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But...many people who have read the book are not aware that the
character Dracula the vampire is based on was a highborn member of a
Romanian court, prominent in European history – and much more
terrifying than his fictional descendant. While not the
black-cloaked, centuries-old, fanged bloodsucker of literary fame,
the infamy of the historical figure outperforms that of Stoker's
creation.
Prince Vlad, or as he was called even in his own time, Dracula
(which means "Son of the Dragon") tops the list of
Romania's many, many Christian crusaders who, in the transition
years between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, fought to keep
the Muslim-faithed Ottoman Turks out of their country.
Odd that a name known for stirring nightmares actually belonged
to a crusader of a religious cause!
Still, Dracula was not a saint. He ruled his military kingdom of
Wallachia – southern Romania – with a heavy and blood-soaked
fist. To not only the Turks but also to many of his own countrymen
he was Vlad The Impaler, Vlad Die Tepes (pronounced
Tee-pish). Determined not to be overtaken by the intrigue of an
intriguing political underhandedness, in a world in which princes
fell daily to smiling, hypocritical "allies," paranoia
among the aristocracy was, and probably needed to be, utmost in a
sovereign's disposition. Dracula built a defense around him that
dared not open kindness nor trust to anyone. During his tenure, he
killed by the droves, impaling on a forest of spikes around his
castle thousands of subjects who he saw as either traitors, would-be
traitors or enemies to the security of Romania and the Roman
Catholic Church. Sometimes, he slew merely to show other possible
insurgents and criminals just what their fate would be if they
became troublesome.
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Vlad Dracula
(AP) |
A pamphlet published in Nuremburg, Germany, immediately following
his death in 1476, tells of his burning beggars after allowing them
free food at his court. "He felt they were eating the people's
food for nothing, and could not repay it," the broadside
explains. And there are countless of other tales of Dracula's
wickedness written down ages ago, many of which will be related in
this article. |
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But, Vlad Dracula was more than just a medieval despot.
Biographers Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally call him "a
man of many faces". He was a politician; a voivode
(warrior); an erudite and well-learned gentleman when the
occasion-to-be fit; and, as has been indicated, he was a mass
murderer. He spoke several languages – Romanian, Turkish, Latin
and German – and steeped himself in the use of broadsword and
crossbow. He was an equestrian, riding at the head of his attacking
army like a Berskerker. At three separate times, Dracula
governed Wallachia, one of three Hungarian principalities that later
merged with the others – Transylvania (to the north) and Moldavia
(to the east) – to become the country of Romania. Because
Wallachia, his province, sat directly above the open Danube River
Plain, which separated the Ottoman Empire from free Romania, his was
the frontal defense against the non- Christian Turks. Despite his
cruelties and severe punishments, and because of his seething hatred
for anything Turkish, he is considered today a national hero by the
populace. Because he died in warfare against the foe, even fought
against a brother whom he considered a sell-out to the enemy, he is
often upheld as a martyr. Statues stand in his honor, and his
birthplace at Sighisoara and resting-place at Snagov are considered
almost canonical.
"Though many Westerners are baffled that a man whose
political and military career was as steeped in blood as was that of
Vlad Dracula," writes Elizabeth Miller for Journal of the
Dark magazine, "the fact remains that for many Romanians he
is an icon of heroism...It is this duality that is part of his
appeal."
The adventurous life led by Dracula put him in contact with the
era's most fascinating people, among them "White Knight"
Jonas Hunyadi, Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus and the ambitious
Sultan Mehmed of Turkey. In his lifetime, Dracula witnessed the
rising use of gunpowder as a means of destruction, the Holy
Crusades, the fall of Constantinople and the nouveau
philosophy of art, alchemy and culture that became known as the
Renaissance.
It was no idle choice that the red-bearded Irish novelist Bram
Stoker in 1896 chose the factual Impaler as the model for his nosferatu,
his "undead" vampire. Although admittedly never having set
foot on Romanian soil, having done most of his research at the
London Library, it is obvious that the infamous Count Dracula
emulates his historical counterpart. Poring over texts such as An
Extraordinary and Shocking History of a Great Berserker Called
Prince Dracula, The Historie and Superstitions of Romantic Romania
and Wilkinson's Account of Wallachia and Moldavia, Stoker
chanced upon the tales of Dracula. (It has been suggested by
scholars that such histories would be incomplete without generous
space attributed to the man.) In the tomes he studied, Stoker
assuredly read of the voivode Dracula, whose atrocities
trembled the Christian Western World and whose audacity saved it
from Allah.
A few 20th Century authors have denied any connection between the
Romanian prince of fact and the bloodthirsty count of fiction,
opining that Stoker merely used the rhythmical name he discovered in
the pages of old histories. They base their interpretation primarily
on two premises. The first is that Stoker's ghoul resides in a
castle in the Transylvanian Alps and not in Wallachia's foothills,
the better part of some 150 miles. The other is that the vampire is
described by Stoker as being of Szekely blood, from a race of people
in the "northern country," and not of an older Wallachian
stock.
Other writers, however, recognizing the liberties afforded by
literary license, point to the striking similarities that speak very
strongly beyond coincidence. Most notable are the references to
Count Dracula's past as uttered by the fictional nobleman himself.
They paint a history parallel to Vlad Dracula's.
In the novel, when Jonathan Harker, a British solicitor, visits
Dracula's castle in Transylvania for the purpose of closing a real
estate deal (the vampire is relocating to London to pursue fresh
blood), the count describes the land over which Harker has just
journeyed as "ground fought over for centuries by the
Wallachian, the Saxon and the Turk...enriched by the blood of men,
patriots or invaders."
In a subsequent chapter, Count Dracula relates to Harker a
virtual history of his own royal heritage. "Is it a wonder that
we were a conquering race," he asks, "that we were proud;
that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar or the Turk
poured his thousands on our frontiers we drove them back?...To us,
for centuries, was trusted the guarding of the frontier of
Turkeyland; aye, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier
guard."
At one point, Count Dracula alludes to an "ancestor"
who "sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of
slavery on them!" Vlad Dracula had such a brother.
There are other tens of references, actually, throughout the
novel that not-too-subtly point to Vlad Dracula as the accurate
source – references to particular military campaigns in
which he took part, contemporaries with whom he acquainted, and
places he visited.
In summary, had Stoker not taken his character from the crimson
cloth of Vlad the Impaler, he then certainly adorned his creation
with a cloak colored amazingly close to the same hue.
Following is the story of the real Dracula, a man who, whether he
would have preferred or not, became, in another incarnation, a
figure whom the World Index has called, "one of the top ten
most recognizable names in the English-speaking world."
*****
I thank Messrs. Bogdan Banu and Nemecsek Einar, both
Romanian-born and both quite knowledgeable of the Vlad Tepes days,
for their input and clarifications in this story.
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