Absolutely any culture has its own vampires, which, of course, cannot but alert even the most skeptical scientists. In early Babylonian demonology, blood-sucking spirits were called Leela, while even earlier Sumerians were called aksharas. Ancient Armenian mythology tells about a vampire named Dahanavar, in India children are frightened with vetals, superstitious Chinese are hunted at dark nights. A lame corpse - yes, you can list forever. Can you explain the fact that all of humanity in a single impulse took and invented vampires without any preconditions? Hardly.
Dracula's buddy
According to historians, it was Eastern Europe that became the main habitat for vampires. We will not talk about Vlad Dracula here, many books are already devoted to him. But another "Danube Vampire" Mikhailo Katic is known to few, although he was in the same "Order of the Dragon" as the father of the Impaler. Katic was born in the 15th century and, judging by the surviving scraps of data, he never died. Romanian peasants considered this bloodsucker the founder of a new vampire dynasty, which still exists today.
Territory of fear
The 18th century was the century of general panic for Eastern Europe. Vampires were hunted by everyone, including government employees and more or less educated nobles. Today, scientists believe that at that time East Prussia and the Habsburg monarchy became the center of the hunt for bloodsuckers: here, for the first time, the posthumous "adventures" of Peter Pogojevics and Arnold Paole were carefully documented by the authorities. All records have been preserved in state archives, that is, there can be no talk of any regular peasant superstitions.
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Sunset of Europe
The case of Arnold Paole was studied especially. The farmer died after being attacked by a vampire and then, after returning from the other world, accompanied the entire native village to the grave. Scholars and theologians from Prussia have issued several official treatises, allegedly proving the existence of vampires. After that, the epidemic of fear spread to the rest of Europe.
Destruction of cemeteries
These books caused a panic that continued throughout the next generation of Europeans. In the villages, they began to dig up graves en masse, every now and then discovering the next "evidence" of the bloody tricks of the restless dead. And in 1746, a very respected French theologian and prominent scientist Antoine Augustine Calmet published a treatise where he dryly summed up all the facts about vampires in nature, which unexpectedly led to even greater panic among the population.
Voltaire and the vampires
The fact is that Kalme's manuscript contained an impressive list of proven incidents with vampires. And as a summary, the philosopher deduced a thesis that, although it did not directly confirm the existence of bloodsuckers, but quite admitted it. Calmet's opinion was considered authoritative throughout educated Europe - even Voltaire himself (however, also rather vaguely) expressed his agreement with the works of the French theologian.
The voice of reason
The hunt for bloodsuckers flared up with renewed vigor and did not subside right up to 1754, when the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, tired of dying, rebelling and simultaneously going crazy subjects, sent her personal physician Gerhard van Schweten to investigate the case. The pragmatic Dutchman investigated the problem for six months, after which he decided: if vampires attacked before, then apparently they are now bored with Europe. The Empress immediately issued a law according to which the opening of graves and desecration of corpses was punishable by death. The era of vampire freemen with a decree, too, oddly enough, is over.
Crazy theory
Cryptozoologists, ufologists and other supporters of conspiracy theories of all stripes believe that vampires appeared in Eastern Europe at the very moment when the bubonic plague epidemic began there. As usual, the aliens are to blame for everything: they allegedly brought a vaccine to Earth against a terrible disease that threatened the existence of all mankind. What does vampires have to do with it? So the vampires became those who had a miraculous serum from space caused a mutation.
The only proof
The bubonic plague really ended inexplicably quickly - in three months the deadly epidemic simply stopped and modern scientists do not see an explanation for this. The first written evidence of the appearance of bloodsuckers appeared around the same time, but there is not a single fact more in support of the slightly crazy theory of ufologists.