Vlad dracul biography

Vlad's fierce insistence on honesty is a central part of the oral tradition. Many of the anecdotes contained in the pamphlets and in the oral tradition demonstrate the prince's efforts to eliminate crime and dishonesty from his domain. However, despite the more positive interpretation, the Romanian oral tradition also remembers Vlad as an exceptionally cruel and often capricious ruler.

There are several events that are common to all the pamphlets, regardless of their nation of origin. Many of these events are also found in the Romanian oral tradition. Specific details may vary among the different versions of these anecdotes but the general course of events usually agrees to a remarkable extent. Florescu and McNally believe he may have done this to both nationalities at different times.

However, all versions agree that Vlad, in response to some real or imagined insult perhaps because they refused to remove them in Vlad's presence , had their hats nailed to their heads. Some of the sources view Vlad's actions as justified; others view his acts as crimes of wanton and senseless cruelty. The number of his victims ranges from 40, to , Although some of the stories have some basis in reality, most of them are either fictional or exaggerated.

According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was at least 80, In addition to the 80, victims mentioned he also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground. These numbers are most likely exaggerated. The atrocities made by Vlad in the German stories include impaling, torturing, burning, skinning, roasting, and boiling people, feeding people human flesh their friends or relatives , cutting off limbs, drowning, and nailing of hats to the heads of people.

His victims included men and women of all ages, religions and social classes, children and babies. The exaggerated and propagandistic view is especially clear in one sentence in the stories which describes him as "one of the worst tyrants of history, far worse than the most depraved emperors of Rome such as Caligula and Nero. In the Memoirs of a Janissary.

He does allude to the famed "forest of the impaled," where Vlad III was alleged to have lined the roadways with thousands of impaled Turkish soldiers. He was with the army at that time, but was in the rear portion of the Ottoman army, recounting it based on the word of others. Most of the actions taken by Vlad can be justified on moral grounds or they had a utilitarian purpose or in some cases both.

It is also common sense to think that if Vlad really was a bloodthirsty tyrant and a madman, the Hungarian king would not have had him marry a relative of his and put him on the throne of Wallachia. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock.

Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests.

The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake. As expected, death by impalement was slow and painful. Victims sometimes endured for hours or days. Vlad often had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of a city that constituted his target.

The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The corpses were often left decaying for months. There are claims that thousands of people were impaled at a single time. One such claim says 10, were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu where Vlad the Impaler had once lived in An old Romanian story says that Vlad left a gold cup in the middle of the street, then returned to pick it up the next day since no one touched it, as people were so afraid to commit crimes during his reign due to these horrific means of torture and capital punishment.

Many have attempted to justify Vlad's actions on the basis of nascent nationalism and political necessity. Most of the merchants in Transylvania and Wallachia were Saxons who were seen as parasites, preying upon Romanian natives of Wallachia, while the boyars had proven their disloyalty time and time again Vlad's own father and older brother were murdered by unfaithful boyars.

His actions were likely driven by one or more of three motives: personal or political vendettas, and the establishment of iron-fisted law and order in Wallachia. It was reported that an invading Ottoman army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube. Many of the victims were Turkish prisoners of war Vlad had previously captured during the Turkish invasion.

The total Turkish casualty toll in this battle reached over 40, The warrior sultan turned command of the campaign against Vlad over to subordinates and returned to Constantinople , even though his army had initially outnumbered Vlad's three to one and was better equipped. Almost as soon as he came to power, his first significant act of cruelty may have been motivated by a desire of revenge as well as a need to solidify his power.

Early in his reign he gave a feast for his boyars and their families to celebrate Easter. Vlad was well aware that many of these same nobles were part of the conspiracy that led to his father's assassination and the burying alive of his elder brother, Mircea. Many had also played a role in the overthrow of numerous Wallachian princes. During the feast Vlad asked his noble guests how many princes had ruled during their life times.

All of the nobles present had outlived several princes. One answered that at least 30 princes had held the throne during his life. None had seen less than seven reigns. Vlad immediately had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars and their families were impaled on the spot. Vlad the Impaler was determined to rebuild this ancient fortress as his own stronghold and refuge.

The enslaved boyars and their families were forced to labor for months rebuilding the old castle with materials from another nearby ruin. According to the stories, they labored until the clothes fell off their bodies and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few of the old gentry survived the ordeal of building Vlad's castle.

Throughout his reign, Vlad systematically eradicated the old boyar class of Wallachia. The old boyars had repeatedly undermined the power of the prince during previous reigns and had been responsible for the violent overthrow of several princes. In place of the executed boyars, Vlad promoted new men from among the free peasantry and middle class; men who would be loyal only to their prince.

Many of Vlad's acts can be interpreted as efforts to strengthen and modernize the central government at the expense of the decaying feudal powers of nobility carried over from the Middle Ages. The text was later printed in Germany and had major impact on the general public becoming a best-seller of its time with numerous later editions adding and alternating the original text.

In addition to the manuscripts and pamphlets the German version of the stories can be found in the poem of Michel Beheim. To this day four manuscripts and 13 pamphlets are found as well as the poem by Michel Beheim. The surviving manuscripts date from the last quarter of the fifteenth century to the year and the found pamphlets date from to Eight of the pamphlets are actually incunabula because they were printed before All of the stories start with the episode telling how the old governor meaning John Hunyadi had Vlad's father killed and how Vlad and his brother renounced their old religion and swore to protect and uphold the Christian faith.

After this the order of the episodes differs in the different manuscripts and editions of the pamphlets. The title of the German stories varies in different manuscripts, incunabula and pamphlets with mainly three different titles with variations. Although there is historic background for the events described in the German stories, some of them are either exaggerated or even fictitious.

However the three were captured and held hostage by the Ottoman diplomats. Their captors told Vlad II that he could be released — on condition that the two sons remain. Believing that it was the safest option for his family, Vlad II agreed. During the 5 years of captivity in the fortress, Vlad and his brother were taught lessons in the art of war, science and philosophy.

However some accounts state that he was also subjected to torture and beatings, and it was thought that it was during this time that he developed his hated of the Ottomans. Upon his return, Vlad II was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by local war lords known as the boyar. He was killed in the marshes behind his house while his oldest son, Mircea II, was tortured, blinded and buried alive.

To consolidate power and assert his dominance, he decided to hold a banquet and invited hundreds of members of his rival families. Knowing his authority would be challenged, he had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled on spikes. By , he had succeeded to the Wallachian throne and was at war with the Ottomans. In time he gained military tactical abilities alongside being skilled in geography, mathematics, science and classical arts.

He also spoke fluent Slavic, German, Turkish and Latin. Vlad the Impaler was at the same time a member of the Order of the Dragon, a select monarchic chivalric order, similar to the Knights Templar, its purpose being to stop the Ottoman Empire from expanding. Vlad the Impaler ascended to the throne for the first time in , a difficult period in Romanian history, when corruption was omnipresent in the country, having negative repercussions upon the economy and causing major internal political struggles.

At the same time, the danger posed by the Ottoman Empire was threatening Europe through the South-East routes. The Ottoman Empire was a formidable military power which manifested its domination in Europe, Africa and Asia, reaching its pinnacle in the centuries. All of Europe was constantly threatened by the continuous expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

This is the starting point for his centuries lasting erroneous portrayal. The Romanian leader was not in the least a tyrant. He was simply the ruler of a country who resorted to the standard methods of his times in order to impose his authority. His purpose was the abolishment of corruption, which was so spread out at the time that it threatened even his position as ruler, and the protection of his country from the Ottoman Empire.

Contradictory sources estimate that Vlad impaled a number of Matthias Corvinus recognized Vlad as the lawful prince of Wallachia, but he did not provide him with military assistance to regain his principality. His troops mostly destroyed Srebrenica, Kuslat , and Zvornik. The Austrian chronicler Jacob Unrest stated that a disguised Turkish assassin murdered Vlad in his camp.

In contrast, Russian statesman Fyodor Kuritsyn —who interviewed Vlad's family after his demise— reported that the voivode was mistaken for a Turk by his own troops during battle, causing them to attack and kill him. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally commented this account by noting that Vlad had often disguised himself as a Turkish soldier as part of military ruses.

The place of his burial is unknown. Rosetti in found no tomb below the supposed "unmarked tombstone" of Vlad in the monastery church. Rosetti reported: "Under the tombstone attributed to Vlad, there was no tomb. Only many bones and jaws of horses. Vlad had two wives, according to modern specialists. Vlad's eldest son, [ ] Mihnea , was born in Stories about Vlad's brutal acts began circulating during his lifetime.

It was even rumored that Vlad once dipped his bread into the blood of his impaled victims, but this so far remains legendary, as the story has not been confirmed. Meistersinger Michael Beheim wrote a lengthy poem about Vlad's deeds, allegedly based on his conversation with a Catholic monk who had managed to escape from Vlad's prison.

In , Gabriele Rangoni , Bishop of Eger and a former papal legate , [ ] understood that Vlad had been imprisoned because of his cruelty. Turkish messengers came to [Vlad] to pay respects, but refused to take off their turbans, according to their ancient custom, whereupon he strengthened their custom by nailing their turbans to their heads with three spikes, so that they could not take them off.

The stories about Vlad's plundering raids in Transylvania were clearly based on an eyewitness account, because they contain accurate details including the lists of the churches destroyed by Vlad and the dates of the raids. The invention of movable type printing contributed to the popularity of the stories about Vlad, making them one of the first "bestsellers" in Europe.

He put the people in the cauldron and put their heads in the holes and fastened them there; then he filled it with water and set a fire under it and let the people cry their eyes out until they were boiled to death. And then he invented frightening, terrible, unheard of tortures. He ordered that women be impaled together with their suckling babies on the same stake.

The babies fought for their lives at their mother's breasts until they died. Then he had the women's breasts cut off and put the babies inside headfirst; thus he had them impaled together. There are more than twenty manuscripts written between the 15th and 18th centuries [ ] which preserved the text of the Skazanie o Drakule voievode The Tale about Voivode Dracula.

The nineteen anecdotes in the Skazanie are longer than the German stories about Vlad.

Vlad dracul biography

On the other hand, the Skazanie sharply criticized Vlad for his conversion to Catholicism, attributing his death to this apostasy. The mass murders that Vlad carried out indiscriminately and brutally would most likely amount to acts of genocide and war crimes by current standards. Most Romanian artists have regarded Vlad as a just ruler and a realistic tyrant who punished criminals and executed unpatriotic boyars to strengthen the central government.

You must come, O dread Impaler, confound them to your care. Split them in two partitions, here the fools, the rascals there; Shove them into two enclosures from the broad daylight enisle 'em, Then set fire to the prison and the lunatic asylum. In the early s, the painter Theodor Aman depicted the meeting of Vlad and the Ottoman envoys, showing the envoys' fear of the Wallachian ruler.

Since the middle of the 19th century, Romanian historians have treated Vlad as one of the greatest Romanian rulers, emphasizing his fight for the independence of the Romanian lands. Giurescu remarked, "The tortures and executions which [Vlad] ordered were not out of caprice, but always had a reason, and very often a reason of state". The stories about Vlad made him the best-known medieval ruler of the Romanian lands in Europe.

Stoker "apparently did not know much about" Vlad the Impaler, "certainly not enough for us to say that Vlad was the inspiration for" Count Dracula, according to Elizabeth Miller. Consequently, Stoker borrowed the name and "scraps of miscellaneous information" about the history of Wallachia when writing his book about Count Dracula.

Vlad's bad reputation in the German-speaking territories can be detected in a number of Renaissance paintings. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. His face and chin were shaven but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck connected [with] his head from which black curly locks hung on his wide-shouldered person.

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