Myths and folklore beliefs about blood-sucking creatures exist in almost any culture, from the human eating Hindu goddess Khali to the Japanese evil water spirits, the kappas and the real blood-sucking bats in South America. However, none of these creatures can challenge the vampire’s world wide known title of ‘blood-sucking creature’. The vampire became famous throughout the world through the western European novels such as Bram Stoker’s ‘‘Dracula’’ or the Hollywood movies such as the iconic 1931 ‘‘Dracula’’ starring Bela Lugosi, but few people know that the entire concept originated and was accordingly borrowed from the centuries old beliefs and legends of Eastern Europe. In fact, the most famous vampire of all times, Dracula, is said to have dwelled in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, one of the three major provinces of today’s Romania and Bram Stoker is believed to have built his character on the real historical figure of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, who was one of the greatest kings in Romanian history. The reasons that lead many scholars to consider him the main inspiration for Dracula are plenty, from Vlad’s nickname, Draculea, to his much feared habit of impaling his enemies. But perhaps the most interesting feature of this legendary character is the contradictory way in which he was and still is celebrated as both a blood-thirsty torturer and a just and righteous king.
Vlad Tepes was a 15th century Romanian king who ruled the southern province of Wallachia. Strict historical facts tell us that he was born in Transylvania, he was sent as a hostage to the Turks as a boy and afterwards struggled to regain the throne of his father and also to secure independence from the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Later on, due to internal fights with his brother, he fled to Transylvania where he was captured by the Hungarian king Korvin Mathias and imprisoned in a fortified castle in the Carpathians. He was eventually set free and regained the Wallachian throne, but was soon betrayed and murdered by his sustainers.
As previously said, he is commonly believed to be the living model of count Dracula, the factual character which inspired Bram Stocker and though researchers are still debating about the authenticity of such a claim, there are some undeniable similarities. First, the name: Vlad Draculea or Dracula. He was thus nicknamed because his father, the king Vlad II was a knight of the Order of the Dragon, a knightly order created to protect the Christian world from the Islamic Ottoman Empire’s threat. Just as Dr. Elizabeth Miller explains, ‘‘The name “Dracula” has links with the Romanian word “drac” (derived from the Latin “draco”) which can mean both “dragon” and “devil.” The general consensus among historians now is that Vlad adopted it as a sobriquet derived from the Order of the Dragon which had been bestowed upon his father, Vlad Dracul, in 1431.’’ (Dracula’s) In addition, in medieval times the dragon and the devil were often considered the same, and Romanians called their king Vlad II Dracul. Consequently, Vlad Tepes, his son came to be known as Draculea, or the son of Dracul, according to the denomination system of the old Romanian language, which enables reference to someone’s son by adding the suffix ‘‘-lea’’ to the father’s name.
Moreover, Vlad Tepes was renowned for his special torture technique of impaling his enemies. According to Wikipedia’s definition, ‘‘Impalement is an act of torture and/or execution whereby the victim is pierced by a long stake. The penetration can be through the sides, from the rectum, or possibly through the mouth. The stake would be usually planted in the ground, leaving the victim hanging to die.’’ (Wikipedia 2) This was the way he killed not only most of his internal and external adversaries such as the Turks, but also the common criminals such as thieves and rapists. And in case you were wondering what his name, ‘Tepes’ actually means, it means the Impaler.
However, more than the impaling and the name, it is the dualism of his legend that makes Vlad Tepes such an interesting character. Why dualism? Because he has been depicted as a cruel blood-thirsty monster by the his foreign contemporaries, namely his most often targets such as the invading Turks or the wealthy German merchants chased from Walachia for frauds. On the contrary, for his own people, he went down in history as the most righteous and just ruler the Romanians ever had, because during his reign crimes were so rare that a golden goblet put to ease the thirst of travelers on the edge of a public well would stay untouched until his death. According to Dr. Miller, a well-know authority in the field, ‘‘The problem originates, of course, with primary sources, many of which […] are heavily biased against him. Many of the stories about Vlad’s atrocities that are so well-known today come from these sources. By contrast, Romanian folk narratives […] present a very different Vlad: a supporter of the peasants against the treacherous boyars, an upholder of law and order in lawless times, and a valiant defender of his small principality against the might of the Ottoman Empire.’’ (Dracula’s)
One cannot help questioning, just like Dr. Miller, ‘‘Was he [Vlad Tepes] a hero or a psychopathic tyrant? Are his atrocities in any way defensible?’’ (Dracula’s) In the end, it all depends on one’s point of view. But in any case, the multiple resemblances between the myth of Dracula and the real historical figure of the Romanian king are not just mere coincidences. Naturally, Vlad Tepes was not a vampire (and his taste for stakes might actually suggest the contrary), but he does represent the major inspiration source for Bram Stoker’s famous character. And in the end, his own story and character might prove out to be just as (if not more!) interesting than the 19th century novel, but it is his fate to now forever exist in universal history as the shadow of a Western born fictional blood-sucking monster…
