Count the Impaler Dracula biography. Dracula

Briefly about the article: Who doesn't know Dracula, the great and terrible vampire of all times? But the historical prototype of this character was, if you look at it, an unremarkable ruler, albeit quite cruel. The consequences of “black medieval PR” led to the emergence of a lot of legends and speculation about Vlad, but we will try to abstract from the obviously far-fetched details and tell you about the real events in the life of the “king of the vampires.”

Son of the Dragon

VLAD III PESH

He had an energetic, original face, a thin nose and some special, strangely shaped nostrils; an arrogant high forehead, and hair that grew sparingly and at the same time in thick tufts near the temples; very thick eyebrows, almost meeting on the forehead. The mouth, as far as I could see under the heavy mustache, was determined, even cruel in appearance, with unusually sharp white teeth protruding between the lips, the bright color of which was striking in its vitality in a man of his age. But what was most striking was the extraordinary pallor of his face.

Bram Stoker, "Dracula"

Will you be able to recognize Vlad Dracula if, God forbid, you suddenly meet him on the street? After all, as you know, he is an imposing aristocrat in a long cloak with blood-red lining, with pale skin and jet-black hair... Or a disgusting creature with long teeth and leathery wings? Black wolf, bat, thick fog? Finding ourselves in the past, we would be very surprised to find the real Dracula - an unprepossessing, thin man with suspiciously bulging eyes, when looking at whom we want to check if the wallet is in place, and not run away shouting “Help! A vampire!".

We continue the series of articles about historical figures who became especially famous thanks to books of the science fiction genre. In previous issues we talked about Robin Hood and the Count of Saint-Germain. Today we will meet Dracula himself!

Rating - count!

Vlad III Dracula(November or December 1431 - December 1476) - an ordinary historical figure, the ruler of the Principality of Wallachia, located in the south of modern Romania. Contemporaries gave Vlad the nickname Tepes ( Ţepeş- “impaler”) and the glory of a tyrant who outdid King Herod and Nero in atrocities. With the light hand of Bram Stoker, he turned into a vampire - the textbook Count Dracula, in whose image and likeness all current bloodsuckers are invented (for example, Count Strahd from the Ravenloft universe in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons).

The real Dracula was first and foremost a military leader. He fought for the independence of Wallachia from the Ottoman Empire (the Turks called him Kazikli Bey, that is, “Prince the Impaler”). In his homeland, he is still revered as a Christian knight who resisted Islamic expansion. The nickname Tepes “stuck” to Vlad only after his death (hardly any of the Romanians dared to call him that to his face). Here, ill-wishers made a special effort, exaggerating Dracula’s habit of executing his enemies by impalement (a common thing for that time) and spreading rumors about incredible bloody orgies. Stoker drew inspiration from these unproven stories. In addition, stories about Vlad’s gastronomic quirks played a certain role - he allegedly loved to eat bread, dipping it in blood (probably pork).

With fire and sword

The Crown of Wallachia was not inherited. The ruler was elected by the boyars. The only requirement for candidates was noble birth ( os de domn- “the flesh and bone of the governor”), even an illegitimate child could become a ruler. Therefore, the political situation in the country was unstable - dynastic feuds and coups broke out every now and then. Everything was further complicated by the fact that Wallachia was located between warring neighbors - the Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, who “pulled the blanket over themselves” and tried in every possible way to take possession of a strategically important region.

Vlad III was not born in Wallachia, but in the small Transylvanian city of Sighisoara. Just at that time, the boyars - allies of Turkey - overthrew his father, Vlad II, and put their man at the helm of the principality.

The father of the future “vampire” was a clever politician and constantly maneuvered between Hungary and Turkey. To enlist the support of Sultan Murad, he gave him his two youngest sons - Vlad and Radu - as hostages. Here their destinies divided. Vlad was kept in the underground dungeon of the Egrigez fortress and was treated very poorly.

After the boyars killed his father in 1448, Vlad III was released from captivity and, moreover, placed by the Turks on the empty throne of Wallachia as a “puppet ruler.” However, the Hungarians were not satisfied with such arrangements - they sent an army to Wallachia, and Vlad, having learned about it, prudently hid in Moldova.

After the death of the Moldavian ruler Bogdan, Vlad, risking his life, fled to hostile Hungary. By some miracle, he managed to make peace with the local regent, Janos Hunyandi, and even enlist his support. With the help of the Hungarians, in 1456 Vlad drove the Turks out of Wallachia and reigned there for 6 years.

This was the main, longest period of his reign, when Vlad, according to some sources (for example, “The Tale of Dracula the Voivode” by clerk Fyodor Kuritsyn), destroyed up to 100,000 people - that is, about 20% of the population of his country - and earned the nickname “Tepesh” . That's what the chronicles say. How could it really be?

Internal affairs

Vlad's residence was located in the city of Targovishte. In addition to wars with the Turks and reprisals against conspirators, Dracula was engaged in quite ordinary affairs. He traveled to Bucharest on embassy business. He made laws. Met with ambassadors. Handled the most complicated litigation. He started the construction and reconstruction of several castles. He probably appeared in public on holidays and hunted in his free time.

Not trusting the aristocrats, Vlad recruited commoners into his army, personally knighting them. He deprived German settlements of trading privileges (this was the source of income for his political competitors) and launched devastating campaigns against them. That is why in German chronicles Dracula was called wutrich- “furious”, “monster”, “fierce”.

The economy of Wallachia was undermined by constant changes of rulers and incessant wars. Agriculture withered away, trade almost ceased, and the crime rate exceeded all imaginable limits. In such conditions, Vlad III had to resort to the most brutal measures. He exemplarily executed bandits and drowned peasant revolts in blood.

External affairs

Following family tradition, Vlad entered into an alliance with Hungary against Turkey (he was also pushed to this by the fact that his brother Radu lived with the Turks, who dreamed of taking the throne). Pope Pius II promised to give money for the war with the Ottoman Empire. The Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus guaranteed military support. However, when it came down to it, they left Dracula alone with the formidable Muhammad II, the conqueror of Constantinople.

In 1459, Vlad stopped paying tribute to the Turks, conscripted the entire combat-ready male population into the army, crossed the Danube and slaughtered 20,000 people on the territory of the Ottoman Empire. In response, Sultan Muhammad II invaded Wallachia with an army of sixty thousand (historians sometimes talk about 200,000 - but this figure is clearly overestimated). Realizing that he would have no chance in an open conflict, Dracula allowed the Turks to capture Targovishte and began a guerrilla war.

His famous “night raid” on the Sultan’s camp went down in history - Vlad with 7,000 soldiers launched a desperate sortie, destroyed up to 15,000 enemies, almost made his way to the tent of Muhammad himself (to disguise the governor and a group of his bravest people dressed as Turks) and received a lung head injury. Frightened, the Sultan hastily left Wallachia, leaving Rada the Beautiful in his place.

Targeted attacks on the enemy army, demonstrative reprisals against captured Turks and the “scorched earth” tactics earned Vlad the fame of a brave and wise commander. But miracles do not happen - in 1462, Dracula was forced to retreat to the allied Hungary, losing Wallachia to his “Turkish” brother Radu.

Here Vlad was overtaken by betrayal. The Hungarian king Matthias decided to pocket the pope's money (40,000 guilders) allocated for the war, and blamed his vassal for the failures at the front. He fabricated letters from Dracula to the Sultan, where the governor allegedly asked for peace and offered assistance in the war with Hungary.

The original letters were “lost”; only copies in Latin, written in a manner completely uncharacteristic of Dracula, have reached us. Then all the chronicles suddenly began to describe in unison the sadistic habits of a veteran of the Turkish war. As a result, he was convicted and placed in prison.

Vlad spent about 12 years there and regained his freedom only by marrying Matthias’ cousin (some historians believe that it was not right for the princess to marry a prisoner, so he was released 4 years after his imprisonment) and converting to Catholicism. The latter fact infuriated the Orthodox Church - this is why Russian chronicles denounce Dracula as a “devil” and an “apostate.”

Having accumulated strength, in 1475 Vlad recaptured Wallachia from his brother, but his position remained very weak. His subjects remembered well the ways in which he restored order in the country. When the Turks launched another attack, Dracula was able to gather only 4,000 men and, naturally, lost the battle.

There are several versions of his death. According to one, he was killed by the boyars who went over to the side of the Sultan. According to another, more common one, Dracula fell in battle with the Turks - and the governor was stabbed in the back by one of his own soldiers.

Who is right?

Who really is this Dracula - a hero or a tyrant? It is impossible to give a definite answer, because, if you think about it, he was both. Yes, of course, Dracula ruled with an iron fist, trying in every possible way to intimidate his enemies. He was characterized by sophisticated oriental cruelty, which he saw enough of in his youth “visiting” the Sultan. Vlad dealt with traitors and invaders in such a way that even the bloodthirsty Turks felt sick. This was his blood revenge for his father and brother.

However, by the standards of the Middle Ages, such behavior can hardly be called out of the ordinary. For example, Vlad’s cousin, the Moldavian prince Stefan impaled two thousand people - but at the same time went down in history under the nicknames “Great” and “Saint”. Dracula's terrible reputation as a “medieval Hitler” is the result of massive “black PR” organized by his countless envious people and ill-wishers who wanted to discredit Vlad in front of the whole world.

Unthinkable deeds and ferocious jokes were attributed to him. He allegedly ordered stakes to be placed (their height depended on the rank of the executed person - the higher, the more noble) in a kind of “forest” and feasted there, enjoying the groans of the unfortunate. The babies were impaled on top of their mothers on the same stake. The victims had their limbs cut off, nails driven into their heads, their genitals cut out, their skin removed and scalded with boiling water.

Legends say that Dracula ordered a golden goblet to be placed by the fountain in the main square of Targovishte so that everyone could drink from it. According to the law of the principality, theft was punishable by death, so no one dared to steal this jewel.

When 160 ducats were stolen from an overseas merchant's cart, Dracula ordered not only to find the thief, but also to secretly give the merchant 161 ducats. The next day the thief was caught and impaled, and the merchant discovered an extra coin and honestly reported it to Vlad. He explained to the merchant that this was a test. If the merchant had hidden it, he would have sat on a stake next to the thief.

No less famous is the story of the ambassadors who refused to take off their hats (turbans) in the presence of Dracula. He ordered their hats to be nailed to their heads. Having met a peasant dressed in a short caftan in a field, Tepes ordered his “lazy” wife to be executed (despite the man’s protests), and appointed him a new one, ordering her to take proper care of her wife.

One day Dracula declared that there should be no poor or hungry people in his state. He invited all the beggars and cripples to a luxurious feast, and when they had eaten, he set fire to the building where the celebration took place, fulfilling his promise literally.

* * *

Vlad III was a man of his time. An ordinary, unremarkable feudal lord, whom we would never have heard of - if not for his “vampire” career. Even there is a lot of speculation in it - for example, there are rumors that Dracula’s grave in the Snagov Monastery turned out to be empty (desecrated, filled with donkey bones). That he was not beheaded in vain - after all, at that time this was how they dealt with vampires. Sometimes everything seemed the other way around - they say, Dracula himself fought with vampires and other evil spirits, impaling them, as expected.

After so many years, it is difficult to distinguish truth from lies. And is it really necessary, this truth? After all, the historical value of Dracula lies not in his true appearance, but in how we imagine him today. Ask anyone - who is Dracula? - and you will understand that we should be grateful to those who in ancient times weaved a web of occult myths around Vlad the Impaler. Otherwise, now we would be dealing with yet another unknown prince, and the world of fantasy would be deprived of the most famous vampire in the world.

There are historical figures whose cruel deeds chill the blood and inspire horror. According to biographers, he personally observed the torture of convicts, who were alternately doused with boiling water and ice water, and then drowned in the river. The Hungarian countess, who, according to legend, loved to bathe in the blood of young girls in order to preserve her youth, is not far behind.

This list can be continued endlessly, but it is worth noting the famous ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III the Impaler, who became the prototype of Dracula in the novel of the same name. The life of this bearer of the crown is shrouded in myths and true stories; they say that frightened enemies called Vlad the son of the devil. Tepes went down in history as an “impaler” and instigator of biological warfare, but in his native country he gained fame as a genius of military thought.

Childhood and youth

The biography of Tepes, a descendant of Vlad II Dracula and the Moldavian princess Vasiliki, partly remains a mystery, because scientists cannot give an exact answer when the ruler of Wallachia was born. Historians have only speculative facts and date his birth between 1429-1430 and 1436.

Young Tepes did not make a pleasant impression and had a repulsive appearance: his face was adorned with large, cold eyes and protruding lips. According to an ancient legend, a little boy saw right through people. Vlad’s parent raised his offspring in accordance with the strict rules of the time, so initially the young man learned to wield a weapon, and only then began to learn to read and write.

Vlad spent his childhood in the historical region, the city of Sighisoara. At that time, Transylvania (now located in Romania) belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, and the house in which Tepes lived with his father and older brother still stands and is located at Zhestyanshchikov 5.

In 1436, Vlad II became the ruler of Wallachia and moved to the capital of this small state - Targovishte. The ruler's possessions were located between Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire, so the prince of Wallachia was ready for an attack by the Turks. To maintain sovereignty, Dracul was forced to pay tribute to the Turkish Sultan in wood and silver, as well as give expensive gifts to Turkish nobles.

Following the ancient custom, Vlad II sent his sons to the Turks, so Tepes and his brother Radu were held in voluntary captivity for four years. According to rumors, the brothers observed torture in Turkey, and Radu became the object of sexual violence. However, there is no reliable evidence that Vlad II sent his offspring to the Ottoman Empire as hostages.

Scientists, on the contrary, believe that the ruler of Wallachia was confident in the safety of his sons, since he himself often visited the Turkish Sultan. The only thing that Vlad and Radu had to fear during their stay in Turkey was the changeable mood of the Sultan, who loved to touch alcohol.

Governing body

In December 1446, the Hungarians carried out a coup d'état, as a result of which Vlad II's head was cut off and his older brother Tepes was buried alive. These events became the background to the formation of Dracula's character.

The Turkish Sultan learned about this Hungarian outrage and began to gather troops. Having defeated the Hungarians, the leader of the Ottoman Empire placed Tepes on the throne, displacing the Hungarian protege Vladislav II, who took the throne with the support of the Transylvanian governor Janos Hunyadi.

The Sultan lent Dracula Turkish troops, and in 1448 a new ruler appeared in Wallachia. The newly-minted ruler Tepes begins an investigation into the murder of his father and stumbles upon facts related to the boyars.

Janos Hunyadi declared Dracula's accession to the throne illegal, the Hungarian commander began to gather an army, but by that time Tepes had managed to hide in Moldova, then in Transylvania, from where he was expelled by Janos' supporters.

In 1456, Tepes again visited Transylvania, where he gathered an army of associates in order to conquer the throne of Wallachia. It is known that Vlad III ruled the state for 6 years and made his mark not only inside Wallachia, but also outside these lands. According to some sources, during his reign Tepes destroyed about one hundred thousand people, but this data has not been confirmed.

He also pursued church policies aimed at strengthening the church, provided material assistance to clergy, and also became famous for his military campaigns in Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire (Tepes refused to pay tribute). Among other things, Vlad III sent money transfers to the monasteries of Greece.

Personal life

Contemporaries describe Vlad the Impaler in different ways. Some say that he was a pale-faced and thin handsome man with a pitch-black mustache, while others claim that the ruler of Wallachia had a repulsive appearance, and his bulging, cold eyes instilled fear in everyone. But scientists agree on one thing: Vlad Dracul was an infinitely cruel person.

It was not for nothing that the ruler was nicknamed “the impaler,” since impaling people was Vlad III’s favorite method of execution. Enemies who died such deaths bled to death, so pale bodies hung on sharpened sticks (Vlad preferred stakes with a rounded top, lubricated with oil, which were inserted into the rectum).

By the way, this is why Vlad Dracula was nicknamed a vampire in folklore and literary works, although there is no evidence that Tepes tasted human blood.

It is noteworthy that Sultan Mehmed II, seeing thousands of rotting corpses of the Turks, fled with his army without looking back. Vlad III liked this grave environment and his appetite even increased from the sight of the agony of his defeated enemies.

As for Tepes’s personal life, it was shrouded in mystical and mysterious halos: so many literary works have been written about his wives and mistresses that it is difficult to understand whether it is reality or fiction of the writers. Rumor has it that Dracula was married twice to certain Elizabeth and Ilona Sziladyi. The ruler of Wallachia had three sons: Mikhail, Vlad and Mikhnia the Evil.

Death

They say that Vlad III Tepes died in 1476 on the initiative of Lajota Basarab. But there is no exact information about how the enemy of the Ottoman Empire died. There are several opinions: either Vlad was killed by bribed subjects, or Tepes died from the sword during a battle with the Turks (allegedly Dracula was accidentally mistaken for an enemy).

Others testified that Tepes's heart stopped beating out of the blue while he was sitting in the saddle. According to unreliable information, Dracula's head was kept in the palace of the Turkish Sultan as a trophy.

Dracula

Vlad III Tepes received the nickname Dracula from his father, who was a member of the highly respected Order of the Dragon, fighting pagans and atheists. Members of this community wore medallions made of precious metals, which were engraved with a mythological monster. Tepes’s parent also minted coins depicting fire-breathing creatures. The surname Tepes went to Vlad after his death: the Turks awarded this nickname to the prince; the word “Tepesh” itself means “stake”.

More than one work has been written about such a colorful character as Vlad III, but the book that helped popularize Dracula as a fanged lover of blood was written by Bram Stoker.

It is worth saying that the Irish writer worked on his brainchild for seven years, studying historical works about the Wallachian ruler. But, nevertheless, Stoker’s manuscript cannot be classified as a biographical work. This is a full-fledged novel, embellished with fantasy and artistic metaphor.

Bram's work gave a new wave in the world of literature and cinema: numerous manuscripts about Dracula, who fears the Sun and garlic, began to appear, and documentaries were also shot. The canonical image of Count Dracula, who lives in a gloomy castle and drinks blood, was created by the American actor Bela Lugosi (film “Dracula” (1931), who masterfully portrayed the pale-faced vampire.

Memory

• 1897 – novel “Dracula” (Bram Stoker)
• 1922 – film “Nosferatu. Symphony of Horror" (Friedrich Wilhelm)
• 1975 – opera “Vlad the Impaler” (Gheorghe Dumitrescu)
• 1992 – film “Dracula” ()
• 1998 – music album “Nightwing” about the life of Vlad Tepes (group Marduk)
• 2006 – musical “Dracula: Between Love and Death” (Bruno Pelletier)
• 2014 – film “Dracula” (Harry Shore)

Let's decide once and for all. Who is he - the great and terrible Count Dracula...

The Romanian ruler Vlad III, better known as Dracula (1431-1476), came from the family of Basarab the Great, ruler of Wallachia (1310-1352), who in a difficult struggle defended the independence of his state from Hungary.

Vlad III's father, Vlad II, seized the throne in 1436, overthrowing his cousin with the support of the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg. But later, yielding to Turkish pressure, Vlad II was forced to renew his vassal obligations to the Wallachian rulers and send his two sons, Vlad and Radu, as hostages to the Sultan’s court.

Hungary, of course, also increased pressure, and Vlad II constantly had to maneuver, seeking compromises.

However, in 1447 he was killed by order of the regent of the Hungarian kingdom, the legendary Janos Hunyadi, and the Wallachian throne was occupied by a new Hungarian protege.

In 1448, seventeen-year-old Vlad made his first attempt to seize the throne. Taking advantage of the fact that Hunyadi's troops were defeated by the Turks, Vlad, with Turkish help, reigned under the name of Vlad III.

Vlad III gained “world fame” during his lifetime. Mainly - thanks to frantic courage and equally frantic bloodthirstiness, which even in the gloomy era of the Late Renaissance seemed pathological. He was unimaginably cruel to his enemies, allies, and subjects: he chopped off their heads, burned them, tore off their skin, forced them to commit cannibalism, boiled them alive, ripped open their bellies, impaled them, etc. and so on. Dracula was especially good at impalement.
One day, without any reason, he attacked his own innocent city and killed 10 thousand subjects under torture. Many of them were impaled - so he earned another nickname - “tepes”, or “impaler”.

During the wildest of the massacres he organized in 1460, on St. Bartholomew's Day in one of the cities of Transylvania, 30 thousand people were impaled.

Count Dracula was more than just a sadist

His cruel punishments had some political meaning. For example, when the envoys of the Turkish court dared not to remove their headdresses in his presence, he ordered the turbans to be nailed to their heads, which was undoubtedly a defiantly bold demonstration of independence. Depending on the social status of the condemned, the stakes varied in length, diameter, color, and were used to create intricate geometric shapes - something like a “garden of torture,” where Vlad III loved to feast at his leisure, and the stench of corpses and the groans of those in agony did not spoil his appetite. That is why Vlad III entered the history of Romania under the nickname “Tepes” (lit. “Impaler”).

Even in a Hungarian prison, Vlad III, according to the ancient Russian “Tale of Dracula the Voivode,” remained true to his passions: he caught or bought mice and birds, which he tortured, impaled and beheaded. The fury of Vlad III (in German sources he is called "wutrich" - "furious", "monster", "fierce"), it seems, was fairly tired not only of his enemies, but also of his subjects, and in 1476 they killed Tepes at the age of 45. His severed head was preserved in honey and delivered as a trophy to the Sultan. According to the 15th century version, Vlad III was mistaken for a Turk in battle and, surrounded, pierced with spears, which, having noticed the mistake, was greatly regretted.

But if everything was so, then why did Vlad III, having managed to kill five attackers, not have time to explain to the others that he was their commander? And why did the “grieving” compatriots, trumpeting the head of the dead ruler, send it to the Sultan?

Some saw in him the national hero of Romania, a defender against Muslim expansion, a fighter against boyar abuses (C. Giurescu), others considered Vlad III an unprincipled tyrant, no different from other “Machiavellian” sovereigns of the Late Renaissance, and called him a “terrorist” ruler. , the forerunners of Stalin and Hitler (R. McNally and R. Florescu).

However, by all accounts, Dracula acquired the reputation of a vampire warlock only at the end of the 19th century - thanks to the imagination and talent of Bram Stoker (1847-1912), author of the famous novel "Dracula" (1897). Indeed, in written sources there is no mention of warlocks and vampirism of the Wallachian ruler. But if we take into account the specifics of these sources, it turns out that the fantasies of the English novelist were by no means groundless.

Therefore, information about Dracula should be interpreted not only in the historical-pragmatic aspect, but - and above all - in the mythological one. This concerns the name itself, or rather the nickname of Vlad III Dracula. Fyodor Kuritsyn, the alleged author of “The Tale of Dracula the Voivode,” characterizing Vlad III, directly says that “the name is Dracula in the Vlash language, and ours is the Devil. Here the Russian scribe of the 15th century makes a mistake, although not a fundamental one. In Romanian, “devil” is “dracul”, and “Dracula” is “son of the devil”.

The nickname “Dracul” was given to the father of Vlad III, but historians traditionally explain that the connection with evil spirits has nothing to do with it.

It is no coincidence that local peasants, who had never heard of Stoker’s novel, considered Dracula’s Castle an unclean place even in the 20th century.

Of course, there is reason to believe that the soldiers of Vlad III turned their spears against the ruler out of fear and revenge or for the sake of a Turkish reward, and cut off their head in order to send it to the Sultan and thereby curry favor or visually confirm the fulfillment of the “order” - the head of Tepes was exhibited in Istanbul on public view. But despite all this, Dracula’s warriors acted exactly as custom prescribed to deal with vampires: the bloodsucker’s body had to be pierced with a sharp weapon, and the head had to be separated from the body.

From this point of view, the story of Dracula's tomb is also characteristic. Vlad III was buried not far from the place of his death - in the Orthodox Snagov monastery, which his family patronized.

P.S. So Dracula is not a vampire, but a mere mortal!

Not every inhabitant of planet Earth knows that Count Dracula is one of the most popular heroes of many horror films, as well as the most famous vampire - this is a real figure who took place in history. Count Dracula's real name is Vlad III the Impaler. He lived in the 15th century. and was the ruler of the Wallachian Principality, or as it is also called: Wallachia.

Today we will analyze in detail the biography of Vlad Dracula and try to understand why he “became a vampire” after his death.

Tepes is a national hero of the Romanian people and a locally revered saint who is revered by the local church. He was a valiant warrior and fighter against Turkish expansion into Christian Europe. But why did he become known to the whole world as a vampire who drinks the blood of innocent people? Let's figure it out now.

Not everyone knows that the creator of the current image of Dracula was the English writer Bram Stoker. He was an active member of the occult organization Golden Dawn. Such communities at any time were characterized by a great interest in vampires, which is not an invention of writers or dreamers, but a specific medical fact. Doctors have long studied and documented the real facts of vampirism, which occur in our time and which is one of the most serious diseases. The image of a physically immortal vampire attracts occultists and black magicians who seek to contrast the lower world with the upper worlds - the Divine and spiritual.

In the VI century. The Byzantine Procopius of Caesarea, whose works are the main sources on the history of the ancient Slavs, noted that before the Slavs began to worship the thunder god (Perun), the ancient Slavs worshiped ghouls. Of course, we were not talking about Hollywood vampires attacking defenseless girls. In ancient, pagan times, vampires were called outstanding warriors, heroes who especially revered Blood as a spiritual and physical essence. There are even opinions that there were certain rituals of worshiping the Blood - ablutions, sacrifices and the like.

In ancient times, vampires were called outstanding warriors, heroes

Occultist organizations have completely distorted the ancient tradition, turning the worship of the sacred, spiritual Blood into the worship of biological. The Principality of Wallachia, which appeared in the 14th century, on whose banners since ancient times there was an image of a crowned eagle with a cross in its beak, a sword and a scepter in its paws, was the first large state formation on the territory of today's Romania. One of the leading historical figures of the era of Romania’s national formation is the Wallachian prince Vlad Tepes.

Prince Vlad III Tepes, Orthodox autocratic ruler of Wallachia. Almost everything connected with the activities of this person is shrouded in mystery. The place and time of his birth are not precisely established. Wallachia was not the most peaceful corner of medieval Europe. The flames of countless wars and fires destroyed the vast majority of handwritten monuments. Only from the surviving monastic chronicles was it possible to recreate the appearance of the real historical Prince Vlad, known to the modern world under the name of Count Dracula.

The year when the future ruler of Wallachia was born can only be approximately determined: between 1428 and 1431. Built at the beginning of the 14th century. the house on Kuznechnaya Street in Sighisoara still attracts the attention of tourists: it is believed that it was here that the boy named Vlad at baptism saw the light of day. It is unknown whether the future ruler of Wallachia was born here, but it has been established that his father, Prince Vlad Dracul, lived in this house. "Dracul" means dragon in Romanian. Prince Vlad was a member of the knightly Order of the Dragon, which aimed to protect Orthodoxy from infidels. The prince had three sons, but only one of them became famous - Vlad. It should be noted that he was a true knight: a brave warrior and a skilled commander, a deeply and truly believing Orthodox Christian, always guided in his actions by the standards of honor and duty. Vlad was distinguished by enormous physical strength. His fame as a magnificent cavalryman thundered throughout the country - and this was at a time when people had become accustomed to horses and weapons from childhood.

As a statesman, Vlad adhered to the principles of patriotism: the fight against invaders, the development of crafts and trade, the fight against crime. And in all these areas, in the shortest possible time, Vlad III achieved impressive success. The chronicles tell that during his reign it was possible to throw a gold coin and pick it up a week later in the same place. No one would dare not only to appropriate someone else's gold, but even to touch it. And this in a country where two years before there were no fewer thieves and vagabonds than townspeople and farmers! How did this transformation happen? Very simply - as a result of the policy of systematic cleansing of society from “asocial elements” pursued by the Wallachian prince. The trial at that time was simple and quick: a tramp or a thief, regardless of what he stole, faced the fire or the scaffold. The same fate was destined for all gypsies or known horse thieves and generally idle and unreliable people.

"Tepes" literally means "impaler"

It is important to know what the nickname under which Vlad III went down in history means. Tepes literally means “impaler.” It was the sharpened stake that was the main instrument of execution during the reign of Vlad III. Most of those executed were captured Turks and Gypsies. But the same punishment could befall anyone who was caught in a crime. After thousands of thieves died on stakes and burned in the flames of bonfires in city squares, there were no new hunters to test their luck.

Vlad did not give concessions to anyone, regardless of social status. Anyone who had the misfortune of incurring the prince's wrath faced the same fate. Prince Vlad’s methods also turned out to be a very effective regulator of economic activity: when several merchants, accused of trading with the Turks, breathed their last on stakes, cooperation with the enemies of the Faith of Christ came to an end.

The attitude towards the memory of Vlad the Impaler in Romania, even in modern Romania, is not at all the same as in Western European countries. And today many consider him a national hero of the era of the formation of the future Romania, which dates back to the first decades of the 14th century. At that time, Prince Basarab I founded a small independent principality in Wallachia. The victory he won in 1330 over the Hungarians, the then masters of the Danube lands, secured his rights. Then began a long, grueling struggle with the large feudal lords - the boyars. Accustomed to unlimited power in their tribal fiefs, they resisted any attempts by the central government to gain control over the entire country. At the same time, depending on the political situation, they did not hesitate to resort to the help of either Catholic Hungarians or Muslim Turks. More than a hundred years later, Vlad the Impaler put an end to this deplorable practice, solving the problem of separatism once and for all.

During the time of Vlad III the Impaler, a sharpened stake was the main instrument of execution.

Below are some of the stories written by an unknown German author at the instigation of Hunyadi King Matthias in 1463:

— A foreign merchant who came to Wallachia was robbed. He files a complaint with Tepes. While the thief is being caught and impaled, the merchant is given, on Tepes’ orders, a wallet containing one coin more than it was. The merchant, having discovered the surplus, immediately informs Tepes. He laughs and says: “Well done, I wouldn’t say it—you should sit on a stake next to the thief.”

- Tepes discovers that there are many beggars in the country - he convenes the beggars, feeds them to their fill and asks the question: “Wouldn’t they like to get rid of earthly suffering forever?” In response to a positive response, Tepes closes the doors and windows and burns everyone gathered alive.

— There is a story about a mistress who tries to deceive Tepes by talking about her pregnancy. Tepes warns her that he does not tolerate lies, but she continues to insist on her own, then Tepes rips open her stomach and shouts: “I told you that I don’t like lies!”

— A case is also described when Dracula asked two wandering monks what people were saying about his reign. One of the monks replied that the population of Wallachia scolded him as a cruel villain, and another said that everyone praised him as a liberator from the threat of the Turks and a wise politician. In reality, both testimonies were fair in their own way, and the legend, in turn, has two endings. In the German "version", Dracula executed the former because he did not like his speech. In the Russian version of the legend, the ruler left the first monk alive and executed the second for lying.

“One of the creepiest and least believable pieces of evidence in that document is that Dracula liked to have breakfast at the site of his execution or the site of a recent battle. He ordered a table and food to be brought to him, sat down and ate among the dead and people dying on stakes.

- According to the evidence of the ancient Russian story, unfaithful wives and widows who violated the rules of chastity, Tepes ordered to cut out the genitals and tear off the skin, exposing them to the point of decomposition of the body and eating it by birds, or to do the same, but first piercing them with a poker from the crotch to the lips .

— There is also a legend that there was a bowl at the fountain in the capital of Wallachia, made of gold; everyone could come up to it and drink water, but no one dared to steal it.

The reign of Count Dracula had a great influence on his contemporaries

Vlad III Tepes became a literary hero soon after his death: “The Tale of the Muntyan Governor Dracula” was written about him in Church Slavonic, after the Russian embassy of Ivan III visited Wallachia. Tepes' death occurred in December 1476. He was buried in the Snagovsky monastery.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, following the appearance of Bram Stoker's novels Children of the Night and The Vampire (Count Dracula), as well as the classic German expressionist film Nosferatu: A Symphony horror" the main character of these works - "Count Dracula" - became the most memorable literary and cinematic image of a vampire. The emergence of a connection between the image of Vlad III Tepes and Count Dracula is usually explained by the fact that Bram Stoker heard the legend that Tepes became a vampire after death. It is unknown whether he heard such a legend; but there were grounds for its existence, since the killer Tepes was cursed more than once by the dying, and, in addition, changed his faith (although this fact is questioned). According to the beliefs of the Carpathian peoples, this is quite enough for posthumous transformation into a vampire. However, there is another version: after the death of Vlad the Impaler, his body was not found in the grave.

In the middle of the 20th century, a whole pilgrimage of tourists began to visit the grave of the famous “vampire”. To reduce the flow of unhealthy attention to the tyrant, the authorities moved his grave. Now she is on the island and is guarded by the monks of the monastery.

The very name of the hero of these essays sounds more than ominous. Dracula is the name of the leader of vampires from horror films, and this name is borrowed from Tepes, who is the prototype of the screen monster. For more than five centuries, the ominous shadow of his terrifying reputation has been trailing behind Vlad the Impaler. It seems that we are actually talking about a fiend from hell. In fact, he was a fairly common figure for that era, where, in terms of his personal qualities, demonstrative cruelty was by no means the least important.

Vlad III the Impaler in the popular consciousness has become a monster without equal

There is still debate about the identity of the Wallachian ruler, and most of even quite serious books about him have titles like “Vlad the Impaler - Myth and Reality” or “Vlad Dracula - Truth and Fiction,” and so on to the best of the authors’ imagination. However, trying to understand events that are more than half a millennium distant from us, authors, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes intentionally, pile up new myths around the image of this person.

One of the most mysterious and cruel kings who ever lived on earth, whose name is surrounded by mysticism. Vlad III Tepes (1431-1476) received the nickname “the impaler” for his particular cruelty during reprisals against enemies. The ruler of Wallachia was born in 1431. His real name is Vlad III Dracul, translated from Romanian as “son of the dragon.” His father Vlad II was a member of the knightly Order of the Dragon, wore a medallion and minted the sign of the order on his coins depicting a dragon. There is another translation of the surname Dracul - “son of the devil,” perhaps that’s what his enemies and intimidated subjects called him.

When Vlad III was 12 years old, he was kidnapped by the Turks, and for the next 4 years he and his younger brother were held hostage, which had a very negative impact on his psyche. He became unbalanced and acquired strange habits. At the age of seventeen, he learned about the murder of his father and older brother by the boyars, which became the reason for his hatred of the boyars and the subsequent fight against them.

Vlad Tepes loved to hold feasts next to his enemies dying in agony, enjoying their groans and the smell emanating from their decaying bodies. He was not a vampire, but he was a cruel sadist, reveling in the suffering of those who disobeyed his will. They say that he executed more than 100 thousand boyars, but only 10 of those who were involved in the death of Dracula's father and brother are documented.

As a statesman, Vlad Tepes was the liberator of his native country from the Turks and a man of honor, fulfilling his national duty. He refused to pay tribute and created a peasant militia that defended their homeland from the Turkish troops who came to punish the disobedient king. All captured Turks were executed in the square during the holiday.

Dracula was a religious fanatic, he gave lands to churches, received the support of the clergy, which means his actions were sanctified by the church. The people had to silently obey. Once Vlad gathered the pilgrims on the holiday of Great Easter and forced them to build a fortress until their clothes fell apart from time to time.

The merciless ruler completely eradicated crime in his state through cruel trials and painful death. Not a single beggar dared to take someone else's property. Even the scattered coins on the streets were not touched. The population became exceptionally honest after many thousands of executions; a similar phenomenon did not occur throughout the world. Thanks to his amazing cruelty, Vlad the Impaler gained fame and memory from his descendants. He had a special dislike for gypsies, thieves and slackers, whom he exterminated in entire camps.

The elite of Europe were outraged when they learned about Dracula's atrocities; they decided to take him into custody and such an opportunity was presented. During his escape, Vlad abandoned his wife and all his subjects, dooming them to death, but was detained by the Hungarian king. I had to spend 12 years in prison. For the sake of freedom, he had to convert to Catholicism. This move was accepted by the king as a sign of submission, and he even helped Dracula regain the throne. But soon they want to kill him again. During his life, Vlad Tepes tried to escape many times, but this time he was unlucky. The boyars, having chopped his body into pieces, sent his head to the Turkish Sultan. The monks, to whom Dracula was kind, quietly buried his remains.

Modern archaeologists became interested in the history of Vlad the Impaler, but the grave they opened turned out to be empty. Nearby there was a burial without a skull, which is considered to be the remains of Dracula. Subsequently, his remains were transferred to the island, which is guarded by monks to avoid tourist invasions.