Contrary to popular belief, the historic Vlad IV the Impaler (Vlad the Impaler), Hospodar of Wallachia, he is not the same character, what the legendary prince Dracula of Transylvania.
The son of Vlad III Drak, the voivode of Wallachia (the devil – dragon) was born in Sighisoara around 1431 r., and then he was brought up in Tirgoviste. His carefree childhood ended in 1444 r., when his father sent him and his brother Radu to Turkey as hostages. Voivode (hospodar, prince) he had exposed himself to the Prince of Transylvania, John of Hunedoara, who made sure of it, that the hospodar of Wallachia be destroyed. Not long after that, as in 1447 r. their father was murdered, and someone else sat on the Wallachian throne, young Vlad and Radu were released and went into exile to Moldova and Transylvania. Most likely, it was the experience of captivity and later years spent in a foreign country that shaped the character of Vlad, who became famous in Europe as an unprecedented cruelty, fearing not only powerful enemies, but also his own unfortunate subjects.
Looking for a vassal, John of Hunedoara w 1456 r. helped Vlad assume the throne of Wallachia. Because John Hunyady soon died, Vlad made peace with the Saxons of Brasov and wisely decided to pay the Turkish sultan an annual tribute in the amount of 10 000 golden ducats, to keep him from war. He did not want to get into a war, because he had enough trouble in his own backyard, where boyars have long tried to get rid of the power of voivodes (to mention, for example, father Vlad and his brother Mircza, buried alive).
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Vlad knew only one way of punishing any of them, even the slightest offense – death by impalement. A ruthless sentence fell on both of these, who inadvertently offended the prince, as well as on these, who, for example, did not return the change to him on a commercial transaction. Sam, often in disguise, "accidentally” lost coins or overpaid merchants, to check them out. The country blew with terror, and at the same time there was perfect honesty. Apparently, at a source in a remote area, the Impaler placed a golden mug on purpose and no one dared to steal the vessel.
On Easter 1459 r. The hospodar dealt with the boyar opposition in a typical manner – the nobility, together with their families invited to a party at the prince's palace, he ordered to be seized and slaughtered, and tych, which he had spared, he forced to build a castle on the top of a steep cliff in Poienari in the hardships of non-humans. By a similar method, the ruthless ruler got rid of beggars and vagabonds – accumulated , them at the feast in Tirgoviste and asked, would they like to be free from their worries in life, and having received an affirmative answer, he had them all burned alive.
Fire, with sword and stake he eliminated all internal enemies. He could sit down to dinner surrounded by a dozen or so stakes, where people died in torment. When in June 1462 r. the Turkish army entered the boundaries of his farm by force, on her way she came across a forest 20 000 pali z nabitymi, tormented in the heat, but still alive Turkish and Bulgarian prisoners. Fear did its job: The Turks retreated in panic.
The fall of the hated ruler was caused, among others, by. settlements in the Romanian lands of the Saxons, which prince – your way – took its toll on me. They probably forged a "document of treason”, in which Vlad the Impaler allegedly offered the Sultan assistance in the planned invasion of Transylvania. The Prince of Transylvania, Maciej Korwin, imprisoned the Inverter at the end 1462 and Released after a few years, Vlad lived in Sibiu for a year, and then, w 1476 r, he returned to the throne of his household. Meanwhile, his brother Radu offered the boyars a different one, a gentler kind of exercise of power, which they agreed to, of course. Betrayed by his own subjects, Vlad was murdered and buried in the Snagov Monastery. His head was probably sent as a gift to the Turkish Sultan.
There is no inscription on the prince's tomb. Attempts were made to erase his name from history. Along with the cruel deeds of the Impaler, however, his positive achievements were forgotten – protecting the principality from war with the Turks, skillfully conducted diplomacy, maintaining discipline and discipline in society. The situation changed dramatically in the Ceausescu era, when Włada was forcibly portrayed as a national hero, concealing the perversions of his governance.
Nevertheless, while alive, being a monster in human skin, after Vlad's death, however, he was not a vampire. Belief in vampires and strigoi, especially alive in the Balkans, in the minds of simple people she could combine the cruel ruler with a bloodthirsty monster. Prince Dracula owes international fame to a vampire to a novel by Irish writer Bram Stoker (1847-1912). The fictional character was born in the artist's imagination in the reading room of the British Library. The author was inspired by terrifying information about the real Impaler and another historical figure – Elizabeth Bathory of Transylvania, as well as true and false reports, about London's Jack the Ripper. The action of his novel, Stoker masterfully set in the realities of Romanian folklore, history and geography, and this is probably why the imaginary prince Dracula may seem so real.
A novel that belongs to the classics is definitely worth reading, or at least get to know its most important film adaptations, the mute Nosferatu, a masterpiece of the Nosferatu Vampire genre, by Werner Herzog, and with Bram Stoker's most faithful book Dracula, shot by Francis Ford Coppola.