The Real Dracula

July 26, 2015

Even into the last century, the people in the villages near Bran believed in the existence of “strigoi” – people who led normal lives during the day but whose souls left their bodies at night to torment the village. Their evil powers ended at daybreak. The Dracula character derives from these local myths.

Bram Stoker's real-life inspiration for the fictional Count Dracula seems to have been Vlad Ţepeş (Ţepeş means impaler), born in 1431. His father was Vlad Dracul, meaning dragon. He was named that because he had joined The Order of the Dragon, which was an exclusive society for nobility that defended the cross and fought the enemies of Christianity (part of the Crusaders). Since his father was named Vlad Dracul, our villain was named Dracul-a, meaning son of Dracul. Vlad Dracul (the father) ruled in Wallachia (modern day Romania). He was seen as playing both sides, the Christians and the Ottomans (Turks). Because of this, the Turkish ruler held Vlad Dracul's two young sons prisoner for many years. Being raised by the Turks contributed to Vlad Dracula's cynical and sadistic tendencies.

Eventually, Vlad Dracula became ruler of Wallachia. At that time, the ruling nobility class (boyars) were a deceitful bunch and never allowed anyone to rule for more than a few years, thus the high number of princes that had ruled in previous years. They were also responsible for the death of Vlad's older brother, having buried him alive. Vlad took it upon himself to punish them in the famous Easter slaughter. The boyars were invited to feast at his castle wearing their best clothing. As they exited the chapel, the weak ones (including wives and children) were immediately impaled, while the strong became forced labour to help build his fortress. They worked until their fancy clothes fell off their backs. Vlad was very popular with the peasant classes and he often gave them the properties that were confiscated from the boyars.

He was not always kind to the lowly, however. He rid the country of beggars, of whom he said, “These men live off the sweat of others, so they are useless to humanity.” Along with the vagabonds, he invited the old, the lame, and the gypsies to dine. He then fed them, got them drunk, and locked them into the room, which he had set on fire. Thus he rid his country of what he considered a social plague.

Vlad would test the honesty of his people by leaving bags of gold in the square.  No one dared touch them for fear of having their hands cut off.

Vlad Dracula believed that he should be awarded respect for his position as prince. When some foreign Italian ambassadors came to his court to visit, they removed their hats but not their skullcaps, as was their custom, which they explained to him. He then aided them in keeping their custom by nailing the skullcaps into their heads.

Vlad Dracula had granted the German Saxon people an economic treaty enabling them to trade their goods freely. However, the Saxons broke their deal by supporting other contenders to the throne of Wallachia. As of that moment, Vlad began engaging in numerous raids as “punishment” campaigns. He attacked villages, set fire to crops, and impaled prisoners next to the Saint Jacob Chapel of Braşov.

As many as 80,000 Saxons died during his reign, and as many as 20,000 of those were impaled. This is when he earned the name Ţepeş (pronounced Tsay-pesh), which means Vlad the Impaler. I had always believed that “impaled” meant the head was chopped off and then displayed on a pole, but actually the whole body was pierced through on a pole. The pole would enter the bottom and leave through the neck, leaving the victims to die slowly. When the body was discarded, the only visible wound was a hole in the neck (vampire?).  He is said to have sat at a meal and watched the Saxons being butchered, and even dipped his bread in their blood. Thus his later association with being a vampire.  

Meanwhile, the Turks were an ever advancing force that none of the other European forces took seriously, as they were reserving their warfare for their own petty differences. Vlad recognized the danger that the Turks imposed, and took upon himself the destruction of all the ports on the Danube so that the Turks had great difficulty in crossing over. Once the Turks did manage to cross over, Vlad Ţepeş made a “strategic retreat”. He withdrew deep into his own known territory and destroyed towns, crops, and water sources behind him so the Turks would not be able to gain strength from those resources. He sent diseased people into the Turkish camps to spread illness. He made a famous “night attack” on the Turks and massacred Turkish troops. When the Turks approached Vlad's capital city, they were greeted by “The Forest of the Impaled”, a wall of 20,000 impaled Turkish bodies on stakes. The next day, the Turkish sultan and his troops retreated.

Following the Turkish retreat, the war torn people turned to Vlad's younger brother Radu for leadership. Radu had also been raised by the Turks, but did not hate them as Vlad did. Radu was ready to rule with “friendly co-operation” with the Turks. Radu pursued his brother to his castle, where Vlad's wife threw herself from the turret rather than be taken by the Turks. Vlad carried out an ingenious escape by having the horses shod backwards, which confused the enemy. Vlad Ţepeş then put his trust in the Magyar (Hungarian) king, who betrayed him and had Vlad arrested on false claims that Vlad supported the Turks. Vlad was taken to Hungary where he lived under house arrest in the king's palace. After fourteen years of imprisonment, Vlad the Impaler was set free when Radu died of syphilis.

Vlad once again became ruler of Wallachia. It was time to crusade against the Turks again. However, shortly afterwards he died in an Ottoman ambush in 1476, at 45 years of age. It is not exactly clear whether he was killed by the Turks, by another contender to the Wallachian throne, or accidentally by one of his own men. It is known, however, that he died in fitting style: he was killed and then beheaded. His head was sent to Turkish Constantinople where it was displayed impaled on a stake, as proof that he was dead.

Though other countries may see him as a monster, in Romania Vlad Ţepeş is remembered as a hero.

To give credit where it is due, the majority of our information was interpreted from the following book:

Florescu, Radu, and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His times. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1989. Print.