Unlike many similar semi-mythical characters, the life of Lady Erzsebet Bathory has been studied in detail. The dates of her birth and death (1560-07-08 - 1614-21-08.), As well as the origin, years of marriage and the number of children have been established to the exact day. At the same time, the most interesting period of her biography, after which the noble aristocrat went down in history under the nickname "Bloody Countess", remains largely unclear and full of nebulae. Nevertheless, the traditions of Lady Bathory's cruelty have a real basis, and she deserves the status of one of the bloodiest criminals of all time.
Descending from a noble family of Hungarian aristocrats, at the age of fifteen, the future Bloody Countess was married to a representative of an equally influential family - Ferenc Nadashdi. It is known that in this union Erzbet gave birth to six children, whose upbringing was mainly carried out by the governess. Ferenc Nadashdi died in 1604 from an unknown illness; The widow and children were taken under his patronage by Gyorgy Thurzo, who at that time held the post of palatine, which combined the duties of the first minister and the supreme judge.
Portrait of Lady Bathory.
Chakhtitsa castle.
The supposed place of confinement of * the bloody countess *.
Rumors of some perverse torture taking place in numerous castles belonging to the Nadashdi-Bathory family began to spread during Ferenc's lifetime. The reaction to them from the official authorities followed only at the beginning of 1610, when King Matthias II ordered the already mentioned Thurzo to start an investigation. After interviewing numerous witnesses and collecting other evidence, it was decided to arrest the Countess and her accomplices. Bathory was arrested on December 30 of the same 1610 in her castle Cheyte (Chakhtitsky castle). There is information that the countess and her assistants were found during the torture of another victim, and Erzbet herself was spattered with blood.
Based on the testimony of more than three hundred witnesses, the countess was charged with torture and numerous murders. Apparently, Lady Bathory always dealt harshly with her subordinates, and, starting in 1585, her cruelty began to take on more and more perverted forms. For the slightest offense, the girls serving the countess were burned and wrung their hands, disfigured their faces, and left them without food or water for a long time. At first, the victims of violence were the daughters of local peasants, who were lured into the castle with promises of high-paying jobs as servants. However, soon Lady Bathory and her henchmen turned to torture young girls from the families of the small landed nobles, whom the parents themselves sent to the Countess's castle to learn court manners. There are also proven cases of kidnapping of young women,committed precisely for the purpose of torture and subsequent murder.
The trial did not establish the exact number of the Blood Countess's victims; it ranges from eighty to six hundred. According to the confessions of the servants, more than two hundred bodies bearing signs of torture were taken out of the castle and buried. In addition, a considerable number of corpses were found in basements and tightly walled up rooms, where Lady Bathory's victims died, apparently from thirst and hunger.
Promotional video:
Unlike her closest accomplices in crimes, three women and one man, the Bloody Countess herself, thanks to her origin, was able to avoid public trial and execution. According to one version, she was ordered not to leave her room, where she died four years after the atrocities were revealed. According to the other, the Countess Bathory was walled up in one of the cellars of her castle, in the doors of which a small hole was left for serving food.
Rumors about the vampiric inclinations of the Bloody Countess, as well as her habit of taking baths from the blood of virgins to prolong her own youth and preserve her beauty, appeared many years after her death and to this day remain only rumors; no documentary evidence of these acts was found. At the same time, it follows from the interrogations of her servants that she really devoted a lot of time to the procedures available at that time, allowing her to preserve her beauty and freshness for a longer time. All of Lady Bathory's actions were aimed at inflicting maximum suffering on the victims, and not just a thirst for murder and were caused, apparently, by some kind of serious mental illness.
Nowadays, Bathory's "Bloody Countess" is a truly legendary figure, rivaling in popularity with another, no less demonic, character of Eastern European folklore - Count Dracula.
