Vlad Tepes

Yes, there was a real Dracula, and he was a true prince of darkness. He was Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes, meaning "Vlad the Impaler." The Turks called him Kaziglu Bey, or "the Impaler Prince." He was the prince of Walachia, but, as legend suggests, he was born in Transylvania, which at that time was ruled by Hungary.

Walachia was founded in 1290 by a Transylvanian named Radu Negru, or Rudolph the Black. It was dominated by Hungary until 1330, when it became independent. The first ruler of the new country was Prince Basarab the Great (1310-1352), an ancestor of Dracula. Dracula's grandfather, Prince Mircea the Old, reigned from 1386 to 1418. He participated in one too many losing battles against the Turks and was forced to pay tribute to them. He and his descendants continued to rule Walachia, but as vassals of the Ottoman empire.

The throne of Walachia was not necessarily passed from father to son. The prince, or voivode, was elected by the country's boyars, or land-owning nobles. This caused fighting among family members, assassinations, and other unpleasantness. Eventually the House of Basarab was split into two factions - Mircea's descendants, and the descendants of another prince named Dan. Dan's descendants were called the Danesti.

Mircea had an illegitimate son, Vlad, born around 1390, who was educated in Hungary and Germany. Vlad served as a page for King Sigismund of Hungary, who became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410. Sigismund founded a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon to uphold Christianity and defend the empire against Turkey. Because of his bravery fighting Turks, Vlad was admitted to the Order, probably in 1431. The boyars started to call him Dracul, meaning "dragon." Vlad's second son would be known as Dracula, or "son of the dragon." Dracul also meant "devil." So Dracula's enemies, especially German Saxons, called him "son of the devil."

Interesting fact: members of the Order of the Dragon had a special costume to wear on Sundays. It was a red garment with a black cape over it . . . that's why the fictional Dracula wears a cape!

Eventually Sigismund made Vlad the military governor of Transylvania, a post he held from 1431 to 1435. During that time he lived in the town of Sighisoara or Schassburg. You can still visit the citadel there and even the house where Vlad's son Dracula was born. Today there's a restaurant on the second floor. There's also a mural in the house that may depict Vlad Dracul.

Young Dracula

Dracula was born in November or December of 1431. His given name was Vlad. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. Their mother may have been a Moldavian princess or a Tranyslvanian noble. It is said that she educated Dracula in his early years. Later he was trained for knighthood by an old boyar who had fought the Turks.

Dracula's father was not content to remain a mere governor forever. During his years in Transyvlania, he gathered supporters for his plan to seize Walachia's throne from its current occupant, a Danesti prince named Alexandru I. In late 1436 or early 1437 Vlad Dracul killed Alexandru and became Prince Vlad II.

Vlad was a vassal of Hungary and also had to pay tribute to Hungary's enemy, Turkey. In 1442 Turkey invaded Transylvania. Vlad tried to stay neutral, but Hungary's rulers blamed him and drove him and his family out of Walachia. A Hungarian general, Janos Hunyadi (who may have been the illegitimate son of Emperor Sigismund) made a Danesti named Basarab II the prince of Walachia.

The following year Vlad regained the throne with the help of the sultan of Turkey. In 1444 he sent his two younger sons to Turkey to prove his loyalty. Dracula was about 13. He spent the next four years in Adrianople, Turkey as a hostage.

In 1444 Hungary went to war with Turkey and demanded that Vlad join the crusade. As a member of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad was sworn to obey this summons. But he didn't want to anger the Turks, so he sent his eldest son, Mircea, in his place. The Christian army was demolished at the Battle of Varna, and Vlad and Mircea blamed Janos Hunyadi.

In 1447 Vlad and Mircea were murdered. Mircea was killed by the boyars and merchants of the Walachian city Tirgoviste. There are different stories about how he died - he may have been tortured and burned, or buried alive. Apparently his father died at the same time. Some say that the assassinations were organized by Hunyadi.

Since Vlad and Mircea were dead, and Dracula and Radu were still in Turkey, Hunyadi was able to put a member of the Danesti clan, Vladislav II, on the Walachian throne. The Turks didn't like having a Hungarian puppet in charge of Walachia, so in 1448 they freed Dracula and gave him an army. He was seventeen years old.

It seems that Dracula's little brother Radu chose to remain in Turkey. He had grown up there, and apparently remained loyal to the sultan.

Dracula's Reign

With the help of his Turkish army, Dracula seized the Walachian throne. However, he only ruled for two months before Hunyadi forced him into exile in Moldavia. Again Vladislav II became Walachia's prince.

Three years later Prince Bogdan of Moldavia was assassinated and Dracula fled the country. By now Vladislav II had become a supporter of Turkey, and Hunyadi was sorry he had put him on the throne. Everyone switched sides - Dracula became Hunyadi's vassal, and Hunyadi now supported Dracula's attempt to regain his throne. In 1456 Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia while Dracula invaded Walachia. Hunyadi was killed, but Dracula killed Vladislav II and took back his throne.

He established his capital at Tirgoviste - you can still see the ruins of his palace there. And nearby a statue of Vlad Tepes still stands. He is considered an important figure in Romanian history because he unified Walachia and resisted the influence of foreigners.

But it's Dracula's cruelty that most non-Romanians remember. After becoming prince, Dracula supposedly invited many beggars and other old, sick and poor people to a banquest at his castle. When his guests had finished eating their meal and drinking a toast to him, Dracula asked them, "Would you like to be without cares, lacking nothing in this world?"

Yes, they said enthusiastically.

So Dracula had the castle boarded up and set it on fire. Nobody made it out alive - and that was the end of their problems, as he had promised. "I did this so that no one will be poor in my realm," he said.

According to another story, he invited 500 boyars to a banquet and asked them how many princes had ruled in their lifetimes. They said they had lived through many reigns. Shouting that this was their fault because of their plotting, Dracula had them all arrested on the spot. The older ones were impaled; the others were marched 50 miles to Walachia's capital, Poenari, where they were forced to build a mountaintop fortress. They worked a long time; when their clothes fell off, they worked naked. Most of them died, of course. And of course Dracula seized the boyars' property and passed it out to his supporters. In that way he created a new nobility, loyal to him.

(The ruins of the Poenari fortress can still be seen. You have to climb nearly 1,500 steps and cross a little bridge to reach it. It's now called Castle Dracula, but several places are called that. Another "Castle Dracula" is Bran Castle, near the town of Brasov. Although Dracula may have stayed there occasionally, it certainly wasn't his home.)

Dracula liked to set up a banquet table and dine while he watched people die. His favorite form of execution was impalement. It was slow; people could take days to die. He liked to impale many people at once, arranging the stakes in fancy designs. Nothing was too brutal for Dracula - he enjoyed having people skinned, boiled alive, etc. He prided himself on making the punishment (supposedly) fit the crime.

By 1462, when he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people, possibly more. He always thought up some excuse for these executions. He killed merchants who cheated their customers. He killed women who had affairs. Supposedly he had one woman impaled because her husband's shirt was too short. He didn't mind impaling children, either. Afterwards he would display the corpses in public so everyone would learn a lesson. It's said that there were over 20,000 bodies hanging outside his capital city. Of course, the stories about Dracula's cruelty might have been exaggerated by his enemies.

Despite all this, Dracula's subjects respected him for fighting the Turks and being a strong ruler. He's remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Turkey and Hungary. He was the last Walachian prince to remain independent from the Ottoman Empire. He was so scornful of other nations that when two foreign ambassadors refused to doff their hats to him, he had the hats nailed to their heads. He was opposed to the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches because he thought foreigners, operating through the churches, had too much power in Walachia. He tried to prevent foreign merchants from taking business away from his citizens. If merchants disobeyed his trade laws, they were, of course, impaled.

Dracula created a very severe moral code for the citizens of Walachia. You can guess what happened to anyone who broke the code. Thieves were impaled, even liars were impaled. Naturally there wasn't a lot of crime in Walachia during his reign.

To prove how well his laws worked, Dracula had a gold cup placed in a public square. Anyone who wanted to could drink from the cup, but no one was allowed to take it out of the square. No one did.

A visiting merchant once left his money outside all night, thinking that it would be safe because of Dracula's strict policies. To his surprise, some of his coins were stolen. He complained to Dracula, who promptly issued a proclamation that the money must be returned or the city would be destroyed. That night Dracula secretly had the missing money, plus one extra coin, returned to the merchant. The next morning the merchant counted the money and found it had been returned. He told Dracula about this, and mentioned the extra coin. Dracula replied that the thief had been caught and would be impaled. And if the merchant hadn't mentioned the extra coin, he would have been impaled, too.

Dracula Overthrown

In 1462 Dracula attacked the Turks to drive them out of the Danube River valley. Sultan Mehmed II retaliated by invading Walachia with an army three times larger than Dracula's. Dracula was forced to retreat to his capital, Tirgoviste. He burned his own villages and poisoned wells on the way so that the Turkish army wouldn't have any food or water.

When the sultan reached Tirgoviste, he saw a terrifying scene, remembered in history as "the Forest of the Impaled." There, outside the city, were 20,000 Turkish prisoners, all impaled. The sultan's officers were too scared to go on - Dracula had won again.

Although the sultan retreated, Dracula's little brother Radu did not. The Turks had provided him with an army in hopes that he could seize Dracula's throne. Many of Dracula's boyars abandoned him to join Radu. Radu's army pursued Dracula to his fortress at Poenari. Dracula's wife was so frightened that she threw herself from the upper battlements. The Turks seized the castle, but Dracula managed to escape through a secret tunnel. There were still some peasants around he hadn't impaled, and they helped him flee from Walachia.

He went to the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, for help. Instead the king had him imprisoned in a tower. Dracula remained in Hungary for twelve years while Radu ruled Walachia as a puppet for the Turks. After the first four years he was allowed to move into a house. He ingratiated himself with the Hungarian royal family, and even married one of its members (possibly the king's sister). He became a Catholic at this time, which would have pleased the Catholic Hungarians.

But he was still the same old Dracula. He impaled rats and birds for fun. Once a thief broke into his house and a Hungarian captain followed him to arrest him. Dracula didn't kill the thief - he killed the officer. Why? Because the officer was a gentleman, and should have known not to enter a house uninvited.

The Death of Dracula

According to some accounts, Dracula's brother Radu died in 1474. The sultan put one of the Danesti clan, Basarab the Old, on the Walachian throne. In 1476 Dracula invaded Walachia with the help of Moldavia and Transylvania. They drove Basarab out of the country, and Dracula again became Walachia's prince. Most of Dracula's army then went home to Transylvania.

The Turks attacked a few months later. Dracula was killed while fighting near Bucharest. Some say he was assassinated on the battlefield by his own boyars, or was accidentally killed by one of his men. The sultan displayed Dracula's head on a pike in Constantinople to prove that he was dead. His body was buried at the island monastery of Snagov, which he had patronized. But excavations in 1931 failed to turn up any sign of his coffin!

And that is the story of the real Prince Dracula.


To speak about Dracula, the true one, let's talk a little about his past, mainly about his father, Vlad Dracul. The true Dracula, was a prince who lived in Wallachia, called Vlad Draculea. He was born in the year of 1431, in Transilvanya, in the city of Sighisoara, Romania (Schassburg, in german). This city is placed about 40 miles from Bistrita. The house he lived is identified by a plaque, that says his father, Dracul, lived there from 1431 to 1435.
The mother of Dr�cula, princess Cneajna, from the dinasty Musatin of Maldavia (near city), cared the young Dr�cula with the help of her maidens .The father of Dracula had a lover called Caltuna, and had a son called Vlad too. This women, went into a monastery, where she adopted the name of Eupr�xia.This brther of Vlad, was known lately as VLAD, THE MONK, . On that time, every son of a king was legitimated , independent of the mother.
Now. let's talk a little about the father of Vlad, Vlad Dracul.
Vlad was the authority of every german city of the region and defended Transilv�nia from the Turke attacks. His authority was received by the roman king Sigismundo of Luxemburgo (educated in Nuremberg by catholic moks).His political influence got stronger in 1431, he turned to Pr�nce of Wallachia and entered into the Order of Dragon, A secretive militar and religous brotherhood, the objective was to protect the chatolic churche against heresy, created by Sigismundo and his second wife, B�rbara Von Cilli. Another objective of the Order, was to organize a cruzade against the Turke,that had invaded the Balcan Peninsul.
But, in a certain period ,the political side of Vlad, realized that every politic was bending to the Sultan Murad II. So, treachery he signed a agreement with the sultan against those he fought beside : Sigismundo and all his successors. Many times, Vlad was with the Sultan in attack on every Transilv�nia, against his own people.
The Sultan ,never trusted on Vlad, made an ambush to Vlad and his sons. Vlad was arrested, acused of betraying. To save his life he left as prisioneers his two sons : Vlad and Radu. In 1442. The two boys were confined in home in the Sultan's palace.
And now we can talk more about Dracula.
These years kept as prisioneer, were fundamental in his caracter formation. Dracula began to not worry about the human nature. Knowing that if his father fail in somethinf, he would be dead, Dracula learnt early that in politics moral was foolish. He learnt the Turke language and went into the presures of the sultans� harem his priosion was not so restrict). But, is said by his captors that he devenloped a reputation of brute, treachrous, frightening his own guards.
Inside of him, Vlad marked two important points, that became lines he would ever follow: Don't trust in somebody again ad his thisty for vengance. But his brother Radu, a weaker personality, was totally took by the Turke, becaming a potential ally of Murad II.
The father of Dracula, died in 1447, ambushed by Jo�o Hunyadi. the brother of Dracula, Mircea, was blinded with a burning stake and burned alive. These two facts fortified the thisty for blood of Dracula that runned away from the Turke palace in 1448 and after a frustated try to take the throne of Wallachia, went to Mold�via, ruled by the prince Bogdan, wich son, Estev�o, was a cousin of Dracula.
There, Dracula was exilied until 1451, until Bogdan was brutally murdered. In that way, Vlad, With no altenatves, presented himself to Jo�o Hunyadi, in Transilv�nia. For political things, Dr�cula and Hunyad get closer in the way that Hunyad was the last menator of Dr�cula. With him, Dracula learnt many strategies antiturke, because his wasin many campagnias against the Turke in places that nowadays we know as Iugosl�via.
Another city linked to the name of Dracula, is Brasov (Kronstadt to the germans). It said that in its columns the victims of Vlad were empaled and left to rot in the sun.
In one of these columns, Dracula ate and drunk among the corpses. There is russian narrative telling about a boiardo, that came to a party in Brasov and didn't stand for the smell of cloaked blood, closed his nostrils with hsi fingers.,in a act of repulse. Dracula ordered a stake to be brought and show to the visitant telling him: "Stay there, far, so the stink will not disturb you:". So he ordered to empale the boiardo.
Is hard to stabilish statistics about that time, but as some german relates, Seem that in one of the pillation, when he killed one of his rivals and empaled EVERY person in the city of Amlas, Dracula killed about twenty thousand people, men, women and children. This means that died more people than in ther well known NIGHT OF SAINT BARTOLOMEU in Paris, a century later, when Catarina de Medicis ordered a masacre of the protestants in the party of the merriage of her daughter Margot with Henrique de Navarra.
But in the Romenian folklore, Dracula is not considered only as a vilain, Oposite to the german, tukes and russian traditions. In Wallachia, Vlad is honoured in popular songs and legends, mainly in the villages that round the Castle Dracula, the regionwhere he is most remembered. Altough the distortions occured in the passing time , Vlad is really an important part in the reconstruction of the past itself. The farmees are proud about te military acts of Dr�cula, do not caring about the ways he used. The fact that he fought to bane the no-christians seems to relievehim from the guilty of empaling his own people.



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I'm 23 years old, from United Kingdom.
Vlad Dracula
An intriguing figure in the fifteenth century
In less than two years from now the Count will celebrate his 100th birthday, and many Dracula enthusiasts from all around the world intend to underline this event. Of course, almost everybody has heard about this nosferatu: through movies featuring Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman; in several books - among which the recent Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice; or even in bedtime stories told to us in our childhood. We all have an idea of who or what the Count is. However, on the other hand, Vlad Tepes Dracula, the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker for his novel, is definitely less known. The centennial of the gothic masterpiece provides us with a good pretext to dive back into the life of this machiavellian fifteenth century leader - an initiative that will enable us to better appreciate the work of Stoker.

Vlad Tepes was born in November or December 1431, in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. His father, Vlad Dracul, at that time appointed military governor of Transylvania by the emperor Sigismund, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before. The order - which could be compared to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or even to the Teutonic Order of Knights - was a semimilitary and religious society, originally created in 1387 by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli. The main goals of such a secret fraternal order of knights was mainly to protect the interests of Catholicism, and to crusade against the Turks. There are different reasons why this society is so important to us. First, it provides an explanation for the name "Dracula;" "Dracul," in Romanian language, means "Dragon", and the boyars of Romania, who knew of Vlad Tepes' father induction into the Order of the Dragon, decided to call him "Dracul." "Dracula," a diminutive which means "the son of Dracul," was a surname to be used ultimately by Vlad Tepes. A second major role of this Order as a source of inspiration for Stoker's evil character is the Order's official dress - a black cape over a red garment - to be worn only on Fridays or during the commemoration of Christ's Passion.

In the winter of 1436-1437, Dracul became prince of Wallachia (one of the three Romanian provinces) and took up residence at the palace of Tirgoviste, the princely capital. Vlad Tepes followed his father and lived six years at the princely court. In 1442, for political reasons, Dracula and his younger brother Radu were taken hostage by the Sultan Murad II; Dracula was held in Turkey until 1448, while his brother Radu decided to stay there until 1462. This Turkish captivity surely played an important role in Dracula's upbringing; it must be at this period that he adopted a very pessimistic view of life. Indeed, the Turks set him free after informing him of his father's assassination in 1447 - organized by Vladislav II. He also learned about his older brother's death - Mircea was the eldest legitimate son of Dracul - and how he had been tortured and buried alive by the boyars of Tirgoviste.

At 17 years old, Vlad Tepes Dracula, supported by a force of Turkish cavalry and a contingent of troops lent to him by pasha Mustafa Hassan, made his first major move toward seizing the Wallachian throne. But another claimant, no other than Vladislav II himself, defeated him only two months later. In order to secure his second and major reign over Wallachia, Dracula had to wait until July of 1456, when he had the satisfaction of killing his mortal enemy and his father's assassin. Vlad then began his longest reign - 6 years - during which he committed many cruelties, and hence established his controversed reputation.

His first major act of revenge was aimed at the boyars of Tirgoviste for the killing of his father and his brother Mircea. On Easter Sunday of what we believe to be 1459, he arrested all the boyar families who had participated to the princely feast. He impaled the older ones on stakes while forcing the others to march from the capital to the town of Poenari. This fifty-mile trek was quite grueling, and those who survived were not permitted to rest until they reached destination. Dracula then ordered them to build him a fortress on the ruins of an older outpost overlooking the Arges river. Many died in the process, and Dracula therefore succeeded in creating a new nobility and obtaining a fortress for future emergencies. What is left today of the building is identified as Castle Dracula.Vlad became quite known for his brutal punishment techniques; he often ordered people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed, etc. He also liked to cut off noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes, hence the surname "Tepes" which means "The Impaler" in the Romanian language. Even the Turks referred to him as "Kaziglu Bey," meaning "The Impaler Prince." It is this technique he used in 1457, 1459 and 1460 against Transylvanian merchants who had ignored his trade laws. The raids he led against the German Saxons of Transylvania were also acts of proto-nationalism in order to protect and favour the Wallachian commerce activities.

There are many anecdotes about the philosophy of Vlad Tepes Dracula. He was for instance particularly known throughout his land for his fierce insistence on honesty and order. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing, could be punished by impalement. Being so confident in the effectiveness of his law, Dracula placed a golden cup on display in the central square of Tirgoviste. The cup could be used by thirsty travelers, but had to remain on the square. According to the available historic sources, it was never stolen and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad's reign. Dracula was also very concerned that all his subjects work and be productive to the community. He looked upon the poor, vagrants and beggars as thieves. Consequently, he invited all the poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. After the guests ate and drank, Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one survived.

In the beginning of 1462, Vlad launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube river. It was quite risky, the military force of Sultan Mehmed II being by far more powerful than the Wallachian army. However, during the winter of 1462, Vlad was very successful and managed to gain many victories. To punish Dracula, the Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Wallachia. Of course, his other goal was to transform this land into a Turkish province and he entered Wallachia with an army three times larger than Dracula's. Finding himself without allies, Vlad, forced to retreat towards Tirgoviste, burned his own villages and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would find nothing to eat or drink. Moreover, when the Sultan, exhausted, finally reached the capital city, he was confronted by a most gruesome sight: thousands of stakes held the remaining carcasses of some 20,000 Turkish captives, a horror scene which was ultimately nicknamed the "Forest of the Impaled." This terror tactic deliberately stage-managed by Dracula was definitely successful; the scene had a strong effect on Mehmed's most stout-hearted officers, and the Sultan, tired and hungry, admitted defeat (it is worth mentioning that even Victor Hugo, in his Legende des Siecles, recalls this particular incident). Nevertheless, following his retreat from Wallachian territory, Mehmed left the next phase of the battle to Vlad's younger brother Radu, the Turkish favorite for the Wallachian throne. At the head of a Turkish army and joined by Vlad's detractors, Radu pursued his brother to Poenari castle on the Arges river.

According to the legend, this is when Dracula's wife, in order to escape Turkish capture, committed suicide by hurling herself from the upper battlements, her body falling down the precipice into the river below - a scene exploited by Francis Ford Coppola's production. Vlad, who was definitely not the kind of man to kill himself, managed to escape the siege of his fortress by using a secret passage into the mountain. Helped by some peasants of the Arefu village, he was able to reach Transylvania where he met the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus. However, instead of providing some help, Matthias arrested Dracula and imprisoned him at the Hungarian capital of Visegrad. It was not until 1475 that Vlad was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia, enjoying a very short third reign. In fact, he was assassinated toward the end of December 1476.

We do not know exactly why Bram Stoker chose this fifteenth century Romanian prince as a model for his fictional character. Some scholars have proposed that Stoker had a friendly relationship with a Hungarian professor from the University of Budapest, Arminius Vambery (Hermann Vamberger) , and it is likely that this man gave Stoker some information about Vlad Tepes Dracula. Moreover, the fact that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing mentions his "friend Arminius" in the 1897 novel as the source of his knowledge on Vlad seems to support this hypothesis. It should also be kept in mind that the only real link between the historical Dracula (1431-1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire is in fact the 1897 novel; Stoker made use of folkloric sources, historic references and some of his own life experiences to create his composite creature. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that Vlad Dracula's political detractors - mainly German Saxons - made use of the other meaning of the Romanian word "Dracul" - "Devil" - in order to blacken the prince's reputation. Could the association of the words "Dragon" and "Devil" in Romanian language explain an earlier link between Vlad Tepes and vampirism?

Today, as Romania opens itself to the tourism industry, many "Dracula Tours" are being offered throughout the country. Two months ago, the author of this article attended one of them, organized by Bravo Group and designed by the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. This particular Tour includes the most important historical places related with Vlad Tepes, such as 15th century town of Sighisoara - Vlad's birth place; the Snagov Monastery - where, according to legend, Vlad is said to have been buried after his assassination; Castle Bran - which has been in the past erroneously described by officials of the Romanian Tourist Ministry as Castle Dracula; the Poenari fortress; the village of Arefu - where many Dracula legends are still told; the city of Brasov - where Vlad led raids against the German Saxons; and, of course, Curtea Domneasca - Dracula's palace in Bucharest. The Tour also covers the folklorical aspects of the fictional Dracula. For instance, one will find oneself eating the meal Jonathan Harker ate at The Golden Crown in Bistrita, and sleeping at Castle Dracula Hotel - built no so long ago on the Borgo Pass, approximately where the fictional castle of the Count is supposed to be. If you have another trip to the Bahamas planned for next Christmas and are a fan of Stoker's literary work, maybe should you reconsider your decision?

As for the 100th birthday of the novel, may you celebrate "freely and of your own will!"

Further reading

Florescu, Radu, and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, 1431-1476. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973. 239 pp.

_________. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces; His Life and His Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, 261 pp.

Giurescu, Constantin C. The Life and Deeds of Vlad the Impaler. Dracula. New York: Romanian Library, 1969.

McNally, Raymond T., and Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires Completely Revised. 1972. Reprint. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994, 297 pp.

Stoicescu, Nicolae. Vlad the Impaler. Translated by Cristina Krikorian. Bucharest: Romanian Academy, 1978.

Treptow, Kurt W., ed. Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Tepes. East European Monographs, no. 323, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. 336 pp.


The Transylvanian Society of DraculaBuccuresti 1
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Vlad Tepes

Vlad the Impaler (also known as Vlad Tepes and Vlad Dracula) was the historical figure that Bram Stoker used as a basis for his famous creation, Dracula. He was not at all the vampire that Bram Stoker portrayed him to be. Most of Bram Stoker's novel i s a purely fictional account.

Vlad Tepes was born sometime between 1430 and 1431 in a Transylvanian town called Schassburg (aka Sighisoara). Soon after his birth, his father, Vlad Dracul, joined the Order of the Dragon and took an oath that he and his family would be dedicated to fighting the Turks, who had begun an attack upon Europe.

In 1447, Vlad's father, Vlad Dracul, was killed by the governor of Hungry, John Hunyadi. A year later, Vlad attempted to assume the throne of Wallachia, but was unsuccessful until 1456, when he began his six year rule that earned him the name Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler).

On Easter Sunday of 1459, Vlad committed his first major act of revenge by arresting the boyer families whom he held responsible for the death of his father and brother. He impaled the older ones outside the city walls and forced the rest to build what is now identified as Castle Dracula. He then redistributed their estates and positions to those who were loyal to only him.

Vlad also began fighting the churches, both Orthodox and Roman Catholic, whom he saw as having foreign influence on Romania. He also took actions against foreign merchants whom he saw as preventing the development of the Romanian industry. Vlad would use his position to enforce a strict moral code upon his people, and those who offended this code would be killed. He not only would impale people in various ways, but would often excecute his victims in a manner that was in some way related to the crime for which they were being punished. In his six year reign, he is said to have had around 40,000 victims.

The end of his brief rule came when Vlad launched an attack to drive the Turks from the Danube River valley. He had a brief victory but was soon forced to retreat back to Castle Dracula because he was greatly outnumbered. He chose to escape through a secret tunnel to Transylvania before the Turks overran the castle. According to legend, his wife committed suicide before the Turks got to the castle.

In Transylvania, he presented himself to the new king of Hungary, Mattias Corvinus, and was arrested and imprisoned. By the summer of 1475, we was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia, and again began battling with the Turks, but a group of Wallachians allied themselves with the Turks and assasinated him in either late December of 1476 or early January of 1477.

Vlad the Impaler (also known as Vlad Tepes and Vlad Dracula) was the historical figure that Bram Stoker used as a basis for his famous creation, Dracula. He was not at all the vampire that Bram Stoker portrayed him to be. Most of Bram Stoker's novel is a purely fictional account.

Vlad Tepes was born sometime between 1430 and 1431 in a Transylvanian town called Schassburg (aka Sighisoara). Soon after his birth, his father, Vlad Dracul, joined the Order of the Dragon and took an oath that he and his family would be dedicated to fighting the Turks, who had begun an attack upon Europe.

In 1447, Vlad's father, Vlad Dracul, was killed by the governor of Hungry, John Hunyadi. A year later, Vlad attempted to assume the throne of Wallachia, but was unsuccessful until 1456, when he began his six year rule that earned him the name Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler).

On Easter Sunday of 1459, Vlad committed his first major act of revenge by arresting the boyer families whom he held responsible for the death of his father and brother. He impaled the older ones outside the city walls and forced the rest to build what is now identified as Castle Dracula. He then redistributed their estates and positions to those who were loyal to only him.

Vlad also began fighting the churches, both Orthodox and Roman Catholic, whom he saw as having foreign influence on Romania. He also took actions against foreign merchants whom he saw as preventing the development of the Romanian industry. Vlad would use his position to enforce a strict moral code upon his people, and those who offended this code would be killed. He not only would impale people in various ways, but would often excecute his victims in a manner that was in some way related to the crime for which they were being punished. In his six year reign, he is said to have had around 40,000 victims.

The end of his brief rule came when Vlad launched an attack to drive the Turks from the Danube River valley. He had a brief victory but was soon forced to retreat back to Castle Dracula because he was greatly outnumbered. He chose to escape through a secret tunnel to Transylvania before the Turks overran the castle. According to legend, his wife committed suicide before the Turks got to the castle.

In Transylvania, he presented himself to the new king of Hungary, Mattias Corvinus, and was arrested and imprisoned. By the summer of 1475, we was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia, and again began battling with the Turks, but a group of Wallachians allied themselves with the Turks and assasinated him in either late December of 1476 or early January of 1477.








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