A man died. We put him in the grave -
And with him the good that he managed to do.
And we only remember what was bad about him.
- William Shakespeare
In legends, chronicles, chronicles, legends … In all these sources, Vlad Dracula is presented as a cruel ruler, a tyrant. But where did the legends come from that Vlad Dracula was a vampire?
You may be disappointed, but the real Dracula did not drink blood. In Romania, where children study the history of the reign of Prince Dracula in schools and a monument to the Wallachian ruler Vlad the Impaler is erected, and a small town near Bucharest is named after him, almost everyone knows this. Maybe he was a cruel ruler. Historical sources claim that he burned, ripped off the skin, ripped open stomachs, chopped off arms and legs, cut off noses, hammered nails into heads and, of course, impaled in huge quantities. But to drink blood …
Vlad was slandered by Irish writer Brem Stoker when he needed a name for the protagonist of his new vampire novel. A familiar professor from Budapest, who became a reward for his assistance in writing the novel as a prototype of a fighter against vampires in the work, suggested to the author the name of Dracula, whose reputation corresponded to the flavor of the novel.
The book about the vampire was published in 1897 and became a bestseller. After that, the image of the vampire Count Dracula was taken up by the cinema and thanks to its showiness, it became incredibly popular. The number of Dracula films is in the hundreds, and new ones appear all the time. Of course, the cinematic image is infinitely far from the real appearance of the historical Tepes.
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Far from the real appearance of Dracula and Stoker's hero. Apart from the name and the approximate location of the action, there is nothing real in the novel. Dracula in the novel bears the title of count, although even not being a ruler, that is, a prince, he had the right to the title of duke. Northern Transylvania is named as his place of residence in the novel, but in reality Vlad Tepes was associated mainly with the southern regions of this country, was the ruler in Wallachia. No legends have ever associated Dracula with vampirism, although myths about werewolves were associated with his name, which in the 19th century were intertwined with myths about vampires.
However, Stoker wrote his sensational novel not from scratch, he relied on the same folklore, the collection of which was devoted a lot of time and effort. Did these legends appear during Dracula's lifetime - or did it happen later?
In the Russian "The Legend of Dracula the Voivode" there are many mystical moments: for example, it tells the following story: "The craftsmen made iron barrels for him (Vlad); he filled them with gold and plunged them into the river. And he ordered those masters to be chopped up so that no one would know about his curse, except the namesake of his devil. " It would seem that, in comparison with other described acts of Dracula, the murder of the masters seems to be an ordinary villainy, and one may wonder why it is here that the author of the "Tale" recalls the devil.
The point, perhaps, is that this episode indicates the witchcraft, satanic qualities of the governor. Indeed, according to folklore ideas, robbers and sorcerers hide treasures, robbers use magic objects, they know how to turn into animals and birds, they know the forbidden words that people, animals and objects obey. Folklore robbers not only know how to plunder, they know how to store loot. Such knowledge is not available to every mortal and, judging by the folklore texts, this knowledge is magical.
In Russia, too, there was a belief that treasures are hidden with a vow and are given only to the one who fulfills the vow, and according to Romanian legends, one of the reasons for a dead man's restlessness is the treasures hidden during his lifetime. With the help of the above episode, the author of the Legend seems to emphasize that the Wallachian ruler is not just the namesake of the devil, but also acts like a sorcerer, by definition connected with the devil. So the story of Dracula burying a treasure with the subsequent murder of witnesses echoes a whole layer of similar stories about sorcerers.
It also seems curious that in the later legends about Vlad's death, the sources are surprisingly unanimous about what became of the king's body after death: he was pierced through, and then his head was cut off - according to one version, to send the Turkish sultan as a sign of loyalty. But any fan of the horror genre knows that this is exactly what should be done with the body of a vampire. The myth that the monks buried Dracula so that those who entered would trample the ashes with their feet also became popular.
Another reason for the widespread opinion that Vlad Dracula became a vampire was the plot about his conversion to Catholicism. There is no documentary evidence of this, on the contrary, Vlad was buried not as a Catholic, but as an Orthodox, in a monastery. But, nevertheless, the myth spread that the prince, languishing in prison, was forced to convert to Catholicism in order to gain freedom.
To the authors of German printed brochures, this act of his served as a pretext for some of Vlad's justification, in accordance with the widespread story about a villain (robber, tyrant) who was reformed after baptism and repentance. Romanians, on the other hand, have a belief: an Orthodox who renounced his faith will certainly become a vampire, because converting to Catholicism, the Orthodox, although he retained the right to communion with the Body of Christ, refused to commune with the Blood, because Catholics have double communion - the privilege of the clergy …
Accordingly, the apostate had to seek to compensate for the "damage", and since betrayal of faith is not complete without devilish interference, then the method of "compensation" is chosen according to the devil's prompting. In the 15th century, the topic of apostasy was very relevant. It was then, for example, that the Hussites fought with all the Catholic chivalry, defending the "right of the Chalice" (that is, the right to commune with the Blood of Christ, being lay Catholics), for which they were called "chalice". Emperor Sigismund Luxemburg led the fight against the "chalice", and just when Dracula's father became the "Dragon Knight".
Bram Stoker
It turns out that the terrible reputation of a vampire could have developed during the life of the Wallachian governor. Contemporaries could well see in Dracula a ghoul, but it must be borne in mind that their idea of vampires had a significant difference from the current one, which developed thanks to literature and cinema.
In the 15th century, the ghoul was considered a sorcerer, a warlock, who certainly entered into an alliance with the devil for the sake of worldly benefits. Such a vampire sorcerer needs blood to perform magical rites. For example, a contemporary of Dracula, the famous Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, who went down in history thanks to savage executions and torture, was suspected of witchcraft: it was assumed that he, being a magician, used the blood and entrails of victims.
It is possible that the bloody massacres of Vlad Dracula were perceived in a similar way - the apostate sorcerer was all the more supposed to be sophisticatedly cruel, voluptuous to experiment with the human body and blood. An interesting parallel exists in Russian literature: the werewolf sorcerer from Gogol's story "Terrible Vengeance" is an apostate, at the same time, he converted to Catholicism, and he, like Dracula, keeps countless treasures in the earth.
Do not be frivolous about the legends, because a few decades ago, this kind of attitude towards vampires would have caused indignation among many residents of Transylvania. For them and their ancestors, a vampire (he is a ghoul, ghoul, vukodlak) was not at all a terrible fairy tale. It was often perceived as much more prosaic - as a very specific attack, something like a deadly infectious disease. It was in Transylvania and the adjacent regions of southern Europe that people for centuries believed in the existence of the living dead and cited numerous cases in support of their faith, often confirmed by dozens of eyewitnesses.
If we summarize these, in fact, similar stories, the following picture is observed. Vampires, as a rule, are people who have denied Christ, but buried in earth consecrated according to the Christian rite. (And so, according to legend, and the situation with Vlad Dracula). They cannot find rest and take revenge on the living. Curiously, vampires prefer to attack their relatives and close friends.
Vampirism in the beliefs of the inhabitants of Transylvania actually resembles an infectious disease - bitten by a vampire after death he himself turns into a vampire. It is curious that there is a description of cases of transmission of vampirism through animals. The bite mark resembles a leech bite, only located on the neck or in the heart. If you do not take timely measures, the unfortunate person begins to quickly lose strength and dies for no other apparent reason after one to two weeks.
The folk tradition offers very specific measures for treating a person who has been attacked by a vampire. These are by no means garlic flowers, a cross and protective prayers as in Stoker's novel. In southern Europe, the main and most effective remedy in such a situation was the land from the vampire's grave, mixed with his blood. With this potion, it is necessary to rub the bite site, and the vampire himself must be destroyed. But it must be discovered first. To do this, it is enough to unearth all the suspicious graves, and there is a vampire hiding, which is easy to distinguish from an ordinary dead man. The body of a vampire is not subject to decay and rigor mortis, the limbs remain flexible, the eyes are usually open. His nails and hair continue to grow …
The most tested and widespread means of exterminating vampires in Transylvania, as in many other places, is the aspen stake, which must be driven into the heart of the ghoul. But this measure is not always sufficient. Therefore, the stake is usually combined with the chopping off of the head and the subsequent burning of the corpse. Shooting with silver bullets is considered by "experts" to be nothing more than ridiculous amateurish fantasies in the style of Hollywood Westerns.
It is curious that in the stories about the appearance of the living dead and the struggle with them, it is extremely rare to find a mention of a priest and there is practically no appeal to church Sacraments as a means of protection from vampires. It seems that everything connected with vampires and belief in their existence is a product of the darkest side of folk fantasy, to this day closely associated with paganism.
Legends are legends, but finally Vlad Dracula became a vampire, all the same, with the light hand of Bram Stoker, at the end of the 19th century. It was a time when writers actively used folk tales and ancient sources as the basis for their works. Stoker himself for a long time researched popular beliefs in order to use them in the novel, got acquainted with historical sources.
It is interesting that at the same time, two more, undoubtedly, much more talented writers turned to the "vampire" theme: Prosper Merimee and Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy. But their "Lokis" and "Ghoul" did not entail such a long series of sequels, rehash, film adaptations, as Stoker's "Dracula". His success is due not only to the literary merits of the book, but to the amazing, one hundred percent hit in the hero's choice - a kind of charm of the real Vlad III Tepes, ruler of Wallachian Dracula.
Thanks to the many adaptations of Stoker's novel, the image of Dracula has become a kind of symbol of Transylvania. In the place where the Tepes dwelling was supposedly located, a "medieval" castle was built. It hosts the international Dracula festival every year. Of course, this festival has nothing to do with the horrors of a real "black mass" and is more reminiscent of the famous American Halloween. A huge "Draculaland" has been built in Romania, where you can get involved in horror-style entertainment … So Dracula almost officially turned from a national hero into a kind of Romanian brand. The city in which Vlad Tepes was born - Sighisoara - became the world capital of vampirism.
Draculomania spreads and attracts scientists as well. Thus, in 1994, a group of Romanian historians established the "Transylvanian Society of Dracula" - "an association that stands outside politics and the desire to receive income, but is entirely devoted to the analysis of the phenomenon of penetration of the Western European myth about Dracula into Romania." Although the materialistic questions turned out to be not alien to historians, because most of the tourist routes on the "traces of military glory" of Vlad Dracula are run by society. The "Dracula Society" every 4 years holds a fairly representative international scientific congress in Sighisoara. Still - there are more than 4000 clubs of count fans in the world alone!
Many novels and stories, articles in newspapers and magazines, and even many volumes of scientific literature are devoted to the mythical graph. The filmography of "Draculiada" in our time has about a hundred paintings - from screen masterpieces to outright parodies. Not to mention the multitude of role-playing computer games like Camarilla, Masquerade, Dracula and others.
But no matter how the mass-cultural myth about "Count Dracula" spreads, one should not forget that Vlad Tepes was a real historical ruler, an extraordinary and ambiguous person, unlike any of his screen and literary heroes. Take a look at the lifetime portrait of Dracula. The person depicted on the canvas does not at all "pull" the bloodthirsty sadist and maniac. It can be assumed that cruel trials and hardships fell to the lot of this person …
V. Bulavina