Vlad the Impaler

Vlad III of Wallachia (Sighișoara, Transylvania; 1428/1431 - 1476/1477), known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș) or Vlad Dracula (Romanian: Vlad Drăculea), was a prince of Wallachia between 1456 and 1462. He is considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania.

He was the second son of Prince Vlad II Dracul of Wallachia. Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, were held hostage by the Ottoman Empire in 1442 to ensure the loyalty of his father. Dracul and his eldest son, Mircea, were assassinated on December 27 after John Hunyadi, Governor-Regent of Hungary, invaded Wallachia in 1447. Hunyadi placed Wladislaus II, Dracul's second cousin, on the throne, who in the autumn of 1448 accompanied him on a military campaign against the Ottomans. The latter decided to support Vlad to occupy the throne of Wallachia. In October 1448 he invaded the principality, but Vladislaus returned and had to take refuge at the Ottoman court at the end of that year. He then went to Moldavia in 1449 or 1450, and then to Hungary.

Relations between Hungary and Vladislaus would deteriorate so that in 1456 Vlad invaded Wallachia again, although this time with the support of the Hungarians. The prince perished fighting Vlad, who seized the Wallachian throne. Then a purge began among the Wallachian boyars (nobles) to strengthen his position. He also came into conflict with the Transylvanian Saxons, who supported his rivals, Dan and Basarab Laiotă (who were Vladislaus's brothers), and his illegitimate half-brother, Vlad the Monk. Vlad plundered the Saxon villages and took the captured ones to Wallachia, where he had them impaled (inspiring the cognomen of him). Peace was restored in 1460.

The Ottoman sultan Mehmed II sent two emissaries to tell him that he should pay allegiance to him, but he had them captured and impaled. In February 1462, he attacked Ottoman territory and massacred tens of thousands of Turks and Bulgarians. Mehmed launched a campaign against Wallachia to replace him with his brother Radu. The prince tried to capture the sultan in Târgoviște during the night of June 16–17, 1462. The Ottomans abandoned the principality, but more and more Vlachs were abandoning Radu. Vlad traveled to Transylvania to seek help from King Matías Corvino of Hungary, at the end of 1462, although he ordered him to be arrested.

Vlad was held captive in Visegrád from 1463 to 1475. During this period, anecdotes about his cruelty began to spread in Germany and Italy. At the request of Stephen III of Moldavia, he was released in the summer of 1475. He fought in Corvino's army against the Ottomans in Bosnia in early 1476. Hungarian and Moldovan troops helped him so that Basarab Laiotă (who had dethroned Radu) left Wallachia in November 1476. Basarab returned with Ottoman support later that year. Vlad died facing him in the vicinity of Bucharest before January 10, 1477.

At the end of the XV century, books recounting his acts of cruelty became very popular, becoming some of the first Best seller in Europe. In Russia, popular histories suggested that Vlad was able to strengthen the central government only through brutal punishment, and most Romanian historians took a similar view in the XIX. The Irish writer Bram Stoker was inspired by this prince to create his vampire character Count Dracula.

Name

During his lifetime, Vlad signed his documents in Latin as Ladislaus Dragwlya, vaivoda partium Transalpinarum (1475). His Romanian patronymic Dragwlya (or Dragkwlya, Dragulea, Dragolea, Drăculea) is a diminutive of the epithet Dracul, inherited from his father Vlad II Dracul, who in 1431 was admitted to the Order of the Dragon, created in 1408 by Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary and later Germanic Emperor. Dracul, which in Romanian means "the Dragon", is a Romanian definite form, with -ul being the definite article suffix (from Latin ille) and the word drac, the noun "dragon" (from Latin draco). The word drac i> has acquired in modern Romanian the connotation of "demon" (the word for "dragon" is now balaur or zmeu), which has led to misinterpretation of the nickname of Vlad as "demonic".

As for his nickname, Țepeș, the Impaler, it comes from his fondness for impalement as a method of execution, although it was only assigned to him posthumously, around the year 1550. Before this he had only been known as Kazıklı Bey (Lord Impaler) to the Ottoman Turks who found his "forests" of impaled men.

Early Years

Vlad was the second son of Vlad II Dracul, who in turn was the illegitimate son of Mircea I of Wallachia. His father had earned the nickname "Dracul" because he belonged to the Order of the Dragon, which was He was dedicated to stopping the advance of the Ottoman Turks in Europe. As he was old enough to be a candidate for the throne of Wallachia in 1448, the year of his birth would have been between 1428 and 1431. He was probably born after his father had died. settled in Transylvania in 1429. Historian Radu Florescu writes that he was born in the Saxon city of Sighișoara (then part of the Kingdom of Hungary), where his father lived between 1431 and 1435. Modern historians identify his mother as daughter or relative of Alexander I of Moldavia, or as his father's unknown first wife.

The house in the main square of Sighișoara where Dracul resided between 1431 and 1435.

Dracul seized the Wallachian crown after the death of his half-brother Alexander I Aldea in 1436. One of his letters, issued on January 20, 1437, retains the first reference to Vlad and his older brother, Mircea, noting them as the "first sons" of their father. They are also mentioned in four other documents between 1437 and 1439. The last of these also mentions his younger brother Radu.

After a meeting with John Hunyadi, Voivode of Transylvania, Dracul did not support an Ottoman invasion of Transylvania in March 1442. The Ottoman Sultan Murad II, ordered him to go to Gallipoli to prove his loyalty. His children minors accompanied him to the Ottoman court, where they were all imprisoned. The Turks released him later that year, but his sons remained hostages to ensure their loyalty. They were held prisoner in the fortress of Eğrigöz (modern Doğrugöz), according to the contemporary Turkish chronicles. Their lives were in danger after Dracul supported Wladislaus III Jagiellon, King of Poland and Hungary, against the Turks during the Varna Crusade in 1444. The prince was convinced that his sons would be "sacrificed for the good of Christian peace", but none were killed or maimed after their rebellion.

Dracul again recognized the sultan's suzerainty and promised to pay him an annual tribute in 1446 or 1447. Hunyadi (who had been appointed Governor-Regent of Hungary in 1446) stormed Wallachia in November 1447. Byzantine historian Michael Critobulus wrote that Vlad and Radu fled from the Ottomans, suggesting that the sultan allowed them to return to his country after their father paid allegiance to him. In the same year Dracul and his eldest son, Mircea, were killed. Hunyadi placed on the throne of Wallachia to Wladislaus II, Dracul's second cousin.

Prince of Wallachia

First reign

Territories ruled around 1390 by the grandfather of Vlad Tepes, Mircea I de Valaquia.

After the death of his father and older brother, Vlad became a possible claimant to the Wallachian throne. Vladislaus accompanied Hunyadi, who launched a campaign against the Ottoman Empire in September 1448. Taking advantage of his absence His rival invaded the principality at the head of a Turkish army in early October. As a price for his support, he had to cede the fortress of Giurgiu on the Danube to the Ottomans, who began to fortify it.

The Turks defeated the Hungarian army in the Battle of Kosovo on October 17–18, 1448. Hunyadi's deputy, Nicholas Vízaknai, asked to meet the new prince in Transylvania, but he refused. Vladislaus II returned to Wallachia at the head of the remnants of his army; Vlad was forced to flee to the Ottoman Empire before 7 December 1448.

We bring you news that [Nicolás Vízaknai] writes us and asks us to be as kind as to come to him until [John Hunyadi]... returns from the war. We cannot do this because a Nicopolis emissary came to us... and he said with great certainty that [Murad II had defeated Hunyadi].... If we go with [Vízaknai] now, the [otomans] could come and kill you and us. Therefore, we ask you to be patient until we see that it has happened to [Hunyadi].... If he comes back from the war, we'll meet him and make peace. But if they will be our enemies now, and if anything happens, they will have to answer for it before God.

Letter from Vlad the Emperor to the councillors of Brașov.

Exile

Vlad settled in Edirne after his overthrow. Not long after, he moved to Moldavia, where Bogdan II, his father's brother-in-law and possibly his maternal uncle, had ascended the throne with Hungarian support in the autumn of 1449. After Bogdan was assassinated by Peter Aaron in October 1451, his son Stephen fled to Transylvania with Vlad to seek Hunyadi's help. However, Hunyadi concluded a three-year truce with the Ottomans on November 20, 1451 that recognized the right of the Wallachian nobles (or boyars) to choose a successor to Wladislaus II if he died.

Vlad supposedly wanted to settle in Brașov—which was a center for boyars exiled by Wladislaus II—but Hunyadi forbade the burghers to give him refuge on 6 February 1452. He then returned to Moldavia where the pretender Alexander he had dethroned Peter Aaron. The events of his life over the next several years are unknown. He possibly returned to Hungary before 3 July 1456, because on that day Hunyadi informed the town of Brașov that he had been entrusted with the defense of the border from Transylvania.

Second reign

Consolidation

Ruins of the early court in Târgoviște.

The circumstances and date of Vlad's return to Wallachia are uncertain. He invaded the principality with Hungarian support in April, July, or August 1456. Wladislaus II died during the invasion. Vlad sent his first extant letter as prince of Wallachia to the burghers of Brașov on 10 September. He promised to protect them in the event of an Ottoman invasion of Transylvania, but also sought their help if they occupied Wallachia. In the same letter, he stated that "when a man or a prince is strong and powerful he can make peace however he wants; but when he is weak, a stronger one will come and do whatever he wants to do to him”, something that demonstrated his authoritarian personality.

Multiple sources (including the chronicle of Laonic Chalcocondylas) record that hundreds or thousands of people were executed on his orders early in his reign. He began a purge against the boyars who had participated in the murder of his father and brother. or those whom he suspected of conspiring against him. Chalcocondylas stated that Vlad "quickly effected a great change and completely revolutionized the affairs of Wallachia" by bestowing "money, property and other goods" of his victims to his supporters. Lists of the members of the princely council during his reign also show that only two, Voico Dobrița and Iova, were able to retain their positions between 1457 and 1461.

Conflict with the Saxons

After John Hunyadi died on August 11, 1456, his eldest son, Wladyslaw Hunyadi, became the captain-general of Hungary. Wladyslaw Hunyadi accused Vlad of having "no intention of remaining faithful" to the king of Hungary in a letter to the burghers of Brașov, and also ordered them to support Wladislaus II's brother Dan against the prince. The burghers of Sibiu supported another claimant, "a Wallachian priest who called himself the son of the prince". The latter (identified as Vlad's illegitimate brother, Vlad Călugărul) took possession of Amlaș, which had usually been in the hands of the Wallachian rulers in Transylvania.

Medieval settlements of the Saxons of Transylvania.

Ladislaus V of Hungary had Ladislaus Hunyadi executed on 16 March 1457. Hunyadi's mother, Elizabeth Szilágyi, and his brother, Michael Szilágyi, provoked a rebellion against the king. Taking advantage of the civil war in Hungary, Vlad aided Stephen, son of Bogdan II, in his move to seize Moldavia in June 1457. He also raided Transylvania and plundered the villages around Brașov and Sibiu. Early German stories about Vlad recounted that he had led " men, women, children" from a Saxon village to Wallachia and had them impaled. As the Saxons remained loyal to the king, this attack on them strengthened the position of the Szilágyis.

The prince's representatives participated in the peace negotiations between Michael Szilágyi and the Saxons. According to their treaty, the burghers of Brașov agreed that they would expel Dan from their city. Vlad promised that the merchants of Sibiu could "buy and to freely sell" his goods in Wallachia in exchange for his merchants having the "same treatment" in Transylvania. The prince referred to Michael Szilágyi as "his lord and older brother" in a letter dated 1 December 1457.

Wladislaus Hunyadi's younger brother, Matthias Corvino, was elected King of Hungary on January 24, 1458. He ordered the burghers of Sibiu to keep peace with Wallachia on March 3. Vlad proclaimed himself "lord" and ruler of all Wallachia and the duchies of Amlaș and Făgăraș" on 20 September 1459, showing that he had taken possession of these two traditional Transylvanian fiefs from the Wallachian rulers. Michael Szilágyi allowed the boyar Michael (a official of Wladislaus II of Wallachia) and other nobles to settle in Transylvania at the end of March 1458. Before long, Vlad ordered the murder of the boyar Michael.

In May, Vlad asked the Brașov burghers to send craftsmen to Wallachia, but his relationship with the Saxons soured before the end of the year. According to one academic theory, the conflict arose after the Saxons were barred from entering in the principality, forcing them to sell their wares to Wallachian merchants at mandatory border fairs. The prince's protectionist tendencies or border fairs are not documented. Instead, in 1476 he emphasized that he had always promoted free trade during his reign.

The Saxons confiscated steel that a Wallachian merchant had bought in Brașov without paying him the price. In response, Vlad "plundered and tortured" some Saxon merchants, according to a letter Basarab Laiotă (a son of Dan II of Wallachia) wrote on 21 January 1459. Basarab had established himself in Sighișoara and claimed the Wallachian throne. Matthias Crowvin, however, supported Dan (who was again in Brașov) against Vlad. Dan stated that the prince had Saxon merchants and their sons were impaled and burned in Wallachia.

Know that King Matthias has sent me, and when I came to Bârsei, the officers and counselors of Brașov and the elders of Ḥara Bârsei wept with the heart broken by the things that Dracula did, our enemy; how he did not remain faithful to our Lord, the king, and stood on the side of the [otomans].... [He] captured all the merchants of Brașov and Bârsei who had gone to Valaquia in peace and took all their wealth; but he was not only satisfied with the wealth of these people, but he imprisoned them and packed them, 41 in total. These people were not enough either; it became even more evil and brought together 300 children from Brașov and Bârsei who found in... Valaquia. Of these he tied some and burned others.

Letter from Basarab Laiotă to the councillors of Brașov and to Bârsei.

Dan stormed into Wallachia, but Vlad defeated him and ordered his execution before April 22, 1460. The prince invaded southern Transylvania and destroyed the suburbs of Brașov, where he ordered the impalement of all men and women who had been captured. During the negotiations that followed, he demanded the expulsion or punishment of all Wallachian refugees from Brașov. Peace had been restored by 26 July 1460, when he addressed the burghers of Brașov as his "brothers and friends". Vlad invaded the region around Amlaș and Făgăraș on August 24 to punish the local inhabitants who had supported Dan.

War with the Ottomans

The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who invaded Valaquia during the reign of Vlad.

Constantine of Ostrovica (who served as a janissary in the sultan's army) recorded that Vlad refused to pay tribute to the sultan in an unspecified year. Renaissance historian Giovanni Maria Angiolello also wrote that he had not paid tribute for three years Both records suggest that he ignored the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, as early as 1459, but both works were written decades after the events. Tursun Beg (a secretary in the Ottoman court) stated that he only turned against them when his sovereign "was away on the long expedition to Trebizond" in 1461. According to Tursun Beg, he began new negotiations with Matthias Corvinus, but his spies soon informed the sultan. Mehmed II sent his messenger, the Greek Thomas Catabolinus (also known as Yunus bey), to Wallachia, and arranged for Vlad to go to Constantinople to pay vassalage to him. He also sent secret instructions to Hamza Bey, bey of Nicopolis, to capture him after after crossing the Danube. The prince discovered the sultan's "trap and deceit", captured Hamza and Catabolinus, and had them executed.

After the execution of the Ottoman officers, Vlad gave orders in fluent Turkish to the commander of the Giurgiu fortress to open the gates, allowing Wallachian soldiers to storm the fortress and capture it. He invaded the Ottoman Empire. and devastated the villages along the Danube. He informed Matthias Corvinus of the military action in a letter on 11 February 1462. He said that more than "23,884 Turks and Bulgars" had been killed on his orders during the campaign He sought military aid from Corvino, declaring that he had broken peace with the sultan "for the honor" of the king and the Crown of Saint Stephen and "for the preservation of Christianity and the strengthening of the Catholic faith". The relationship between Moldavia and Wallachia had become strained by 1462, according to a letter from the Genoese governor of Caffa.

Having learned of this invasion, Mehmed II assembled an army of over 150,000 men, said to be "second in size only to the one" that conquered Constantinople in 1453, according to Chalcocondylas. The size of the army suggests that the sultan wanted to occupy Wallachia, according to several historians (including Franz Babinger, Radu Florescu and Nicolae Stoicescu). However, as Mehmed II had granted Wallachia to Vlad's brother Radu before the invasion, assumes that the sultan's main purpose was only to change the ruler.

The Battle of the TorchesA painting by Theodor Aman on the Night Attack in Târgovişte.

In May the Ottoman fleet landed at Braila, Wallachia's only port on the Danube. The main Ottoman army crossed the Danube under the sultan at Nicopolis on June 4, 1462. Outnumbered by the enemy, Vlad adopted a scorched-earth policy and withdrew towards Târgoviște. During the night of June 16–17, Vlad stormed the Ottoman camp in an attempt to capture or kill the sultan. The sultan's eventual imprisonment or death would have caused a panic among the Ottomans, which could have allowed Vlad to defeat his army. However, the Wallachians "missed the sultan's tent" and attacked that of the viziers Mahmud Pasha and Isaac. unsuccessful in attacking the camp, the prince and his men left at dawn. Mehmed II entered Târgoviște in late June. The city had been left deserted, but the Ottomans were horrified to discover a "forest of impaled men"—thousands of stakes with the cada veres of the people executed—, according to Chalcocondylas.

The sultan army entered the empaling area, which had seventeen stadiums long and seven stadiums wide. There were large stakes there where, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women and children had been framed, a whole show for the Turks and the sultan itself. The sultan was surprised by the astonishment and said it was not possible to deprive his country of a man who had done great works, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his kingdom and his people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth a lot. The rest of the Turks were amazed when they saw the crowd of men on the stakes. There were babies also glued to their mothers in the stakes, and the birds had made their nests in their guts.

Laónico Calcocondilas: History of Turks.

Tursun Beg recorded that the Ottomans suffered from the heat and thirst of summer during the campaign. The Sultan decided to withdraw from Wallachia and marched towards Brăila. Stephen III of Moldavia hurried to Chilia (now Kiliya in the Ukraine) to seize from the important fortress where a Hungarian garrison had been stationed. Vlad also set out for Chilia, but left a troop of 6,000 soldiers to try to hinder the march of the Sultan's army, but the Ottomans defeated the Wallachians. Stephen III he was wounded during the siege of Chilia and returned to Moldavia before Vlad reached the fortress.

The main Ottoman army left Wallachia, but Vlad's brother Radu and his troops remained on the Bărăgan plain. Radu sent messengers to the Wallachians and reminded them that the Sultan might invade their country again. the prince defeated his brother and his allies in two battles over the next few months, more and more Wallachians deserting the latter. Vlad retreated to the Carpathian Mountains, hoping Matthias Crowvin would help him regain his power. throne. However, Albert of Istenmező, the count's deputy of the Sicels, had recommended in mid-August that the Saxons recognize Radu. The pretender also made an offer to the Brașov burghers to confirm his trading privileges and pay them a compensation of 15,000 ducats.

Imprisonment in Hungary

Renaissance palace of Matías Corvino in Visegrád (grabbed 1480).

Mattías Corvino arrived in Transylvania in November 1462. Negotiations between Corvino and Vlad lasted for weeks, but the king did not want to wage war against the Ottoman Empire. By order of the king, his Czech mercenary commander, John Jiskra of Brandýs, captured Vlad near Rucăr in Wallachia.

In order to provide an explanation of his capture to Pope Pius II and the Venetians (who had sent money to finance a campaign against the Ottoman Empire), Corvino presented three letters, supposedly written by the prince on November 7, 1462, to Mehmed II, Grand Vizier Mahmud Pasha, and Stephen III of Moldavia. According to the letters, he offered to join forces with the sultan's army against Hungary if the sultan restored him to his throne. Most historians agree that that the documents were falsified to justify his apprehensions. Hungarian court historian Antonio Bonfini admitted that the reason for his arrest was never made clear. Florescu writes: "[The] style of writing, the rhetoric of meek submission —hardly compatible with what we know of the Dracula character—, the clumsy wording and poor Latin" are all evidence that the letters could not have been written on Vlad's orders. He also associates the author of the forgery with a Saxon priest from Brașov.

Vlad was first imprisoned "in the city of Belgrade" (now Alba Iulia in Romania), according to Chalcocondylas. Before long, he was taken to Visegrád, where he was held for fourteen years. No extant records have been found. documents relating to his life between 1462 and 1475. In the summer of 1475, Stephen III of Moldavia sent ambassadors to Matthias Corvino's court and requested that he send Vlad to Wallachia against Basarab Laiotă, who had submitted to the Ottomans. Stephen III wanted to secure the principality for a ruler who had been an enemy of the Ottoman Empire, because "the Vlachs [were] like the Turks" to the Moldovans, according to his letter. According to Slavic stories about Vlad, he was only released after convert to Catholicism.

Third reign and death

Matias Crowvino recognized Vlad as the legitimate prince of Wallachia, but did not provide him with military assistance to regain his principality. Vlad settled in a house in Pest. When a group of soldiers broke into the house while chasing a thief who had tried to hide there, had his commander executed because they had not asked his permission before entering his house, according to Slavic stories about his life. He then moved to Transylvania in June 1475; he wanted to settle in Sibiu and sent an emissary to the city in early June to get a house. Mehmed II recognized Basarab Laiotă as a prince of Wallachia. Corvino commanded the burghers of Sibiu to be given 200 gold guilders of royal income on 21 September, but left Transylvania for Buda in October.

Vlad bought a house in Pécs that became known as Drakula háza (Hungarian for "Dracula's house"). In January 1476, John Pongrác of Dengeleg, a Transylvanian voivode, urged the people of Brașov to send to Vlad all his supporters who had settled in the city, because Corvino and Basarab Laiotă had concluded a treaty. The relationship between the Transylvanian Saxons and Basarab remained tense, and the Saxons gave refuge to their opponents for the next few months. Corvino sent Vlad and the Serb Vuk Grgurević to fight the Ottomans in Bosnia in early 1476. They captured Srebrenica and other fortresses in February and March 1476.

Basarab Laiotă, who assured his throne against Vlad with Ottoman support.

Mehmed II invaded Moldavia and defeated Stephen III at the Battle of Valea Albă on 26 July 1476. Hungarian nobleman Stephen Báthory and Vlad entered Moldavia and forced the sultan to lift the siege of the fortress at Târgu Neamț at the end of August, according to a letter from Matías Corvino. Contemporary Jakob Unrest added that Vuk Grgurević and a member of the noble Jakšić family also participated in the clashes in Moldova.

Mattias Corvino ordered the Transylvanian Saxons to support Báthory's planned invasion of Wallachia on 6 September 1476, also informing them that Stephen III would also invade Wallachia. Vlad remained in Brașov and confirmed the burghers' trade privileges locals in Wallachia on 7 October 1476. Báthory's forces captured Târgoviște on 8 November. Stephen III and Vlad ceremoniously confirmed their alliance, and occupied Bucharest, forcing Basarab Laiotă to seek refuge in the Ottoman Empire on 7 October 1476. November 16. Vlad informed the Brașov merchants of his victory and requested that they come to Wallachia. He was crowned before November 26.

Basarab Laiotă returned to Wallachia with Ottoman support, and the prince was killed fighting them in late December 1476 or early January 1477. In a letter written on January 10, 1477, Stephen III of Moldavia recounted that the prince's Moldovan guard had also been massacred. According to Leonardo Botta, the Milanese ambassador in Buda, the Ottomans cut his corpse to pieces. Bonfini wrote that his head was sent to Mehmed II.

The place of his burial is unknown. According to popular tradition (first recorded in the late 19th century), Vlad was buried in the Snagov Monastery. However, excavations by Dinu V. Rosetti in 1933 did not find a grave under the supposed "unmarked tombstone" in the monastery church. Rosetti reported: «Under the supposed tombstone there was no grave. Just a lot of bones and maw of horses.” Historian Constantin Rezachevici said that he was probably buried in the first church of the Comana Monastery, which was established by the prince and was close to the battlefield where he was killed.

Family

Vlad had two wives, according to modern specialists. The first may have been an illegitimate daughter of Juan Hunyadi, according to historian Alexandru Simon. For his part, the second was Justina Szilágyi, Matías Corvino's cousin. Justina was the widow of Wenceslaus Pongrác of Szentmiklós when "Wladislaus Dragwlya" married her, probably in 1475. She survived her husband, and would later marry Paul Suki, and later John Erdélyi.

Their eldest son, Mihnea, was born in 1462. The unidentified second son was killed before 1486. Their third son, Vlad Drakwlya, unsuccessfully claimed Wallachia around 1495. The latter was the ancestor of the noble Drakwla family.

Legacy

Reputation of her cruelty

First registrations

Portrait of Vlad III in the Chamber of Art and Curiosities of the Palace of Ambras (oil painting, c. 1560). Copy of an original made in the life of the prince.

Stories about Vlad's brutal acts began to circulate during his lifetime. After his arrest, Matthias Corvino's courtiers furthered their spread. The papal legate, Nicholas of Modruš, had already written such stories to the pope Pius II in 1462. Two years later, the pope included them in his Commentaries.

Mastersinger Michael Beheim wrote a lengthy poem about Vlad's events, supposedly based on his conversation with a Catholic monk who had managed to escape from Vlad's prison. The poem, called Von ainem wüthrich der hiess Trakle waida von der Walachei (Story of a bloodthirsty madman called Dracula of Wallachia), was performed at the court of Frederick III of Habsburg in Wiener Neustadt during the winter of 1463. According to In one of Beheim's stories, Vlad had two monks impaled to help them go to heaven and also ordered his donkey to be impaled because it began to bray after the death of its masters. Beheim also accused Vlad of duplicity, as he He stated that he had promised his support to both Matías Corvino and Mehmed II, but that he did not keep his promise.

In 1475, Gabriele Rangoni, Bishop of Eger (and a former papal legate), understood that Vlad had been imprisoned for his cruelty. Rangoni also recorded a rumor that while in prison Vlad caught rats to cut them to pieces or glue them on small pieces of wood, because he could not "forget his wickedness". Antonio Bonfini also recorded anecdotes about Vlad in his Historia Pannonica around 1495. Bonfini wanted to justify both removal and removal. Vlad's restoration by Matthias. He described Vlad as "a man of unheard-of cruelty and justice". Bonfini's stories about Vlad were repeated in Sebastian Münster's Cosmography. Münster also recorded Vlad's "reputation for tyrannical justice"..

... the Turkish messengers came to [Vlad] to present their respects, but they refused to remove the turbans, according to their old custom, thereby strengthening their custom by clutching them three turbans in their heads so that they could not remove them.

Antonio Bonfini: Pannonica History.

German Stories

German Xilography of 1499 that shows Dracula dining among the empaled corpses of his victims.

The works containing the stories of his cruelty were published in Low German in the Holy Roman Empire before 1480. These were supposedly written in the early 1460s, because they describe Vlad's campaign on the Danube in early 1462, but do not refer to Mehmed II's invasion of Wallachia in June of the same year. They provide a detailed account of the conflicts between Vlad and the Transylvanian Saxons, which showed that they originated "in the minds of literary works of the Saxons".

The stories about his looting raids on Transylvania were clearly based on an eyewitness account, because they contain accurate details; including lists of the churches destroyed by Vlad and the dates of the raids. They describe him as an "insane psychopath, a sadist, a horrible murderer, a masochist", worse than Caligula and Nero. However, the stories they emphasize his cruelty must be treated with caution because his brutal acts were probably exaggerated (or even invented) by the Saxons.

The invention of the printing press contributed to the popularity of the stories about Vlad, which became one of the first "best sellers" in Europe. To improve sales, they were published in books with woodcuts on their title pages depicting horrible scenes. For example, editions published at Nuremberg in 1499 and at Strasbourg in 1500 depict him dining at a table surrounded by people dead or dying on the stakes.

... [Vlad] built a large copper pot and placed a wooden lid with holes at the top. He put the people in the cauldron and put his head in the holes and tied them there; then he filled it with water and set fire under it and let the people cry until he wound himself to death. And then he invented the horrific, terrible, unheard tortures. He ordered women to be tied together with their infants in the same stake. The babies fought for their lives in their mother's breasts until they died. Then they cut their breasts off to women and put the babies in their heads; so he made them pack together.

About a mischievous tyrant called Dracula vodă (No. 12-13).

These stories may have influenced Martin Luther's concept of the Beerwolf, a ruler who is worse than a tyrant and whom the people should oppose. In 1550, the leaders of the German city of Magdeburg included a Martin Luther clause as part of a complicated legal argument discussing when an evil ruler should be resisted under the lesser magistrate doctrine.

Slavic Stories

There are more than twenty manuscripts (written between the 15th century and XVIII) that preserved the text of the Skazanie or Drakulea voievode (The tale about the Vaivoda Dracula ). The manuscripts were written in Russian, but they copied a text that had originally been recorded in a South Slavic language, because they contain expressions foreign to the Russian language, but used in South Slavic idioms (such as diavol for "evil"). The original text was written in Buda between 1482 and 1486.

The nineteen anecdotes in the Skazanie are longer than the German stories about Vlad. They are a mixture of fact and fiction, according to historian Raymond T. McNally. Nearly half of the anecdotes they emphasize, like the German stories, Vlad's brutality, but also stress that his cruelty enabled him to strengthen the central government in Wallachia. For example, the Skazanie writes of a golden cup that no one can take. dared to steal from a fountain because Vlad "hated stealing so violently...that anyone who caused evil or robbery...did not live long", thus promoting public order, and German history of Vlad's campaign against Ottoman territory stressed his cruel acts while the Skazanie emphasized his successful diplomacy. On the other hand, the Skazanie harshly criticized Vlad for his conversion to Catholicism and attributed his death to this apostasy. Some elements of the anecdotes were later added to the Russian histories about Ivan the Terrible of Russia.

Affirmation by modern standards

The mass murders that Vlad carried out indiscriminately and brutally would likely amount to acts of genocide and war crimes by today's standards. Romanian defense minister Ioan Mircea Pașcu claimed that Vlad would have been convicted of crimes against humanity if he had been tried in Nuremberg.

National Hero

Ruins of Poenari Castle.

Vlad Tepes and the Turkish emissariesTheodor Aman's painting.

Despite German, Slavic and Ottoman chronicles about Vlad the Impaler, Romanian historical sources from before the 19th century he is barely mentioned. The paucity of documentary sources was offset by a rich folklore tradition that portrayed him as a just and strong leader who restored order to his country and defended its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

The Cantacuzino chronicle is the first Romanian historical work to mention him, as it recounts the impalement of the old Târgoviște boyars for the murder of his brother Dan. The chronicle adds that he forced the young boyars, their wives and children to build the Poenari castle. The legend of the castle was also mentioned in 1747 by Metropolitan Neophyte I of Ungro-Wallachia, who added to this story that of the master builder Meșterul Manole, who is said to have walled up his fiancée to prevent it from collapsing of the castle walls during the building project. published a local legend about a letter of award from Vlad "written on rabbit fur" to the villagers who had helped him escape from Poenari to Transylvania during the Ottoman invasion of Wallachia. In other towns in the region, the donation was made Ributes the legendary Radu Negru.

Rădulescu-Codin published other local legends, some of which are also known from German and Slavic histories, suggesting that the latter stories preserved oral tradition. For example, the stories about the execution of sloths, poor and lame by Vlad's orders, and the execution of the woman who had made a shirt too short for her husband can also be found among German and Slavic anecdotes. The peasants who told the stories knew that her nickname was connected with the frequent impalements during his reign, but they also mentioned that only such acts "considered cruel" could guarantee public order in Wallachia.

Since the 19th century he has been regarded by Romanian poets and painters as a ruler whose tyranny was justified by the cruelty of the times and of the fight against the Turks and the noble boyars. Ion Budai-Deleanu wrote an epic poem based on his figure: Țiganiada (published posthumously in 1875, almost a century after its composition).. In the same Vlad appears as a hero who fights the boyars, the Ottomans and the strigoi (vampires) at the head of an army of angels and gypsies. In the middle of the century XIX, the poet Dimitrie Bolintineanu glorified his triumphs in his work «Fights of the Romanians», the savage actions of Vlad the Impaler were considered necessary to prevent the despotism of the local nobility. The great Romanian poet, Mihai Eminescu, in his ballad "The Third Epistle" refers to the brave Wallachian princes among whom he includes this ruler.The poet in his work urges Vlad to return from the grave and annihilate the enemies of the Romanian nation:

Why don't you come, Emperor, my lord, to get these tramps,
And divide them into two heaps: of madmen and of thieves,
In two big cages put them in force,
Fire the jail and the asylum!

Mihai Eminescu: The Third Epistle.

In the early 1860s, the painter Theodor Aman described in one of his works the meeting of Vlad and the Ottoman emissaries, showing their fear of the Wallachian ruler. Since the middle of the century XIX, Romanian historians have seen him as one of the greatest Romanian rulers and emphasize his fight for the independence of the Romanian lands. Even the acts of cruelty he committed were often portrayed as rational methods in the service of the national interest. Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol was one of the first historians to claim that the prince could only stop the infighting of the boyar parties through his acts of terror. Constantin C. Giurescu commented: "The tortures and executions that [Vlad] ordered were not on a whim, but were always for a reason, and very often a reason of state." However, Ioan Bogdan was one of the few h Romanian istorians who did not accept this heroic image. In his work published in 1896, Vlad Ţepeş şi naraţiunile germane şi ruseşti asupra lui, concluded that Romanians should be ashamed rather than present him as "a model of courage and patriotism". According to an opinion poll conducted in 1999, 4.1% of the participants chose him as one of "the most important historical personalities who have influenced the fate of Romanians for the better".

After communism came to power in Romania in late 1947, the nature of historiography, and thus the ways in which Romanian historians thought about Vlad the Impaler and other historical figures, changed dramatically. they suppressed nationalist ideals in pursuit of a closer rapprochement with the Soviet Union and socialist Slavic culture in general. Therefore, during this period, speaking of this character as a national hero was no longer acceptable. This perspective only changed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Romania distanced itself from the ideals of the Soviet Union and vindicated its past. national, although reinterpreted in a socialist vision.

In 1976, the government of Nicolae Ceauşescu declared him a Hero of the Nation on the fifth centenary of his death, and the Romanian Communist Party reaffirmed him as a hero and a statesman whose cruelty it was justified for political ends. However, according to some researchers such as Dr. Duncan Light, the importance of Vlad the Impaler to Communist Romania has sometimes been exaggerated in the West:

Vlad was a figure that could only perform a limited service for the Romanian Communist Party.[...] Vlad's short and ultimately failed reign was insufficient to raise him to the top of the national heroes' pantheon. The true heroes of the communist Romania were: Lucian Boia, Mircea el Viejo, Miguel el Valiente, Esteban el Grande, Tudor Vladimirescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Nicolae Bălcescu and also a significant number of daciful kings. Vlad the Emperor seems to have been regarded as a historical figure worthy of mention for his attempts to defend the independence of Valaquia, but whose other achievements were limited.[...] Vlad the Empalador was not (as is assured at times) an exalted and idealized figure of first order in the national pantheon, but rather a hero of "second rank": someone estimated, but whose usefulness for the regime was limited.

Duncan Light.

Myth of the Vampire

The stories about Vlad made him the best-known medieval ruler of the Romanian lands in Europe. However, Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was published in 1897, was the first book in making a connection between Dracula and vampirism. The author drew his attention to the blood-drinking vampires of Romanian folklore by Emily Gerard's article on Transylvanian superstitions (published in 1885). His limited knowledge of the medieval history of Wallachia came from William Wilkinson's book entitled Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Political Observations Relative to Them, published in 1820.

According to Elizabeth Miller, “Stoker apparently didn't know much about Vlad the Impaler; certainly not enough for us to say that he was the inspiration for Count Dracula." For example, he wrote that Dracula had been of Sicel origin only because he knew both of Attila the Hun's destructive campaigns and of the supposed Hunnic origin of the Sicels. His other main source, Wilkinson, who accepted the reliability of the German stories, described Vlad as an evil man. In fact, the author's working papers for his work contain no references to the historical figure. Consequently, he took borrowed the name and "miscellaneous bits and pieces of information" about Wallachian history when writing his book on Count Dracula.

Appearance and renderings

Pope Pius II's legate, Nicholas of Modruš, cited the only extant description of Vlad, whom he had met in Buda. A copy of his portrait has been presented in the "monster portrait gallery" of the palace of Ambras in Innsbruck. The image depicts "a strong, cruel and somehow tortured man" with "large, deep, dark green, penetrating eyes", according to Florescu. His hair color cannot be determined, as Modruš mentions that he had black hair, while the portrait seems to show that he had blond hair. The image shows him with a prominent lower lip.

Its bad reputation in German-speaking territories can be detected in several Renaissance paintings. He was portrayed among the witnesses to the martyrdom of Saint Andrew in a painting from the XV century, exhibited in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna. A Vlad-like figure is one of the witnesses to Christ on Calvary in a chapel of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

[Vlad] It wasn't too high, but it was so stubborn and muscular. His appearance was cold and inspired a certain horror. He had the eagle nose, dilated nostrils, a red and thin face and a very long eyelashes that gave shade to large gray and well-open eyes; black and tupidated eyebrows made him look threatening. He wore a mustache, and his outstanding cheekbones made his face even more energetic. A bullock blinded his head, from which he hung on a wide back a thick black melena.

Description of Nicholas of Modruš on Vlad the Emperor.

Vlad the Impaler in popular culture

• The work A Treia țeapă (1978) was written by Marin Sorescu and staged in the apogee of the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. He focused on the cruelty and the final failure of the absolute power of the historic Vlad sumaepeș.
• Vlad θepeș (1979), Romanian historical drama film directed by Doru Năstase with Ștefan Sileanu as Vlad, where he is portrayed with a positive tone.
• Vlad Tepes Draculaa Swedish video game of 1997.
• Dark Prince: The true story of Dracula (2000), American horror and war television movie premiered at Halloween, where Rudolf Martin played Vlad.
• In Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011), the protagonist Ezio Auditore has to find the tomb of Vlad sumaepeș, with his skull and sword inside.
• The video game Age of Empires II: The Forgotten (2013) contains a five chapter campaign representing Dracula, beginning with its conflict with Vladislao II and concluding with a battle against Basarab Laiotă and other Ottoman forces.
• Vlad ѕepeș (interpreted by Paul Rhys) appears in Da Vinci's Demons (2013-2015), a historical series of dramatic fantasy that presents a fictional account of the first years of life of Leonardo da Vinci.
• Vlad θepeș is the protagonist of a trilogy of comics written in Italian by Matteo Strukul with art by Andrea Mutti, published in English in 2020.
• The British rock group Kasabian titled "Vlad the Impaler" to one of his songs. It is included in the 2009 West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum album.
• In Dracula Untold (2014. Gary Shore) the plot of the film is quite close to the real story; evidently removing the part of fantasy, well and that final battle in which he beats Mehmed II.
• The Turkish production "Deliler (Vlad el empadador)" (2018. Osman Kaya). It is a different vision, possibly one of the least removed from the historical but very focused chronicles to the Turkish version of that story.