Where did Vlad Dracula live? Character history

Vampires, along with zombies and werewolves, are a favorite theme of film directors who try to scare the viewer with horror or immerse them in a romantic story, as was done in the film “Twilight” with and.

Indeed, there are not enough fingers to count the number of films or literary works that tell about the fanged blood lover. But the most important vampire remains Count Dracula - thanks to this character from the novel, canonical images of bloodsuckers living in complete darkness and preying on innocent people appeared.

History and prototype

The Irish novelist and author of short stories Bram Stoker was not the first writer to think of making the main antagonist a vampire, because before him this pale-faced monster was described by the English literary genius of Italian origin John William Polidori, introducing readers to the story “The Vampire” (1819).

Writer Bram Stoker, creator of Count Dracula

Polidori's idea for the work arose back in the cloudy year of 1816, when he accompanied the lord on a trip to Europe. The friends stopped in Switzerland, where they met the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Since 1816 was characterized by inclement and rainy weather, Byron and John Polidori had to stay for a long time at the Villa Diodati, located near the lake. On one of these cozy July evenings near the fireplace, George invited the assembled writers to compose a chilling story.

Mary Shelley drafted a story about a scientist from Geneva who recreated living things from dead matter. These manuscripts were later transformed into the famous novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1831).

Lord Byron also offered his own story, writing a short work about Augustus Darwell. But the novelist abandoned his idea, while his friend picked up this idea. However, after the publication of the story “The Vampire,” this manuscript was signed with Byron’s name, and only then did it become clear that the true creator of the book was Polidori, who turned the fanged monster into an aristocrat.

As for Bram Stoker, he began work on his work in the spring of 1890. It is difficult to say whether the writer read the story of his Italian colleague, but it is known that images of the future work once appeared before Stoker: an elderly man rising from a coffin, and his beloved reaching for the old man’s throat.

The writer’s son used to say that the image of Dracula came to the creator in a dream: supposedly at night he dreamed of the terrifying king of vampires. In addition, Bram visited the Gothic Scottish castle of Slane, which prompted the master of the pen to create a dark novel. The writer was also inspired by Sheridan le Fanu’s novel “Carmilla” (1872).

The idea for Stoker's book changed in the summer of 1890, when he was vacationing in the town of Whitby, in the English county of North Yorkshire. There, the writer came across a local library, where he came across tales and ballads of Eastern Europe about the terrible ruler of Wallachia - who is also known as Vlad Dracula. This wearer of the crown became the prototype of the main character from Stoker's novel.

Such a colorful character as Tepes could not help but attract the attention of the writer, because around his person there is an aura of all kinds of legends that can cause goosebumps on the skin of everyone.

It is not known for certain when Dracula was born. Therefore, scholars assume that this happened between 1429–1430 and 1436. The newborn baby did not make the most pleasant impression: he had bulging black eyes, as if he had Graves' disease, and his face was adorned with a protruding lip.

However, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, the ruler of Wallachia was never known as a handsome man: people made up legends that his large, cold eyes saw right through the souls of people. Others used to say that Dracula, on the contrary, had an attractive appearance and was a colorful man with a jet-black mustache.

He got the nickname Vlad III from his father. The fact is that Vlad II was a member of the knightly Order of the Dragon, which fought against infidels and atheists. In addition, Vlad’s parent minted coins with the image of a fire-breathing monster and wore a special medallion with a dragon, proving his belonging to the order. In addition, the word “Drac” is translated from Romanian as “devil”.

Dracula ruled the small principality of Wallachia with its capital Targovishte and paid tribute to the Turks. In 1446, the Hungarians carried out a coup d'etat, as a result of which the ruler's head was cut off and his brother Tepes was buried alive.

Scientists believe that it was these events that became the basis for the formation of the character of Vlad III, who was considered almost the most cruel ruler in history. He became famous for his religious reforms, as well as his campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, although the Turks helped Vlad III temporarily gain the throne after the Hungarian attack. There are indeed many legends about the atrocities of Tepes, so it becomes extremely difficult to distinguish fiction from truth.

The Turks nicknamed the ruler of Wallachia Tepes, which translated means “impaler,” because impalement of victims was Dracula’s favorite execution. According to rumors, Vlad preferred rounded stakes: the victim slid under the weight of his own body, and the non-sharp end of the stake did not touch the vital organs, and thus death came to the martyrs only after a couple of days. They say that Vlad III loved to watch the agony of the unfortunate at dinner.

Corpses pale from loss of blood adorned the borders of Wallachia, for which Dracula was nicknamed the vampire. But there is no reliable information that Dracula drank human blood. In addition, there are other cruel moments in the biography of Tepes: he ordered the Gentiles to drive nails into their heads, since they did not take off their hats before coming to the king, and he invited all the beggars to his dinner, and then locked them up and set them on fire, because he was tired of look at the begging residents.

But, despite his contradictory nature, Vlad III was known in his homeland as a hero and genius of military thought. He could easily defeat an army of enemies that was larger in number, for which they nicknamed Tepes “the son of the devil” and even believed that Dracula sold his soul to Lucifer and used magical rituals.

Bram Stoker, inspired by the ruthless ruler, finished his novel only seven years later, studying local folklore all this time. But it is worth saying that the novel “Dracula” is not a biography of Tepes, but an independent literary work. It is not for nothing that some researchers do not identify the Wallachian owner of the crown with Dracula from the Irishman’s book.

This book brought recognition and fame to Stoker, but his triumph did not last long, because at that time Maria Corelli’s mystical, decadent novel “The Sorrow of Satan” (1895) was published, enjoying unprecedented popularity among bookstore regulars.

However, Bram Stoker’s novel, which is a kind of “encyclopedia of vampires,” gave impetus to a new trend in the world of literature, cinema and animation, because it was he who popularized the archetypal aristocratic vampire living in a dark castle. The novel about the bloodthirsty count became fundamental, and the writer himself acquired a crowd of followers.

Dracula image

Stoker described Dracula as a dead man from Transylvania who came to life. The Count was a diligent man. To move to England, he read relevant literature, bought books and magazines, and also studied a non-native language. The vampire was planning to buy an estate in London, but before that he had to find a lawyer. But lawyer Jonathan Hacker had no idea that the Romanian real estate buyer was not just a rich man, but a real monster who loved to feed on human blood.

The hacker arrived at Dracula's castle, and the owner of the estate turned out to be very gallant, he even locked all the potentially dangerous doors so that no harm would happen to the guest, and also carried his belongings to the rooms himself. In reality, Dracula came up with a cunning plan, hiding it under a mask of hypocrisy: the vampire wanted to give Jonathan to be torn to pieces by three fanged companions. For dinner, the lawyer was offered fried chicken, salad, cheese and a bottle of old Tokaji wine. Dracula refused to join the table, telling Hacker:

“I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t keep you company: I’ve already had lunch and never have dinner.”

As for appearance, Count Dracula was pale as marble, had an energetic and original face, a thin nose with strange nostrils, a high and arrogant forehead and a black mustache. In addition, Dracula had fleshy hands with short fingers and long nails, as well as sharp, snow-white teeth.

By the way, Stoker endowed the antagonist with remarkable strength. Van Helsing used to say that Dracula was endowed with the strength of twenty men and could get even with his opponents alone.

The Count had supernatural abilities: he could move along a vertical surface with tremendous speed, he could control animals and turn into them, he commanded the elements and transformed into fog. There was not a single mirror in Dracula's house, because the vampire was not reflected in it.

Also, darkness reigned in his castle, since sunlight made the vampire weaker. In addition, Jonathan noticed that the owner of the castle does not cast a shadow and cannot move away from his own grave, so Dracula always keeps a handful of cemetery soil with him.

Actors

For the first time, the image of a hater of garlic, holy water and silver bullets was played by the Hungarian actor Paul Askonas in the silent film of the same name “Dracula”, which was released in 1921. But viewers will not be able to enjoy Paul’s acting, since this film has been lost: only a few frames can be found on the Internet.

A surviving still from the first film about Count Dracula

Then, in 1922, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's silent film Nosferatu was released. Symphony of Terror (the names of the main characters had to be changed because the studio was unable to acquire the film rights). The main role of Count Orlok was played by Max Schreck. True, the filmmakers did not copy the image of the bloodsucker from Stoker’s work: the owner of the castle appears before television viewers bald, big-eared and without a mustache.

But the most memorable cinematic Dracula was the one played by American actor Bela Lugosi. The artist knew that participating in a film based on the Irishman’s novel would make him famous, so he approached his work carefully and recreated the classic monstrous aristocrat, refusing to use makeup. Everything in Lugosi's performance was perfect: facial expressions, plasticity, and manner of speech. He signed a contract with Universal and played in several vampire films (his debut was Dracula (1931).

The first color film about Dracula was directed in 1967, with Ferdie Mayne playing the role of the vampire. This film was flavored with comedy and was a kind of fairy tale about vampires.

In 1970 and 1973, the actor reincarnated as the count, starring in the horror films “Count Dracula” and “The Devilish Rites of Dracula” along with Peter Cushing.

In 1992, the directors tried to bring the film as close as possible to Stoker’s work by filming Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Vlad the Impaler also appeared in the gothic drama: the story of the film begins in the distant 1462, when Vlad Basarab goes to battle with the Turks. But the enemies sent false news to the castle that the ruler of Wallachia had been killed.

Thus, the wife (of) the winner commits suicide. Dracula rejects God and becomes a vampire, vowing to return from the world of the dead and avenge the death of his beloved. The main roles went to Richard E. Grant and other film stars.

Three years later, the comedy parody film “Dracula: Dead and Loving” (1995) was released, in which he tried on the image of an eccentric bloodsucker and made TV viewers laugh. Leslie's colleagues on the set were: Peter MacNicol, Steven Weber, Amy Yasbeck and Harvey Korman.

In 2004, the neo-nature action movie Van Helsing was released, telling the story of a vampire slayer. He played the main character, and the role of Dracula went to Richard Roxburgh. In the same year, he played the Count, appearing in the thriller Blade: Trinity.

By the way, without much difficulty I could play the main character from Bram Stoker’s novel, since the actor already had experience transforming into a vampire in the film “Dark Shadows” (2012). and was also lucky enough to try on the image of a frightening creature in the film based on the novel “Interview with the Vampire” (1994).

Movies

Viewers have seen more than sixty films about the king of the vampires, and the number of these films is constantly growing. In addition, Dracula often appears in animated films, both as a cameo and in the main role, and fans of Japanese anime associate the count with Alucard from the Hellsing manga. List of most popular films:

• 1922 – “Nosferatu. Symphony of Horror"
• 1931 – “Dracula” (Bela Lugosi)
• 1936 – “Dracula’s Daughter” (Gloria Holden)
• 1943 – “Son of Dracula” (Lon Chaney Jr.)
• 1948 – Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Bela Lugosi)
• 1965 – “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” (Christopher Lee)
• 1967 – “Vampire Ball” (Ferdie Maine)

• 1968 – “Dracula Rises from the Grave” (Christopher Lee)
• 1974 – “Blood for Dracula” (Udo Kier)
• 1992 – “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (Gary Oldman)
• 1995 – “Dracula: Dead and Loving” (Leslie Nielsen)
• 2004 – “Van Helsing” (Richard Roxburgh)
• 2004 – “Blade 3: Trinity” (Dominic Purcell)
• 2014 – “Dracula” ()

Literature

• 1819 – “The Vampire” (John William Polidori)
• 1897 – “Dracula” (Bram Stoker)
• 1912 – “Vampires. From the family chronicle of Counts Dracula-Cardi" (Baron Olchevri)
• 1912 – “Dracula Is Immortal” (Dacre Stoker, Ian Holt)
• 2004 – “Dracula” (Matej Kazaku)

• 2007 – “The Prince of Vampires” (Genie Kalogridis)
• 2010 – “The Dracula File” (James Rees)
• 2011 – “Confession of Dracula” (Elena Artamonova)
• 2013 – “The Age of Dracula” (Kim Newman)
• 2013 – “Dracula in Love” (Karin Essex)

• Christopher Lee, who played the impressive Dracula, noted, not without sadness, that no one, even in a hundred years, will be able to outshine the inimitable Bela Lugosi, who during his lifetime dreamed of seeing a color film adaptation. Lugosi was so popular that fans gave the actor a ring, which he practically never parted with. Bela gave Christopher a copy of the jewelry, and the follower, in order to pay tribute to his predecessor, appeared in the ring in every Dracula film.

• You can kill a vampire with garlic and a blessed silver bullet. But an aspen stake driven into the heart will also help in the fight against the bloodthirsty monster. However, Van Helsing argued that this method was not enough, and advised, in addition to everything, to cut off the monster’s head. And to prevent the bloodsucker from leaving the coffin, you should put a rosehip branch there.
• Vampires appeared not only in Romanian mythology: for example, the Slavic peoples invented ghouls who loved to count grains and sawdust. Any dead person buried in the wrong way could become a ghoul: to avoid turning the corpse into a vampire, a crucifix should be placed in the coffin and sawdust should be sprinkled. The latter is necessary so that, upon waking up, the vampire begins to count sawdust: an engrossed monster will spend the whole night doing this activity and die at dawn.

Anti-vampire remedies: aspen stake, cross, garlic

• The cruel prince Vlad the Impaler had control over his people. The Wallachian ruler managed to eradicate theft. According to legend, there was a golden bowl near the well, and anyone could drink the water. But no one dared to think about taking the precious dishes home, because being impaled is not the best death. They say that even after the death of Tepes, the cup stood in its proper place.
• Bram filled the novel with innovations: for example, no one bit Dracula himself; he received his power by being an adept of a certain school of Solomon, where the Devil himself was the director.

Incredible facts

Dracula is one of the most powerful and colorful characters in the history of world literature. Without a doubt, this is a controversial character.

Dracula is an example of a classic vampire: on the one hand, he is elegant and thoughtful, on the other hand, he is bloodthirsty and constantly in anticipation of a new victim. Human blood for him is a source of food, and a goal to which he strives with his whole being.

However, even despite the huge number of seduced women who were killed by the movie Dracula, his crimes cannot be compared with the atrocities that the real Count Dracula committed in his time. Vlad III, or Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia (now Romania) became famous thanks to the following qualities and actions:

Vampire Dracula

1. Dracula soaked bread in a bowl of blood before eating it.

The real Count Dracula may not have directly sucked blood from the necks of his victims, however, he still consumed it as food: the blood of the people he killed flowed into a bowl into which he dipped pieces of bread and other food.

Fifteenth-century manuscripts mention one terrifying incident in the life of a bloodthirsty count. Vlad Tepes invited several guests to his castle and impaled them all right at the dinner table.

Then he slowly finished his meal and dipped the pieces of bread into the blood that flowed from the bodies of the murdered guests. This is the kind of “dessert” that Dracula enjoyed quite often.

2. He avenged his father by killing hundreds of innocent people

He didn't just kill people, he tortured them, slowly piercing their stomachs with a blunt instrument of torture. It is known that Vlad Tepes spent most of his life in a Turkish prison, and when he was released, he learned that as a result of betrayal by his own people, his father was buried alive by Hungarian soldiers.

Vlad learned that many of the nobles who served his father participated in the conspiracy against his father, however, he did not know who exactly was the traitor. He came up with the idea to invite everyone to his castle and deal with them. In total, about five hundred people gathered for the feast.

When the holiday was over, and the guests went to rest in their rooms, Dracula’s soldiers burst into everyone’s room and pierced the nobles, among whom were most of the people innocent of the death of the old count.

Dracula continued to use this tactic countless times. Posing as a hospitable host, he lured people to his home for various holidays, and then killed them. Ultimately, people knew what it was like to be invited to one of Dracula's celebrations, and what they could face there.

However, in any case, they accepted his offer, because if he refused, they risked being killed immediately. For many, this was a hopeless situation. In any case, people faced a terrible and painful death.

Dragon and Dracula

3. Dracula means "son of the dragon"

The name Dracula was not invented by Bram Stoker. The real Vlad Tepes, indeed, preferred to be called that way. The bloodthirsty count's father, Vlad II, was a member of a secret society known as the Order of the Dragon.

He was so proud of his membership in this society that he even changed his name to "Dracula", which means "Dragon" in Romanian.

While still a child, Vlad Tepes Jr. was also involved in the secret Order. This prompted him to change his own name to Dracula, which means "son of the Dragon." Nowadays, the count's name is increasingly translated as "Son of the Devil."

In any case, such a frightening name was quite compatible with the actions that young Dracula committed. Absolutely deservedly, Vlad Tepes received the reputation of a bloodthirsty and terrible monster.

4. Dracula had a great sense of humor

This is indeed true. During his life, the bloodthirsty count not only killed and tortured his victims. According to those who knew Vlad well enough, he very often joked quite sharply about one thing or another. His sense of humor was enviable. He made especially caustic jokes about the unfortunate victims.

For example, one of the eyewitnesses of those terrible meals in Dracula’s castle later wrote in his memoirs how the count, watching how the unfortunate victims gave up the ghost, as if by chance remarked: what grace my victims have, how interesting they move when you plant them On stake. He compared the convulsions of the dying to the movements of a frog.

One day, another guest of the count came to the castle filled with corpses. And since the smell of decomposing bodies was in the air, the owner politely inquired whether the stench was bothering his guest.

To which the unfortunate man replied that yes, he was interfering. Then the count pierced him and hung him from the ceiling, arguing that the smell under the ceiling was not so bad, and the stench would no longer bother the unwary guest.

School of Dracula

5. The only punishment was impalement

The easiest way to think is that Dracula was a lonely and miserable madman who killed people for no reason. However, this is not the case. The Count administered justice, no matter how terrible it may sound.

In those days, there was only one punishment, regardless of what crime the person committed. They impaled both murderers and petty thieves who, in order not to die of hunger, stole bread from pastry shops.

However, there is at least one known exception to the rule, in which Dracula used a different form of punishment. One day, while crossing the territory that belonged to the bloody count, a gypsy stole something. Dracula was merciless this time too. He cooked the unfortunate thief, and then forced the other gypsies from the camp to eat him.

6. He got rid of all the sick and poor by burning them at the stake

Thus, the count tried to restore order on the streets of the city of Targovishte, at that time the capital of Wallachia.

One day Tepes invited all the sick, vagabonds and beggars to one of his houses, under the pretext of a holiday. After the poor fellows had eaten their fill, Dracula politely apologized and left his “guests.”

By his order, the house was boarded up from the outside so that no one could escape. The house was then set on fire with everyone inside.

It is reliably known that not a single person survived the terrible fire that the bloodthirsty count started. Subsequently, Dracula repeatedly did this, burning entire villages inhabited by poor and sick people. In such an inhumane way, he “cleared” cities and villages of all those whom he considered unnecessary in this world.

7. The golden cup is a symbol of limitless power

Vlad the Impaler controlled his people very strictly, suppressing any type of crime. To prove how powerful his power was and how much people feared him, he ordered a huge bowl cast from pure gold to be placed in the center of Targovishte.

For a long time, the bowl was located in the very center of the capital of Wallachia. However, not one of the 60,000 people who then lived in the city even dared to touch it. Any resident knew what he would face if the cup was stolen.

During the entire reign of the count, no one even touched this symbol of Dracula's power, although the cup was in full view of thousands of people living in complete poverty. This is the kind of fear that the mere name of Vlad the Impaler instilled in people.

8. To poison the Turkish invaders, the count filled his own wells and wells with poison

In the 1400s, Wallachia was at war with its neighbors, the Turks. Vlad III, who did not like to lose, sent his army to drive the enemies out of his land.

But, in the end, as a result of stubborn fighting, the Turks forced Vlad to retreat. However, even retreating, Dracula did not give up. He burned all the villages located on the path of the Turkish army. He did this with the expectation that his opponents would have nowhere to rest.

Dracula went so far as to poison his own water wells. Along with the Turks, thousands of villagers were also poisoned. Tepes was unfamiliar with feelings of compassion and pity. In war, all means are good, even if innocent people die.

Dracula Tepes

9. In total, Dracula killed more than 100,000 people

Historians claim that up to 100,000 people could have become victims of the bloodthirsty count.

For Tepes there were no gender, age or status restrictions. He could kill an old man, or he could impale an innocent baby. At the same time, without disdaining anything, he calmly finished his meal.

Eyewitnesses said that while they looked with shudder at everything that was happening, the count was only joking and calmly finishing lunch or dinner.

During the war with the Turks, about 20,000 soldiers of the enemy army were impaled.

Vlad Dracula

10. Dracula's body disappeared

The count, who was feared and hated by his own people, died on the battlefield during the war with the Turks. His bloodthirstiness played a cruel joke on him. Dracula's army was several times larger than the enemy army.

However, despite such an obvious advantage, most of the soldiers decided to go over to the enemy’s side. After all, in the enemy’s camp there were no such harsh punishments as Dracula’s. People, fed up with the cruelty of their ruler, did not hesitate to betray.

Death of Dracula

Dracula's head was cut off by his own soldiers and then sent to the Turkish Sultan. He, in turn, pierced her with a spear and put her on a stake outside his palace so that every passerby could see the head of the defeated tyrant.

Some historians claim that Dracula's body was then interred in the cemetery of the Snagov Monastery, which is located outside of Bucharest.

But there are also conflicting reports that his body was never found, while others say that possible remains were indeed discovered but then disappeared. There is a version that Dracula's body was buried with all his wealth.

Thus, the tyrant’s grave became a good target for robbers, who, along with the treasures, tore apart the remains of Tepes. Well, the most mystical version is that Dracula’s body disappeared on its own, because he was a real dragon.

Vlad Tepes, Count of Wallachia, was an unconventional villain: thinking, suffering, unhappy and lonely in his own way. Thousands of people became its victims. His whole life was shrouded in mystery. This mysticism did not leave the image of Dracula even after death.

“Once upon a time there lived a bloodthirsty prince Dracula. He impaled people, roasted them over coals, boiled their heads in a cauldron, skinned them alive, cut them into pieces and drank their blood...” said Abraham Van Helsing, leafing through a book about the lifetime crimes of a formidable vampire. Many remember this episode from F. Coppola’s film, based on Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula,” and, perhaps, it was from this film that they learned that Dracula was not a fictional character. The famous vampire has a prototype - Prince of Wallachia Vlad Dracula (Tepes), who ruled this Romanian principality in the middle of the 15th century. And indeed, this man is still called the “great monster” to this day, eclipsing Herod and Nero with his atrocities.
Vlad Dracula. The only lifetime portrait of the prince, painted from him by an unknown artist during his imprisonment in a Hungarian prison.

Let's leave it to Stoker's conscience that he "turned" a real historical figure into a mythical monster, and let's try to figure out how justified the accusations of cruelty are and whether Dracula committed all those atrocities, in comparison with which the vampire's addiction to the blood of young girls seems like innocent fun.
The actions of the prince, widely replicated in literary works of the 15th century, are truly blood-chilling. A terrible impression is made by the stories about how Dracula loved to feast, watching the torment of his impaled victims, how he burned vagabonds whom he himself invited to the feast, how he ordered nails to be driven into the heads of foreign ambassadors who had not taken off their hats, and so on, so on... In In the imagination of the reader, who first learned about the atrocities of this medieval ruler, the image of a fierce, ruthless man with a caustic look of unkind eyes, reflecting the black essence of the villain, appears. This image is quite consistent with German book engravings, which depicted the features of a tyrant, but the engravings appeared after Vlad’s death.
But those who happen to see the lifetime portrait of Dracula, practically unknown in Russia, will be disappointed - the man depicted on the canvas clearly does not look like a bloodthirsty sadist and maniac. A small experiment showed: people who did not know who exactly was depicted on the canvas often called the “unknown” beautiful, unfortunate... Let’s try for a moment to forget about the reputation of the “great monster” and look at the portrait of Dracula with an unbiased eye. First of all, Vlad’s large, suffering, beautiful eyes attract attention. You can notice confusion and fear in them, but there is not even a shadow of cruelty and anger. What’s also striking is the unnatural thinness of his emaciated, yellowish face. Looking at the portrait, one can assume that this man has endured cruel trials and hardships, that he is a martyr rather than a monster, a victim rather than an executioner...

What is it: a deliberate deception of the artist or such a striking discrepancy between the true portrait of Dracula and the characteristics given to him has another explanation? Let's conduct a little investigation, turning to the “evidence” - written documents of the 15th century. Do all of them, as it seems at first glance, testify against Dracula or is this just the tip of the iceberg, the most spectacular and memorable works, pushing into the background dry documents that may seem boring? Indeed, we judge Vlad’s actions based on literary, mostly German, stories of that period, leaving aside the letters of the prince himself and other official documents dating back to the time of his reign that have been preserved in the archives to this day. How does Vlad Dracula appear in the light of objective historical analysis?
The house in the Transylvanian city of Sighisoara, where Dracula was born in 1431 and spent the first years of his life. On the facade of the building there is a sign stating that Vlad’s father, Vlad Dracul, lived here, and in one of the rooms in which little Vlad was allegedly born, fragments of wall paintings were discovered during restoration. These days, the house houses not a museum, but the Dracula restaurant.

Vlad led Wallachia at the age of twenty-five, in 1456, during very difficult times for the principality, when the Ottoman Empire was expanding its possessions in the Balkans, capturing one country after another. Serbia and Bulgaria had already fallen under Turkish oppression, Constantinople had fallen, and a direct threat loomed over the Romanian principalities. The prince of little Wallachia successfully resisted the aggressor and even attacked the Turks himself, making a campaign into the territory of occupied Bulgaria in 1458. One of the goals of the campaign was to liberate and resettle the Bulgarian peasants who professed Orthodoxy on the lands of Wallachia. Europe enthusiastically welcomed Dracula's victory, and the impulsive Italians even began to call the inhabitants of Wallachia "raguli", in honor of their fearless prince. Nevertheless, a big war with Turkey was inevitable. Wallachia prevented the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and Sultan Mehmed II decided to overthrow the unwanted prince by military means. Dracula's younger brother Radu the Handsome, who converted to Islam and became the Sultan's favorite, claimed the throne of Wallachia. Realizing that he could not alone withstand the largest Turkish army since the conquest of Constantinople, Dracula turned to his allies for help. Among them were Pope Pius II, who promised to give money for the crusade, and the young Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, who called Vlad “a beloved and faithful friend,” and the leaders of other Christian countries. All of them verbally supported the Wallachian prince, however, when trouble struck in the summer of 1462, Dracula was left alone with a formidable enemy.
The situation was desperate, and Vlad did everything possible to survive this unequal battle. He drafted into the army the entire male population of the principality starting from the age of twelve, used scorched earth tactics, leaving the enemy burned villages where it was impossible to replenish food supplies, and waged a guerrilla war. Another weapon of the prince was the panic that he instilled in the invaders. Defending his land, Dracula mercilessly exterminated his enemies, in particular, impaled prisoners, using execution against the Turks, which was very “popular” in the Ottoman Empire itself.
Dracula's seal. The inscription in Old Church Slavonic reads: “Vlad the Voivode, by the grace of God, is the lord of the land of Ungrovlahia.”

The Turkish-Wallachian War of the summer of 1462 went down in history with the famous night attack, during which it was possible to destroy up to fifteen thousand Ottomans. The Sultan was already standing near the capital of the principality of Targovishte when Dracula, along with seven thousand of his warriors, penetrated into the enemy camp, intending to kill the Turkish leader and thereby stop the aggression. Vlad failed to fully implement his daring plan, but an unexpected night attack caused panic in the enemy camp and, as a result, very heavy losses. After the bloody night, Mehmed II left Wallachia, leaving part of the troops to Radu the Handsome, who himself had to wrest power from the hands of his elder brother.
Dracula's brilliant victory over the Sultan's troops turned out to be useless: Vlad defeated the enemy, but could not resist his “friends.” The betrayal of the Moldavian prince Stefan, Dracula's cousin and friend, who unexpectedly went over to Radu's side, turned out to be a turning point in the war. Dracula could not fight on two fronts and retreated to Transylvania, where the troops of another “friend” - the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus - were waiting for him to come to his aid.
The photograph shows what remains of Curtea Veche, a palace in Bucharest built by Dracula, the official residence of the Wallachian princes since the 16th century. A few years ago, a bust of the founder of the capital was erected in front of the ruins of the palace. Dracula began building Bucharest around 1459, intending to build a powerful fortress to block the path of Turkish invaders.
And then something strange happened. In the midst of negotiations, Corwin ordered the arrest of his “faithful and beloved friend,” accusing him of secret correspondence with Turkey. In letters allegedly intercepted by the Hungarians, Dracula begged Mehmed II for forgiveness and offered his assistance in capturing Hungary and the Hungarian king himself. Most modern historians consider the letters to be crudely fabricated forgeries: they are written in a manner unusual for Dracula, the proposals put forward in them are absurd, but most importantly - the originals of the letters, these most important pieces of evidence that decided the fate of the prince, were “lost”, and only their copies in Latin have survived given in the Notes of Pius II. Naturally, they did not bear Dracula's signature. Nevertheless, Vlad was arrested at the end of November 1462, put in chains and sent to the Hungarian capital Buda, where he was imprisoned without trial for about twelve years.

What made Matthias agree with the absurd accusations and brutally deal with his ally, who at one time helped him ascend the Hungarian throne? The reason turned out to be banal. According to the author of the Hungarian Chronicle, Antonio Bonfini, Matthias Corvinus received forty thousand guilders from Pope Pius II to carry out the crusade, but did not use this money for its intended purpose. In other words, the king, who was constantly in need of money, simply pocketed a significant amount and shifted the blame for the disrupted campaign onto his vassal, who allegedly played a double game and intrigued with the Turks. However, accusations of treason against a man known in Europe for his irreconcilable struggle with the Ottoman Empire, the one who almost killed and actually put to flight the conqueror of Constantinople Mehmed II, sounded quite absurd. Wanting to understand what really happened, Pius II instructed his envoy in Buda, Nicholas Modrussa, to understand what was happening on the spot. This is how Modrussa described the appearance of a prisoner in the Hungarian dungeons:
King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus. The youngest son of Janos Hunyadi liked to be depicted in the manner of a Roman emperor, with a laurel wreath on his head. He was considered the patron of science and art. During the reign of Matthias, the expenses of his court increased sharply, and the king sought ways to replenish the treasury - from increasing taxes to using money transferred by the Vatican for the crusades.

“He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong aquiline nose, swollen nostrils and a thin reddish face, on which very long eyelashes framed large, wide-open green eyes; Thick black eyebrows made him look menacing. His face and chin were shaved, but there was a mustache, swollen temples increased the volume of his head, a bullish neck connected his head to his body, wavy black locks hung over his broad shoulders.”
Modrussa did not leave evidence of what the captive of King Matthias said in his defense, but the description of his appearance turned out to be more eloquent than any words. Dracula's appearance was actually terrible: his swollen, noticeably enlarged head and bloodshot face indicated that the prince was tortured, forcing him to admit false accusations, for example, to sign fabricated letters and thereby legitimize Corwin's actions. But Vlad, who experienced the horrors of Turkish captivity in his youth, even before coming to power, bravely faced new challenges. He did not incriminate himself, did not put his signature on the falsified documents, and the king had to come up with other charges that did not require the prisoner’s written confession.
The prince was accused of the cruelty he allegedly showed towards the Saxon population of Transylvania, which was part of the Hungarian kingdom. According to Modrussa, Matthias Corvinus personally spoke about the atrocities of his vassal, and then presented an anonymous document in which he reported in detail, with German punctuality, the bloody adventures of the “great monster.” The denunciation spoke of tens of thousands of tortured civilians and for the first time mentioned anecdotes about beggars being burned alive, monks impaled, how Dracula ordered the caps of foreign ambassadors to be nailed to the heads, and other similar stories. An unknown author compared the Wallachian prince with the tyrants of antiquity, claiming that during his reign Wallachia resembled “a forest of impaled people,” accused Vlad of unprecedented cruelty, but at the same time did not care at all about the verisimilitude of his story. There are a lot of contradictions in the text of the denunciation, for example, the names of settlements given in the document, where 20-30 thousand (!) people were allegedly killed, still cannot be identified by historians.

Corvinesti Castle in Transylvania is the ancestral seat of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. The small fortress turned into a luxurious castle under Matthias' father Janos Hunyadi (Corwin). The fate of Hunyadi himself is quite interesting. The minor Wallachian nobleman made a career by participating in the Hussite wars and crusades, in which he did not disdain to plunder his allies. Over time, Hunyadi became the owner of the largest fortune and highest positions in the state, and was elected ruler of the Kingdom of Hungary.
What served as the documentary basis for this denunciation? We know that Dracula actually made several raids into Transylvania, destroying the conspirators hiding there, among whom were contenders for the Wallachian throne. But, despite these local military operations, the prince did not interrupt commercial relations with the Transylvanian Saxon cities of Sibiu and Brasov, as confirmed by Dracula's business correspondence from that period. It is very important to note that, apart from the denunciation that appeared in 1462, there is not a single earlier evidence of the massacres of civilians in Transylvania in the 50s of the 15th century.
It is impossible to imagine how the extermination of tens of thousands of people, which regularly occurred over several years, could have gone unnoticed in Europe and would not have been reflected in the chronicles and diplomatic correspondence of those years. Consequently, Dracula’s raids on the enclaves that belonged to Wallachia, but located on the territory of Transylvania, at the time of their implementation were considered in European countries as an internal affair of Wallachia and did not cause any public outcry. Based on these facts, it can be argued that the anonymous document that first reported the atrocities of the “great monster” was not true and turned out to be another fake, fabricated on the orders of King Matthias following the “letter to the Sultan” in order to justify the illegal arrest of Vlad Dracula.
For Pope Pius II - and he was a close friend of the German Emperor Frederick III and therefore sympathized with the Saxon population of Transylvania - such explanations were enough. He did not interfere with the fate of the high-ranking captive, leaving the decision of the Hungarian king in force. But Matthias Corwin himself, feeling the instability of the charges he brought forward, continued to discredit Dracula, who was languishing in prison, resorting, in modern terms, to the services of the “mass media.” A poem by Michael Behaim, created on the basis of a denunciation, engravings depicting a cruel tyrant, “sent out throughout the world for everyone to see,” and, finally, many editions of early printed brochures (of which thirteen have reached us) under the general title “About one great monster” - all this was supposed to form a negative attitude towards Dracula, turning him from a hero into a villain.
Illustration for the first printed brochures “About one great monster called Dracula Vaida” (Lübeck, 1488; Bamberg, 1491). It is known that German book engravings of the 15th century were conventional and did not have a portrait resemblance to the real people depicted on them. However, it is precisely these engravings, which appeared after the death of the prince, that are still perceived today as “portraits” of Dracula.
The portrait of Vlad, already mentioned, was also painted during his imprisonment. Perhaps Matthias wanted to get an image of the “monster”, but he miscalculated - the artist’s brush captured on the canvas the noble, dignified appearance of the Wallachian prince. And the rich clothes only emphasized the yellow, sickly complexion and extreme degree of exhaustion of the prisoner, indicating the terrible conditions in which he was actually kept.

Apparently, Matthias Corvinus had no intention of freeing his prisoner, dooming him to a slow death in prison. But fate gave Dracula the opportunity to survive another takeoff. During the reign of Radu the Beautiful, Wallachia completely submitted to Turkey, which could not but worry the new Pope Sixtus IV. It was probably the intervention of the pontiff that changed Dracula's fate. The Prince of Wallachia showed in practice that he could withstand the Turkish threat, and therefore it was Vlad who had to lead the Christian army into battle in a new crusade. The conditions for the prince's release from prison were his transition from the Orthodox faith to the Catholic faith and his marriage to Matthias Corvina's cousin. Paradoxically, the “great monster” could gain freedom only by becoming related to the Hungarian king, who until recently represented Dracula as a bloodthirsty monster...
Two years after the liberation, in the summer of 1476, Vlad, as one of the commanders of the Hungarian army, went on a campaign; his goal was to liberate Turkish-occupied Wallachia. The troops passed through the territory of Transylvania, and documents have been preserved indicating that the townspeople of Saxon Brasov joyfully welcomed the return of the “great monster”, who, according to the denunciation, committed unheard-of atrocities here just a few years ago.
Having entered Wallachia with battles, Dracula ousted the Turkish troops and on November 26, 1476, again ascended the throne of the principality. His reign turned out to be very short - the prince was surrounded by obvious and hidden enemies, and therefore a fatal outcome was inevitable. Vlad's death at the end of December of the same year is shrouded in mystery. There are several versions of what happened, but they all boil down to the fact that the prince fell victim to treason, having trusted the traitors who were around him. It is known that the head of Dracula was donated to the Turkish Sultan, and he ordered it to be exhibited in one of the squares of Constantinople. And Romanian folklore sources report that the headless body of the prince was found by the monks of the Snagov monastery located near Bucharest and buried in the chapel built by Dracula himself near the altar.
Thus ended the short but bright life of Vlad Dracula. Why, despite the facts indicating that the Wallachian prince was “framed” and slandered, does rumor continue to attribute to him atrocities that he never committed? Opponents of Dracula argue: firstly, numerous works by different authors report on the cruelty of Vlad, and, therefore, such a point of view cannot but be objective, and secondly, there are no chronicles in which he appears as a ruler doing pious deeds. It is not difficult to refute such arguments. An analysis of the works that speak of the atrocities of Dracula proves that they all either go back to the handwritten denunciation of 1462, “justifying” the arrest of the Wallachian prince, or were written by people who were at the Hungarian court during the reign of Matthias Corvinus. From here the Russian ambassador to Hungary, clerk Fyodor Kuritsyn, also drew information for his story about Dracula, written around 1484.

Having penetrated into Wallachia, widely circulated stories about the deeds of the “great monster” were transformed into pseudo-folklore narratives that in fact have nothing in common with the folk legends recorded by folklorists in the areas of Romania directly related to the life of Dracula. As for the Turkish chronicles, the original episodes that do not coincide with the German works deserve closer attention. In them, Turkish chroniclers, sparing no color, describe the cruelty and bravery of “Kazıkly”, who terrified his enemies (which means Impaler), and even partially acknowledge the fact that he put the Sultan himself to flight. We understand perfectly well that descriptions of the course of hostilities by the warring parties cannot be impartial, but we do not dispute the fact that Vlad Dracula really dealt very cruelly with the invaders who came to his land. Having analyzed the sources of the 15th century, we can confidently say that Dracula did not commit the monstrous crimes attributed to him. He acted in accordance with the cruel laws of war, but the destruction of the aggressor on the battlefield under no circumstances can be equated with the genocide of civilians, of which Dracula was accused by the orderer of the anonymous denunciation. The stories about the atrocities in Transylvania, for which Dracula received the reputation of the “great monster,” turned out to be slander that pursued specific selfish goals. History has developed in such a way that descendants judge Dracula by how Vlad’s actions were described by his enemies, who sought to discredit the prince - where can we talk about objectivity in such a situation?!
As for the lack of chronicles praising Dracula, this is explained by the too short period of his reign. He simply did not have time, and perhaps did not consider it necessary, to acquire court chroniclers, whose duties included praising the ruler. It’s a different matter for King Matthias, famous for his enlightenment and humanism, “with whose death justice died,” or the Moldavian prince Stefan, who ruled for almost half a century, betrayed Dracula and impaled two thousand Romanians, but at the same time was nicknamed the Great and Saint...

In a muddy stream of lies, it is difficult to discern the truth, but, fortunately, documentary evidence has reached us of how Vlad Dracula ruled the country. The documents signed by him have been preserved, in which he gave lands to peasants, granted privileges to monasteries, and an agreement with Turkey, which scrupulously and consistently defended the rights of citizens of Wallachia. We know that Dracula insisted on the observance of church burial rites for executed criminals, and this very important fact completely refutes the claim that he impaled the inhabitants of the Romanian principalities who professed Christianity. It is known that he built churches and monasteries, founded Bucharest, and fought with desperate courage against the Turkish invaders, defending his people and his land. There is also a legend about how Dracula met with God, trying to find out where his father’s grave was so that he could build a temple on this place...
There are two images of Dracula. We know Dracula - the national hero of Romania, a wise and brave ruler, a martyr, betrayed by friends and spent about a third of his life in prison, slandered, slandered, but not broken. However, we also know another Dracula - the hero of anecdotal stories of the 15th century, a maniac, a “great monster”, and later a vampire cursed by God. By the way, about vampirism: no matter what atrocities his contemporaries accused the prince of, there is not a single written source that would say that he drank the blood of his victims. The idea of ​​“turning” Dracula into a vampire arose only in the 19th century. A member of the occult order “Golden Dawn” (he practiced black magic), Bram Stoker became interested in this historical figure at the suggestion of Professor Arminius Vambery, who was known not only as a scientist, but also as a Hungarian nationalist. This is how Count Dracula appeared - a literary character who gradually turned into the main vampire of all times in the mass consciousness.
The two diametrically opposed images of the Wallachian prince have nothing in common, but to answer the question of what kind of person Vlad Dracula really was, it is enough to see his portrait, look into those wise and sad eyes.
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From the Internet

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.