For almost six centuries, the ominous shadow of his fearsome reputation has been trailing behind Vlad Tepes. It seems that we are in fact talking about the fiend of hell. A bloodthirsty vampire, a "terror flying on the wings of the night," a despot impaling for the slightest offense, and so on and so forth. Vlad the Impaler turned into a monster in the mass consciousness, which had no equal.
Or maybe it was an ordinary figure for that era, of course, who had outstanding personal qualities, among which demonstrative cruelty was by no means the last? They make horror films about Dracula and write chilling books. There are still controversies about the identity of the Wallachian ruler, new attempts are being made to find out the relationship between myth and reality, truth and fiction in the descriptions of this person. However, when trying to understand events that are almost six centuries away from us, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes deliberately, new myths are created around the image of this person.
So what was he really like and why exactly was he chosen in the "main vampires" of history? Who was the one who became the embodiment of vampirism for millions of readers and moviegoers? At home, in Romania, he is usually considered a champion of "cruel justice", savior and defender of the fatherland. One of the researchers formulated this strange antithesis as follows: "The notorious Dracula, Wallachian sadist and patriot."
But ambiguities begin immediately, as soon as we try to reproduce the full name, title and nickname of our hero. Some sources confidently call the Wallachian ruler Vlad III, while others - no less confidently - Vlad IV. And we are not talking about father and son (the serial number of the father, also Vlad, varies accordingly), but about the same person. Of course, due to the antiquity of years, such discrepancies are not surprising … But, on the other hand, no one gets confused in the numbers of much more numerous Louis!
The year of his birth, let alone the date, is not exactly known. Vlad Tepes-Dracula was born, most likely, in 1430 or 1431 (some even call 1428 or 1429), when his father, Vlad Dracula, a contender for the Wallachian throne, supported by the emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" Sigismund of Luxembourg, was in Sighisoara, a Transylvanian city near the border with Wallachia.
In popular literature, Vlad's birth is often associated with the moment of his father's entry into the Order of the Dragon, where he was accepted on February 8, 1431 by Emperor Sigismund, who then also occupied the Hungarian throne. However, in reality this is just a coincidence, but rather an attempt to invent such a coincidence. There are a lot of such invented, and sometimes real coincidences in the biography of Vlad Tepes. They should be treated with great caution.
Vlad III's father, the ruler of Wallachia Vlad II (or according to some documents, all the same III), being in his youth at the court of the German emperor, really entered the Order of the Dragon, we will accept the order was exceptionally respectable - its members pledged to imitate Saint George in his indomitable struggle against evil spirits, which were then associated with the hordes of the Turks, creeping into Europe from the southeast. It was thanks to his entry into the Order of the Dragon that Tepes' father received the nickname Dracul (Dragon), which was later inherited by his son. This was the name not only for Vlad, but also for his brothers Mircho and Radu. Therefore, it is not clear whether such a name was associated with the concept of evil spirits, or even rather vice versa. As a constant reminder of this vow, the knights wore the image of a dragon,killed by George and hanging with outstretched wings and a broken back on the cross.
But Vlad II clearly overdid it: he not only appeared with the sign of the order in front of his subjects, but also minted a dragon on his coins, even depicted on the walls of churches under construction. In the eyes of the people, he, exactly the opposite, became a dragon worshiper and therefore acquired the nickname Vlad Dracul (Dragon). The author of the Russian "The Legend of Dracula the Governor" writes directly: "in the name of Dracula in the Vlash language, and ours is the Devil. Toliko is wicked, as by his name, so is his life."
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It is known that this nickname was used by foreign rulers during the official title of Tepes when he was the ruler of Wallachia. Tepes usually signed "Vlad, son of Vlad" listing all titles and possessions, but two letters are also known signed "Vlad Dracula". It is clear that he bore this name with pride and did not consider it offensive.
The nickname Tepes (Tepes, Tepes or Tepez - Romanian transcription allows variations), which has such an eerie meaning (in Romanian "Sizer-on-stake", "Impaler", "Impaler"), was not known during his lifetime. Most likely, it was used by the Turks even before his death. Of course, in Turkish sound - "Kazykly". However, it seems that our hero did not object at all to such a name. After the death of the ruler, it was translated from Turkish and began to be used by everyone, under which he went down in history.
There is also a portrait preserved in the Tyrolean castle Ambras. Of course, Dracula was hardly exactly what the medieval artist portrayed him. Contemporaries admitted that Vlad, unlike his brother Radu, nicknamed the Beautiful, did not shine with beauty. But he was a physically very strong person, an excellent rider and swimmer.
But whether he was a pathological sadist or an uncompromising hero who had no right to pity, opinions on this point diverged then and continue to diverge now. Let's turn to history first.
The Principality of Wallachia in those days was the smallest state that, as the wise Lord Bolingbroke from The Glass of Water noted, gets any chances if two large ones claim its territory at once. In this case, the interests of Catholic Hungary, which was advancing on Orthodoxy, and the Muslim Port, which claimed world domination, converged on Wallachia. Wallachia was an area sandwiched between Turkish possessions from the south (especially after 1453, when Byzantium, crushed by the Turks, fell) and Hungary from the north.
In addition, behind the back of little Wallachia was the wealthy Transylvania (or Semigradie), which belonged to Hungary, where crafts were rapidly developing, a branch of the Great Silk Road passed, and self-governing cities founded by the Saxons grew. Semigrad merchants were interested in the peaceful coexistence of Wallachia with the aggressor Turks. Transylvania was a kind of buffer territory between the Hungarian and Wallachian lands.
The peculiarity of the geopolitical position of Wallachia, as well as the religious specificity (the confession of Orthodoxy by the people and sovereigns) opposed it both to Muslim Turkey and the Catholic West. This led to the extreme volatility of military policy. The rulers either went with the Hungarians to the Turks, then they let the Turkish armies into the Hungarian Transylvania. The Wallachian rulers more or less successfully used the struggle of the superpowers for their own purposes, drawing on the support of one of them in order to overthrow the protege of the other in another palace coup. That is how Vlad the elder (father) ascended the throne, with the help of the Hungarian king overthrowing his cousin. However, Turkish pressure intensified, and the alliance with Hungary did little. Vlad Sr. recognized Wallachia's vassal dependence on the Port.
Such coexistence was achieved according to the scenario traditional for that time: the princes sent their sons to the court of the Turkish Sultan as hostages, whom they treated well, but in the event of a mutiny in the vassal state they were immediately executed. The sons of the Wallachian ruler became such a guarantor of obedience: Radu the Handsome and Vlad, who would earn his not so innocent nickname later.
Meanwhile, Vlad Sr. continued to maneuver between two fires, but in the end he was killed, along with his son Mircho, either by the Hungarians, or by his own boyars.
In addition, speaking about the horrors inextricably linked with the name of Dracula, one should remember the state of the country and the system of power that existed there. Sovereigns were elected to the throne from the same family, but the choice was not conditioned by any specific principles of succession to the throne. Everything was decided exclusively by the alignment of forces in the circles of the Wallachian boyars. Since any of the members of the dynasty could have many, both legal and side children, any of whom became a contender for the throne (it would have been one of the boyars to put him on it!), The result was a fantastic leapfrog of the rulers. A “normal” transfer of power from father to son was rare. It is clear that with the desire of the presumptuous ruler to consolidate his powers, terror was put on the agenda, and both the ruler's relatives and the all-powerful boyars turned out to be its object.
Terrorist, so to speak, reigns were both before and after Vlad III. Why, then, what was happening under him entered oral tradition and literature as surpassing everything conceivable and inconceivable, going beyond the most cruel expediency? The deeds of this ruler, widely circulated by written works of the 15th century, are indeed chilling.
The very life of Vlad (in Romanian legends, he is also the commander of the Tepes) seems to be a continuous transition from one extreme situation to another. At the age of thirteen, he was present at the defeat of the Wallachian, Hungarian and Slavonian troops by the Turks in the battle of Varna, then - the years of stay in Turkey as a hostage given by his father (it was then that he learned the Turkish language). At the age of seventeen, Vlad learns about the murder of the boyars from the “Hungarian” party of his father and elder brother. The Turks free him and put him on the throne.
Vlad returned to his homeland from Turkish bondage as a complete pessimist, fatalist and fully convinced that the only driving forces of politics were force or the threat of its use.
He did not last long on the throne for the first time: the Hungarians threw down the Turkish protege and put them on the throne. Vlad was forced to seek asylum from the allies in Moldova. However, four more years pass, and during the next (already Moldavian) turmoil, the ruler of this country, a supporter of Vlad, who hospitably received him in Moldova, perishes. A new escape - this time to the Hungarians, the true culprits of the death of Dracula's father and brother, and four years of stay in Transylvania, near the Wallachian borders, eagerly biding their time.
In 1456, the conjuncture was finally favorable for the fugitive ruler. Once again, Dracula takes the throne with the help of the Wallachian boyars and the Hungarian king, who is dissatisfied with his previous protege. Thus began the reign of Vlad Tepes in Wallachia, during which he became the hero of legends and performed most of his deeds, which still cause the most contradictory assessments.
In the fourth year of the reign, Dracula at once stops paying tribute to the Turks and gets involved in a bloody and unequal war with the Sultan's Port. For the successful conduct of any war, and even more so against such a formidable rival, it was necessary to strengthen their power and put things in order in their own power. Tepes began to implement this program in his usual style.
The first thing that, according to the historical chronicle, Vlad did, having established himself in the then capital of Wallachia, the city of Targovishte, was to find out the circumstances of the death of his brother Mircho and punished those responsible. He ordered to open the grave of his brother and made sure that, firstly, he was blinded, and secondly, he turned over in a coffin, which proved the fact of being buried alive. According to the chronicle, Easter was being celebrated in the city, and all residents dressed up in the best clothes. Seeing in such behavior evil hypocrisy, Tepes ordered to chain all the inhabitants and send them to hard labor to restore one of the castles intended for him. There they had to work until the ceremonial clothes turned into rags.
The story sounds psychologically quite reliable, and the document in which it is contained seems to be trustworthy. This is not a pamphlet written by Vlad's enemies, but a solid work, compiled by an impassive chronicler, and almost simultaneously with the events that took place.
However, let us ask ourselves a question: is it possible to believe this story described in the chronicle?
Power in Wallachia was seized by Vlad on August 22, 1456, after the massacre of his rival, whose death occurred on August 20. What does Easter have to do with it, because it was autumn?
More plausible is the assumption that these events relate to Vlad's first accession to the throne in 1448, immediately after the death of his brother. However, then he ruled for only two autumn months - from October to early December, that is, there could not be any Easter holiday either.
It turns out that we are dealing with a legend that somehow distorted reality and connected together different incidents that were initially not related to each other. Although, perhaps, some of the details included in the chronicle correspond to reality. For example, the episode with the autopsy of Mircho's grave. Such an event could really have happened, moreover, back in 1448, when Tepes became the ruler for the first time.
What is certainly confirmed by the above-mentioned chronicle is the fact that the legends about the reign of Vlad Tepes began to take shape almost immediately with the beginning of this reign. By the way, although all these stories contained descriptions of various atrocities committed by Vlad, their general tone was rather enthusiastic. They all agreed that Tepes put things in order in the country as soon as possible and achieved its prosperity. However, the means that he used at the same time cause in our time far from so unanimous delight.
Since the second accession of Dracula, something unimaginable has been happening in the country. By the beginning of his reign, about 500 thousand people were under his rule (including the adjacent to Wallachia and controlled regions of Transylvania). For six years (1456-1462), not counting the victims of the war, more than 100 thousand were destroyed by Dracula's personal order. Is it possible for a ruler, even a medieval one, to destroy a fifth of his subjects like this for a great life? Even if in some cases it is possible to try to put some kind of rational basis under terror (intimidation of the opposition, tightening of discipline, etc.), the numbers still raise new questions.
The origins of the Dracula legends require clarification. Firstly, the activities of Vlad Tepes were depicted in a dozen books - first handwritten, and after the invention made by Gutenberg and printed, created mainly in Germany and in some other European countries. All of them are similar, so, apparently, they rely on some one common source. The most important sources in this case are the poem by M. Beheim (a German who lived at the court of the Hungarian king Matt Korvin in the 1460s), as well as German pamphlets circulated under the title "About one great monster" at the end of the same century.
Another group of collections of legends is represented by manuscripts in Russian. They are close to each other, similar to Germanic books, but in some ways they differ from them. This is an old Russian story about Dracula, written in the 1480s, after the Russian embassy of Ivan III visited Wallachia.
There is also a third source - oral legends still prevailing in Romania - both directly recorded among the people and processed by the famous storyteller P. Ispirescu in the 19th century. They are colorful, but debatable as a support for the search for truth. The fabulous element that has been layered in them over several centuries of oral transmission is too great.
The source to which the German manuscripts go back is clearly written by the enemies of Tepes and depicts himself and his activities in the darkest colors. It is more difficult with Russian documents. Without refusing to portray Vlad's cruelties, they try to find more noble explanations for them and put accents so that the same actions would look more logical in the proposed circumstances and not so gloomy.
Author: M. P. Zgurskaya
Source: "50 famous mysteries of the Middle Ages"