Vlad Dracula was kind of like the Marilyn Manson of historic Romania. He was pretty twisted, but not nearly as twisted as the widely circulated rumors about him suggested, and, of course, he was considered a hero by many – even today (despite poor record sales).
Nevertheless, the fifteenth-century Wallachian prince’s reputation was still frightening enough to be used as a model for Dracula, the toothy vampire starring in the horror story of the same name, penned in 1897 by Bram Stoker.
While many Romanians happily cash in on the tourism fueled by Stoker’s artistic license, some argue that Vlad’s good name, an undeniably significant figure in their history, has been tainted by his literary doppelganger. Vlad is still considered by many Romanians to be a hero. He was voted one of “100 Greatest Romanians” in the Mari Români television show in 2006.
The real Vlad Dracula was born in 1431 in the Transylvanian town of Sighisoara. Somewhat counter-intuative to his enduring fame, he only ruled Wallachia for a mere eight cumulative years (1448, 1456-1462 and 1476). His father, Prince Vlad II, was called Vlad Dracul (from the Latin ‘draco’, meaning ‘dragon’) after the chivalric Order of the Dragon accredited to him by Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1431. The Romanian name Draculea – literally ‘son of Dracul’ – was bestowed on Tepes by his father. Bram Stoker chose to adopt an alternative meaning of the word draco, which, conveniently, was ‘devil’.
Vlad’s childhood was rather brutal. He spent many years in a Turkish prison, where he was allegedly raped by members of the Turkish court. He returned to Wallachia, unsurprisingly, a very angry young man, though he was soon able to vent that anger in a productive fashion. Notorious for his brutal punishment methods, ranging from decapitation to boiling and burying alive, he gained the post-mortem name ‘Tepes’ (‘impaler’) after his favorite form of pre-death torture. A wooden stake was carefully driven through the victim’s anus, to emerge from the body just below the shoulder in such a way as to not pierce any vital organs. This ensured at least 48 hours of unimaginable suffering before death. Tepes legendarily enjoyed eating a full meal (rare, one presumes) while watching his Turkish and Greek prisoners writhe on stakes in front of him. It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to make the connection of how his years in that Turkish prison might have contributed to this affinity.
There’s no denying that skewering defeated enemies was extravagantly cruel, but to be fair to poor Vlad, this was not, in fact, an unusual form of torture in medieval Europe. Tepes’ first cousin, Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great), the much celebrated Prince of Moldavia, is said to have ‘impaled by the navel, diagonally, one on top of each other’ 2300 Turkish prisoners in 1473. And that guy ended up being sainted!
Bram Stoker’s fictional, bloodsucking Dracula, of course, was a lavish exaggeration, recast as an undead corpse reliant on the blood of the living to sustain his immortality. Though he never actually stepped foot in Romania, had he made the journey, Stoker would have had no shortage of additional vampire material to work with, being that vampires formed an integral part of traditional folklore. The seventh-born child was said to be particularly susceptible to this affliction, identifiable by a hoof as a foot or a tail at the end of its spine.
Vlad Tepes died in 1476, and Stoker in 1912, yet Count Dracula lives on in an extraordinary subculture of fiction and film. The original “Dracula” has never been out of print.
So, now that we’ve straightened that out, wanna do some real Dracula chasing? Here’s a fun post I wrote for Gadling a few years back: can you guess which is the real Dracula’s castle? – part of my criminally under-recognized “My Bloody Romania” series.
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May 6th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Two comments, for the new LP lottery :)
1. Where did you learn about Vlad Tepes being raped in Turkish prisons? I can’t recall any medieval documentation on this. Can you please name any source for this. I will assume there is one which I don’t know of.
2. This seems of interest to foreign tourists, so I’ll add the information here:
- Impalement was not uncommon in Medieval Europe, from Scottland to Greece. However the Turks where the ones to vastly use it in the Balkan peninsula, in order to inflict terror in population (and later Tartars in Eastern Europe)
- Vlad Tepes documented impalements amount to barely 30. They where primarily directed against the Turks and their aristocratic acolytes, as a payback measure, with the same type of currency. It is how he got the nickname, as he was one of the first local princes to use this “pagan way” as a method of punishment.
- The real revenge Vlad Tepes took on the Turks was against the battle with Mehmed the 2nd. Just as the Turks used to hang and impale dead corpses of their victims, Tepes arranged a forest of impaled Turkish corpses from the first series of battles.
PS: It’s a pity Romania doesn’t cash more on Vlad Tepes. The “Dracula park” near Sighisoara wasn’t that idiotic idea. But it may work only if things improve overall.
May 6th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Wow interesting stuff! I always think it’s really fascinating and important to learn the truth behind popular folklore.
May 7th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Funny how Sighisoara, one of the most charming (and sunny, while I was there) medieval cities one can visit, is the birthplace of a man whose mere name conjures up images of darkness and torture. Quite the dichotomy.
May 7th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
@Baiat Mare – Sounds like you’ve done some homework! :) You know, the comment about Vlad *allegedly* being raped while in prison is straight out of the LP, written by a former author and fact checked by I don’t know who. I’m afraid I don’t know the original source. That he impaled anywhere from 30 to 3000 (or whatever) prisoners during his campaign is probably a fact lost in time. And I have to disagree about Dracula Park. It would have sadly cheapened Sighisoara (more so than the already tedious number of souvenir vendors) and building it where they proposed, Breite Ancient Oak Tree Reserve, would have been catastrophic. Maybe if they built is somewhere faaaar outside Sighisoara and provided the necessary tourism infrastructure, I could warm to the idea. Still, I think there are already enough cheap theme parks in Europe.
@Stephanie – Yeah, and Romania has *so much* of that folklore stuff, some if which survives today.
@Katie – True, and, comparatively, they don’t go nearly as far as some non-Dracula sites, trying to sell and promote the connection. Subtlety should never be underestimated as a tourism attribute.
May 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I’m hoping that sometime this month we will get more driving stories from Romania. I definitely want to rent a car if I go, and plan to use your tactics if I get pulled over.
May 7th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Well, I don’t mind such picaresque or picturesque details, but if it’s not fact checked (I doubt it is, for this information must be an invention), it’s a rather gross metaphor for such a central character of a Romanian travel guide (Tepes being anally raped by some Turkish inmates who traumatized him so much that he started to impale others too lol :-)))). I’m not even sure that the dissociative humor of travel writing justifies it.
Not to mention the typical sensitivities of Romanians which you are familiar with. But the book is not for them anyways.
Nevertheless, maybe you will consider adjusting this part in the next edition, for I doubt there is any source for this.
PS: I forgot to mention – great cover, one the best to be put on a Romanian travel book. The image is just TOO good (although at first glance it may look like a cliche). Funny that few Romanians have actually been there.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:35 am
question: is this what they mean by getting medieval on somebody’s ass?
p.s. i’m gonna win both books
May 10th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I love hearing the real story behind some of the perceptions. I’d also love to win a guidebook, I’d love to visit Romania soon.
May 12th, 2010 at 5:29 am
Hi Leif,
I generally hesitate to discuss Vlad outside Romania as most “foreigners” (one of which I am now myself, as well as my family) only know of him through the Bram Stoker novel. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I am working on a historical novel centered around Vlad. the word “vampire” does not get mentioned:-)
Based on my own research Vlad was actually a political prisoner or rather a guarantee of his father’s good behavior and was not actually imprisoned, but raised at the Ottoman court according to the customs of the era that demanded young heirs to be fostered at the courts of other nobles. Granted, Vlad (and his younger brother Radu) were not raised in a Christian court / family and most certainly he found little to love during his time there, as his constant rebellion against the Porte as an adult can attest. Whether he was raped or not is not something I am aware of, but it is commonly known (at least in Romania) that Radu, named “the handsome” by his contemporaries, was a lover and favorite of Mehmed II, and he accompanied the invading army to Wallachia. Despite facing overwhelming odds and through sheer gumption and ruthlessness, Vlad and his vastly outnumbered army defeated them. Yes, captives were impaled. (Pretty common if horribly brutal at the time in Europe; no worse than Roman crucifixion, or Spanish Inquisition techniques…) Given the disparity in numbers, the Romanians at the time used pretty much all the guerrilla techniques they had acquired over centuries: run to the mountains, poison wells, burn fields, kill prisoners (unless wealthy and thus able to pay ransom) – because you can’t drag prisoners around as you hide in the marshes and forests.
As I am sure you know, Vlad was eventually betrayed and murdered, Radu took the throne and thus ended a chapter in Romanian history. His enduring myth with his countrymen owes much to his fight not only against the Ottomans but also against things like corruption and graft. (Can you imagine, corruption in the Balkans… wait, that has not changed in 600 years. Oh well…) Even Romania’s national poet Eminescu immortalized Vlad’s drive to bring justice and fairness to the country in one of his most famous poems.
Anyway, in closing, a great deal of the stories depicting Vlad as a monster were spread by the equivalent of the tabloid press of the time due to a series of trade disputes with the Transylvanian nobility. Some of these stories continued to travel long after his death and are believed to be Stoker’s original inspiration.
I am taking my Canadian family to finally visit Romania this summer and look forward to sharing some of the beautiful spots with them. (No need to tell them about Vlad – they know how I feel about him!)
May 13th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I saw a history channel documentary on this process. Very interesting. The show included several doctors who had done research showing that this was in fact possible, based on the diameter of the stake, angle of entry, and shape of the tip. Horrible to think about.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Thanks for all the info Beatrice and, erm, “baiat”. Fascinating stuff.
@Jerod – i’ll have to look for that show. Sounds intersting (and gross).
May 17th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
[...] battle-savvy leadership ran in Stefan’s family; his cousin Vlad ‘Tepes’ Dracula, though distinctly less pious in temperament, also fought – or, more accurately, frightened [...]
May 17th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Well, I don’t really see what made him any more terrible than any other prince of the day. Didn’t the Turks bring one of those methods to Europe?
Loving this series; keep it coming!