Erzsebet Bathory is a Hungarian-born Countess who became famous as a serial killer in the 17th century.
Her demonized image served as inspiration for the eminent writers of her time: the Grimm brothers, Bram Stoker, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Julio Cortazar and for countless horror fans of the last centuries. The story of the Bloody Countess has found many forms in literary works, in theatrical performances and in products of the media industry. But the bloody details of the life of Countess Bathory are only a figment of the imagination of their authors.
During her lifetime, a Hungarian aristocrat was convicted of cruel treatment of servants, which caused the death of many of them. Over the centuries, Lady Erzsebet turned into a vampire.
In the 16th-17th centuries, after the punishments, the servants tried to get rid of the traces of blood or make them less noticeable. But Michael Wegener has firmly hammered into our heads the story of the Bloody Lady's pursuit of the source of youth.
In the circles of her admirers, she is insane, although before the famous investigation she led the usual social life of a European aristocrat. Lady Bathory was reputed to be cruel because she inherited a complex temper from Dracula himself. During the search, one body and several exhausted girls were found.
Erzhebet's pedigree was impeccable, unlike the relatives themselves. Her uncle was entertained by Satanism, and her aunt had unusual inclinations in sex life and loved to torture her servants. My brother was an ordinary alcoholic and womanizer.
Her husband, Ferenc Nadashdi, devoted most of his life to military campaigns against the Turks who besieged the Hungarian borders. The count shifted the care of all possessions and its inhabitants onto the shoulders of his wife.
At the beginning of the 17th century, girls began to disappear in the village near the countess's castle. Rumors spread throughout the area about Lady Bathory's involvement in the disappearances and murders of the unfortunate. After the death of her husband Erzhebet, speculations defaming the Dowager Lady grew like a snowball.
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In 1610, by order of the Hungarian King Matthias II, an investigation was launched to establish the truth about the Bloody Countess. Cousin Erzhebet, who led the investigation, discovered the captives and arrested Lady Bathory. At the trial, three hundred witnesses were interviewed, who unanimously claimed about various kinds of torture of a varying number of girls. Due to the fact that the Hungarian aristocrat could treat the peasant women as she pleased, she was tried for the deaths of noble girls sent to her upbringing.
At the time, while all of her accomplices were executed after the confession was knocked out, Erzsebet herself did not participate in the process in any way. Her family, as the most influential house in Transylvania, protected her relative from the fate of being executed. But this impulse was caused not by family affection, but by their desire to preserve the inheritance of the disgraced countess. If they had allowed the Hungarian monarch to execute Lady Bathory, then the property of the aristocrat was appropriated by Matthias II, which canceled his debts to the county couple and expanded the king's possessions.
The last years of her life the Bloody Countess spent as a prisoner of her relatives in complete isolation in the prison of her own castle. In August 1614, Erzhebet Bathory passed away.