to protect and uphold the Christian faith.
After this, the order and titles of the stories differ by manuscript and
pamphlet editions.
[14]
Russian sources
The Russian or the Slavic version of the stories about Vlad the
Impaler called "Skazanie o Drakule voevode" ("The Tale of Warlord
Dracula") is thought to have been written sometime between 1481 and
1486. Copies were made from the 15th century to the 18th century, of
which some twenty-two extant manuscripts survive in Russian archives.
[17] The oldest one, from 1490, ends as follows: "First written in the year 6994 of the
Byzantine calendar
(1486), on 13 February; then transcribed by me, the sinner Efrosin, in
the year 6998 (1490), on 28 January". The Tales of Prince Dracula is
neither chronological nor consistent, but mostly a collection of
anecdotes of literary and historical value concerning Vlad Țepeș.
There are 19 anecdotes in The Tales of Prince Dracula which are
longer and more constructed than the German stories. The Tales can be
divided into two sections: The first 13 episodes are non-chronological
events most likely closer to the original folkloric oral tradition about
Vlad. The last six episodes are thought to have been written by a
scholar who collected them, because they are chronological and seem to
be more structured. The stories begin with a short introduction and the
anecdote about the nailing of hats to ambassadors' heads. They end with
Vlad's death and information about his family.
[citation needed]
Of the 19 anecdotes there are ten that have similarities to the German stories.
[18]
Although there are similarities between the Russian and the German
stories about Vlad, there is a clear distinction in the attitude towards
him. The Russian stories tend to portray him in a more positive light:
he is depicted as a great ruler, a brave soldier and a just sovereign.
Stories of atrocities tend to seem to be justified as the actions of a
strong ruler. Of the 19 anecdotes, only four seem to have exaggerated
violence.
[citation needed] Some elements of the anecdotes were later added to Russian stories about
Ivan the Terrible of Russia.
[19]
The nationality and identity of the original writer of the anecdotes
Dracula is disputed. The two most plausible explanations are that the
writer was either a Romanian priest or a monk from Transylvania, or a
Romanian or Moldavian from the court of
Stephen the Great in Moldavia. One theory claims the writer was a Russian diplomat named
Fyodor Kuritsyn.
[20]
Ambras Castle portrait
A contemporary portrait of Vlad III, rediscovered by Romanian
historians in the late 19th century, had been featured in the gallery of
horrors at
Innsbruck's
Ambras Castle.
This original has been lost to history, but a larger copy, painted
anonymously in the first half of the 16th century, now hangs in the same
gallery.
[1] This copy, unlike the crypto-portraits contemporary with Vlad III, seems to have given him a
Habsburg lip.
[citation needed]
Popular culture
Romanian patriotism
Romanian and Bulgarian documents from 1481 onwards portray Vlad as a
hero, a true leader, who used harsh yet fair methods to reclaim the
country from the corrupt and rich boyars. Moreover, all his military
efforts were directed against the Ottoman Empire which explicitly wanted
to conquer Wallachia. Excerpt from "The Slavonic Tales":
- And he hated evil in his country so much that, if anyone
committed some harm, theft or robbery or a lye or an injustice, none of
those remained alive. Even if he was a great boyar or a priest or a monk
or an ordinary man, or even if he had a great fortune, he couldn't pay
himself from death. [citation needed]
An Italian writer, Michael Bocignoli from
Ragusa, in his writings from 1524, refers to Vlad Țepeș as:
- It was once (in Valahia), a prince Dragul by his name, a very wise and skillful man in war. [21]
(In Latin in the original text:
Inter eos aliquando princeps fuit, quem voievodam appellant, Dragulus nomine, vir acer et militarium negotiorum apprime peritus.)
[22]
In the
Letopisețul cantacuzinesc ("Cantacuzino chronicle"), a historic account written around 1688 by Stoica Ludescu of the
Cantacuzino family, Vlad orders the boyars to build the fortress of
Poenari with their own bare hands. Later in the document, Ludescu refers to the (re)crowning of Vlad as a happy event:
- Voievod Vlad sat on the throne and all the country came to pay
respect, and brought many gifts and they went back to their houses with
great joy. And Voievod Vlad with the help of God grew into much good and
honor as long as he kept the reign of those just people. [citation needed]
(In Romanian in the original text:
De aciia șăzu în scaun
Vladul-vodă și veni țara de i să închină, și aduse daruri multe și să
întoarseră iarăși cine pre la case-și cu mare bucurie. Iar Vladul-vodă
cu ajutorul lui Dumnezeu creștea întru mai mari bunătăți și în cinste
pân' cât au ținut sfatul acelui neam drept.)
Around 1785, Ioan Budai-Deleanu, a Romanian writer and renowned historian, wrote a Romanian epic heroic poem,
"Țiganiada", in which prince Vlad Țepeș stars as a fierce warrior fighting the Ottomans. Later, in 1881,
Mihai Eminescu, one of the greatest Romanian poets, in
"Letter 3",
popularizes Vlad's image in modern Romanian patriotism, having him
stand as a figure to contrast with presumed social decay under the
Phanariotes
and the political scene of the 19th century. The poem even suggests
that Vlad's violent methods be applied as a cure. In the final lyrics,
the poet makes a call to Vlad Țepeș (i. e. Dracula) to come, to sort the
contemporaries into two teams: the mad and the wicked and then set fire
to the prison and to the madhouse.
[23]
- (In Romanian in the original text:
- Dar lăsaţi măcar strămoşii ca să doarmă-n colb de cronici;
- Din trecutul de mărire v-ar privi cel mult ironici.
- Cum nu vii tu, Ţepeş doamne, ca punând mâna pe ei,
- Să-i împarţi în două cete: în smintiţi şi în mişei,
- Şi în două temniţi large cu de-a sila să-i aduni,
- Să dai foc la puşcărie şi la casa de nebuni!)
In contrast, documents of Germanic, Saxon, and Hungarian origin
portray Vlad as a tyrant, a monster so cruel that he needs to be
stopped. For example, Johan Christian Engel characterizes Vlad as "a
cruel tyrant and a monster of humankind".
[citation needed] Several authors and historians believe that this may be the result of a bad image campaign initiated by the
Transylvanian Saxons who were actively persecuted during Vlad's reign and later maintained and spread by
Matthias Corvinus.
It is conceivable that these actions were not beyond the Hungarian King
since he had already framed Vlad Țepeș by producing a forged letter to
incriminate Vlad of coalition with the Turks. However, there is
incontestable evidence, both in Romanian and foreign documents,
including Vlad's own letters, that he killed tens of thousands of people
in horrible ways.
[citation needed]
Vampires
The connection of the name "Dracula" with
vampirism was made by
Bram Stoker, who probably found the name of his
Count Dracula character in
William Wilkinson's book,
An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: with various Political Observations Relating to Them.
[24] It is known that Stoker made notes about this book.
[25]
It is also suggested that Stoker may have been made aware of the
reputation of Vlad through an acquaintance of his, Hungarian professor
Ármin Vámbéry from Szentgyörgy, in the
Kingdom of Hungary (now
Svätý Jur in Slovakia). The fact that character Dr. Abraham
Van Helsing
states in the 1897 novel that the source of his knowledge about Count
Dracula is his friend Arminius appears to support this hypothesis,
although there is no specific evidence that Stoker and Vambéry ever
discussed Wallachian history.
Referring to a letter from his friend Arminius, van Helsing comments:
He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name
against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of
Turkey-land. (Chapter 18, pp 145)
This encourages the reader to identify the Vampire Count with the
Voivode Dracula first mentioned by him, the one betrayed by his own
brother: Vlad III Dracula was betrayed by his brother Radu the Handsome.
Other uses
English
rock band
Kasabian wrote a song called "Vlad the Impaler", with a video featuring Vlad played by
Noel Fielding, featured on their third album
West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
Gallery
-
Transylvanian Saxon engraving from 1462 depicting Vlad Țepeș
-
See also
References
- Florescu, Radu R.; McNally, Raymond T. (1989). Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-28655-9.
- "Vlad III". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
- Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Cluj-Napoca, no. 35, Institutul de Istorie din Cluj, Editura Academiei, 1996, pp. 29–34.
- Transylvanian Review 5. Romanian Cultural Foundation. 1996. p. 107.
- Nicolae Stoicescu (1976). Vlad Țepeș (in Romanian). Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România. p. 154.
- Babinger, Franz (1978). Mehmed the Conqeror - And his Time. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691099006.
- "Prince Charles claims Vlad the Impaler as ancestor". Today.msnbc.msn.com. 2011-10-27. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- The Night Attack
- Raymond T. McNally, Radu Florescu (1994). In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0-395-65783-0.
- Constantin Rezachevici, Unde a fost mormântul lui Vlad Tepes? (II), Magazin Istoric, nr.3, 2002, p.41)
- Rezachevici, Constantin (2002). The tomb of Vlad Tepes: the most probable hypothesis. Journal of Dracula Studies, Number 4.[1]
- Gutknecht. (1521), p.7
German - "er liess kinnder praten die musten ire mütter essen. Und
schneyd den frawen den prüst ab den musten ire man essen. Danach liess
er sie all spissen."
"Er briet die Kinder, und ihre Mütter
mussten diese essen. Er schnitt den Frauen die Brüste ab, und ihre
Männer mussten diese essen. Danach ließ er sie alle pfählen
- Florescu, Radu R. (1999). Essays on Romanian History. The Center for Romanian Studies. ISBN 973-9432-03-4.
- Harmening, Dieter (1983). Der Anfang von Dracula. Zur Geschichte von Geschichten. Königshausen+Neumann. ISBN 3-88479-144-3.
- Garza, Thomas (2010). The Vampire in Slavic Cultures. United States: Cognella. pp. 145–146. ISBN 978-1-60927-411-5.
- Dickens, David B.; Miller, Elizabeth (2003). Michel Beheim, German Meistergesang, and Dracula. Journal of Dracula Studies, Number 5.
- McNally, Raymond. (1982). "Origins of the Slavic Narratives about the Historical Dracula".
- Striedter, Jurij. (1961). "Die Erzählung vom walachisen Vojevoden Drakula in der russischen und deutschen Überlieferung".
- Perrie, Maureen (1987). The image of Ivan the Terrible in Russian folklore. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-33075-0.
- Florescu, Radu (1989). Dracula, Prince of Many Faces. New York: Back Bay Books. pp. 206–208. ISBN 9780316286565.
- Bučinjelić, Miho. "Epistula Michaelis Bocignoli Ragusei". Mudrac.ffzg.hr. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- "Epistula Michaelis Bocignoli Ragusei in multiple languages". Archive.org. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- "Letter 3 (summary)". Natkat.org. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- Wilkinson, William. "Account
of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political
Observations Relating to Them by William Wilkinson - Reviews,
Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists". Goodreads.com. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- Miller, Elizabeth (2000). Dracula: sense & nonsense. Desert Island Books. ISBN 1-874287-24-4.
External links
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