In less than two years from now the Count will celebrate his 100th birthday, and

many Dracula enthusiasts from all around the world intend to underline this event.

Of course, almost everybody has heard about this nosferatu: through movies

featuring Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman; in

several books - among which the recent Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice; or even

in bedtime stories told to us in our childhood. We all have an idea of who or what

the Count is. However, on the other hand, Vlad Tepes Dracula, the historical

figure who inspired Bram Stoker for his novel, is definitely less known. The

centennial of the gothic masterpiece provides us with a good pretext to dive back into

the life of this machiavellian fifteenth century leader - an initiative that will enable

us to better appreciate the work of Stoker. Vlad Tepes was born in November or

December 1431, in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. His father, Vlad Dracul,

at that time appointed military governor of Transylvania by the emperor

Sigismund, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before.

The order - which could be compared to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or

even to the Teutonic Order of Knights - was a semimilitary and religious society,

originally created in 1387 by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife,

Barbara Cilli. The main goals of such a secret fraternal order of knights was

mainly to protect the interests of Catholicism, and to crusade against the Turks.

There are different reasons why this society is so important to us. First, it

provides an explanation for the name "Dracula;" "Dracul," in Romanian language,

means "Dragon", and the boyars of Romania, who knew of Vlad Tepes' father

induction into the Order of the Dragon, decided to call him "Dracul." "Dracula,"

a diminutive which means "the son of Dracul," was a surname to be used ultimately

by Vlad Tepes.

A second major role of this Order as a source of inspiration for Stoker's evil

character is the Order's official dress - a black cape over a red garment - to be

worn only on Fridays or during the commemoration of Christ's Passion.

In the winter of 1436-1437, Dracul became prince of Wallachia (one of the three

Romanian provinces) and took up residence at the palace of Tirgoviste, the princely

capital. Vlad Tepes followed his father and lived six years at the princely court.In

1442, for political reasons, Dracula and his younger brother Radu were taken

hostage by the Sultan Murad II; Dracula was held in Turkey until 1448, while

his brother Radu decided to stay there until 1462. This Turkish captivity surely

played an important role in Dracula's upbringing; it must be at this period that he

adopted a very pessimistic view of life. Indeed, the Turks set him free after

informing him of his father's assassination in 1447 - organized by Vladislav II.

He also learned about his older brother's death - Mircea was the eldest legitimate

son of Dracul - and how he had been tortured and buried alive by the boyars of

Tirgoviste.

At 17 years old, Vlad Tepes Dracula, supported by a force of Turkish cavalry

and a contingent of troops lent to him by pasha Mustafa Hassan, made his first

major move toward seizing the Wallachian throne. But another claimant, no other

than Vladislav II himself, defeated him only two months later. In order to secure

his second and major reign over Wallachia, Dracula had to wait until July of

1456, when he had the satisfaction of killing his mortal enemy and his father's

assassin. Vlad then began his longest reign - 6 years - during which he committed

many cruelties, and hence established his controversed reputation.

His first major act of revenge was aimed at the boyars of Tirgoviste for the

killing of his father and his brother Mircea. On Easter Sunday of what we believe

to be 1459, he arrested all the boyar families who had participated to the princely

feast. He impaled the older ones on stakes while forcing the others to march from

the capital to the town of Poenari. This fifty-mile trek was quite grueling, and

those who survived were not permitted to rest until they reached destination.

Dracula then ordered them to build him a fortress on the ruins of an older outpost

overlooking the Arges river. Many died in the process, and Dracula therefore

succeeded in creating a new nobility and obtaining a fortress for future emergencies.

What is left today of the building is identified as Castle Dracula. Vlad became

quite known for his brutal punishment techniques; he often ordered people to be

skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked,

nailed, buried alive, stabbed, etc. He also liked to cut off noses, ears, sexual

organs and limbs. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes, hence the

surname "Tepes" which means "The Impaler" in the Romanian language. Even the

Turks referred to him as "Kaziglu Bey," meaning "The Impaler Prince." It is

this technique he used in 1457, 1459 and 1460 against Transylvanian merchants

who had ignored his trade laws. The raids he led against the German Saxons of

Transylvania were also acts of proto-nationalism in order to protect and favour the

Wallachian commerce activities.

There are many anecdotes about the philosophy of Vlad Tepes Dracula.

He was for instance particularly known throughout his land for his fierce

insistence on honesty and order. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to

killing, could be punished by impalement. Being so confident in the effectiveness of

his law, Dracula placed a golden cup on display in the central square of

Tirgoviste. The cup could be used by thirsty travelers, but had to remain on the

square. According to the available historic sources, it was never stolen and

remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad's reign. Dracula was also very

concerned that all his subjects work and be productive to the community. He looked

upon the poor, vagrants and beggars as thieves. Consequently, he invited all the

poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast.

After the guests ate and drank, Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on

fire. No one survived.

In the beginning of 1462, Vlad launched a campaign against the Turks along the

Danube river. It was quite risky, the military force of Sultan Mehmed II being

by far more powerful than the Wallachian army. However, during the winter of

1462, Vlad was very successful and managed to gain many victories.

To punish Dracula, the Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of

Wallachia. Of course, his other goal was to transform this land into a Turkish

province and he entered Wallachia with an army three times larger than Dracula's.

Finding himself without allies, Vlad, forced to retreat towards Tirgoviste, burned

his own villages and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army

would find nothing to eat or drink. Moreover, when the Sultan, exhausted, finally

reached the capital city, he was confronted by a most gruesome sight: thousands of

stakes held the remaining carcasses of some 20,000 Turkish captives, a horror

scene which was ultimately nicknamed the "Forest of the Impaled." This terror

tactic deliberately stage-managed by Dracula was definitely successful; the scene

had a strong effect on Mehmed's most stout-hearted officers, and the Sultan,

tired and hungry, admitted defeat (it is worth mentioning that even Victor Hugo, in

his Legende des Siecles, recalls this particular incident). Nevertheless, following

his retreat from Wallachian territory, Mehmed left the next phase of the battle to

Vlad's younger brother Radu, the Turkish favorite for the Wallachian throne. At

the head of a Turkish army and joined by Vlad's detractors, Radu pursued his

brother to Poenari castle on the Arges river.

According to the legend, this is when Dracula's wife, in order to escape Turkish

capture, committed suicide by hurling herself from the upper battlements, her body

falling down the precipice into the river below - a scene exploited by Francis Ford

Coppola's production. Vlad, who was definitely not the kind of man to kill himself,

managed to escape the siege of his fortress by using a secret passage into the

mountain. Helped by some peasants of the Arefu village, he was able to reach

Transylvania where he met the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus.

However, instead of providing some help, Matthias arrested Dracula and

imprisoned him at the Hungarian capital of Visegrad.

It was not until 1475 that Vlad was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia,

enjoying a very short third reign. In fact, he was assassinated toward the end of

December 1476.

We do not know exactly why Bram Stoker chose this fifteenth century Romanian

prince as a model for his fictional character. Some scholars have proposed that

Stoker had a friendly relationship with a Hungarian professor from the University

of Budapest, Arminius Vambery (Hermann Vamberger) , and it is likely that this

man gave Stoker some information about Vlad Tepes Dracula. Moreover, the fact

that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing mentions his "friend Arminius" in the 1897 novel

as the source of his knowledge on Vlad seems to support this hypothesis. It should

also be kept in mind that the only real link between the historical Dracula (1431-

1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire is in fact the 1897 novel;

Stoker made use of folkloric sources, historic references and some of his own life

experiences to create his composite creature. On the other hand, it is worth

mentioning that Vlad Dracula's political detractors - mainly German Saxons -

made use of the other meaning of the Romanian word "Dracul" - "Devil" - in

order to blacken the prince's reputation. Could the association of the words

"Dragon" and "Devil" in Romanian language explain an earlier link between Vlad

Tepes and vampirism?

Today, as Romania opens itself to the tourism industry, many "Dracula Tours

are being offered throughout the country. Two months ago, the author of this article

attended one of them, organized by Bravo Group and designed by the

Transylvanian Society of Dracula. This particular Tour includes the most

important historical places related with Vlad Tepes, such as 15th century town of

Sighisoara - Vlad's birth place; the Snagov Monastery - where, according to

legend, Vlad is said to have been buried after his assassination; Castle Bran -

which has been in the past erroneously described by officials of the Romanian

Tourist Ministry as Castle Dracula; the Poenari fortress; the village of Arefu -

where many Dracula legends are still told; the city of Brasov - where Vlad led

raids against the German Saxons; and, of course, Curtea Domneasca - Dracula's

palace in Bucharest. The Tour also covers the folklorical aspects of the fictional

Dracula. For instance, one will find oneself eating the meal Jonathan Harker ate

at The Golden Crown in Bistrita, and sleeping at Castle Dracula Hotel - built no

so long ago on the Borgo Pass, approximately where the fictional castle of the

Count is supposed to be. If you have another trip to the Bahamas planned for next

Christmas and are a fan of Stoker's literary work, maybe should you reconsider

your decision?Vlad III the Impaler

Vlad III, called "Vlad the Impaler" (that is, Vlad Ţepeş, pronounced [�tsepeʃ]

in Romanian; also known as Vlad Dracula or simply Dracula, in Romanian

Drăculea; 1431 – December 1476), was a Wallachian (Romanian) voivode. His

three reigns were in 1448, 1456–1462, and 1476. Vlad the Impaler is known for

the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reign. In the English-

speaking world, Vlad III is best known for (possibly) inspiring the name of the

eponymous vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.[4]

As prince, Vlad maintained an independent policy in relation to the Ottoman

Empire, and in Romania he is viewed by many as a prince with a deep sense of

justice[5] and a defender of Wallachia against Ottoman expansionism.

Names

His Romanian surname Draculea, is derived from his father's title Dracul,

meaning affiliation to and/or descent from "Dracul" (see Vlad II Dracul); the

latter was a member of the Order of the Dragon created by Emperor Sigismund.

Vlad's family had two factions, the Drăculeşti and the Dăneşti. The word

"dracul" means "the Devil" or "demon" in modern Romanian but in Vlad's day also

meant "dragon", and derives from the Latin word Draco, also meaning "dragon".

His post-mortem moniker of Ţepeş (Impaler) originated in his preferred method

for executing his opponents, impalement — as popularized by medieval

Transylvanian pamphlets. In Turkish, he was known as "Kazıklı Voyvoda"

(pronounced [kɑzɯk�ɫɯ]) which means "Impaler Prince". Vlad was referred to as

Dracula in a number of documents of his times, mainly the Transylvanian Saxon

pamphlets and The Annals of Jan Długosz.

Wallachian royalty and family background

The crown of Wallachia was not passed automatically from father to son;

instead, the leader was elected by the boyars, with the requirement that the Prince-

elect be of nominally Basarab princely lineage (os de domn — "of voivode bones",

"of voivode marrow"), including out of wedlock births. This elective monarchy often

resulted in instability, family disputes and assassinations. Eventually, the

princely house split between two factions: the descendants of Mircea the Elder,

Vlad's grandfather; and those of another prince, Dan II (Dăneşti faction). In

addition to that, as in all feudal states, there was another struggle between the

central administration (the prince) and the high nobility for control over the country.

To top it off, the two powerful neighbors of Wallachia, the Kingdom of Hungary

and the Ottoman Empire, were at the peak of their rivalry for control of

southeastern Europe, turning Wallachia into a battle ground.

His father, Vlad II Dracul, born around 1395, was an illegitimate son of Mircea

the Elder, an important early Wallachian ruler. As a young man, he had joined

the court of Sigismund of Luxemburg, Holy Roman Emperor and King of

Hungary, whose support for claiming the throne of Wallachia he eventually

acquired. A sign of this support was the fact that in 1431 Vlad II was inducted

into the Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconis in Latin), along with the rulers

of Poland and Serbia. The purpose of the Order was to protect Eastern Europe

and the Holy Roman Empire from Islamic expansion as embodied in the campaigns

of the Ottoman Empire.

Wishing to assert his status, Vlad II displayed the symbol of the Order, a

dragon, in all public appearances, (on flags, clothing, etc.). The old Romanian

word for serpent (Cf. drac) is nowadays the most common and casual reference to

the devil — while the people of Wallachia did give Vlad II the surname Dracu

(Dracul being the more grammatically correct form), any connection with a dark

power was most likely coincidental. His son Vlad III would later use in several

documents the surname Drăculea. Through various translations (Draculea,

Drakulya) Vlad III eventually came to be known as Dracula (note that this

ultimate version is a neologism).

Vlad II Dracul finally became prince of Wallachia in 1436. With the help of the

Turks (where he also had connections) he regained the throne in1443 and until

December 1447 when he was assassinated by means of scalping ("scalping", for the

Turks, meant cutting the edges of the face and pulling the face's skin off, while the

person was still alive and conscious[citation needed]) on the orders of John

Hunyadi, regent of Hungary.During his reign he tried to maneuver between his

powerful neighbors, opposing various initiatives of war against the Ottoman, which

finally attracted the irritation of the Hungarian side, who accused him of

disloyalty and removed him in 1442.

The identity of Vlad Dracula’s mother is somewhat uncertain, the most likely

variant being that she was a Moldavian princess, niece or daughter of Moldavian

prince Alexandru cel Bun. In some sources she is named Chiajna — Princess.

Vlad seems to have had a very close relationship with Moldavia: he spent several

years there after his father’s death; he left with his presumed cousin Stephen the

Great to Transylvania, and helped the latter gain the crown as Prince of

Moldavia in 1457 and was later helped by Stephen to return to the throne of

Wallachia in 1476.

Vlad III seems to have had three brothers. The oldest was Mircea II, born

before 1430, and who briefly held his father's throne in 1442, and who was sent by

Vlad Dracul in 1444 to fight in his place during the crusade against the Turks

that ended with the Varna defeat. Mircea II was an able military leader, and

fought some successful yet small campaigns against the Ottomans prior to his

capture along with his father in 1447. Mircea II, captured by the boyars, had his

eyes burned out, after which he was buried alive. Vlad IV, also known as Vlad

Călugarul (Vlad the Monk), was born around 1425 to 1430, and was Vlad's

half-brother. Vlad the Monk spent many years in Transylvania waiting for a

chance to get the throne of Wallachia, trying a religious career in the meantime,

until he became prince of Wallachia (1482). Radu, known as Radu cel Frumos

(Radu the Handsome), the youngest brother, was also Vlad’s rival as he

continuously tried to replace Vlad with the support of the Turks, to which he had

very strong connections. Radu seems to have been also favoured by the Turkish

Sultan Mehmed II.

From his first marriage, to a Wallachian noble woman, Vlad III apparently had

a son, later prince of Wallachia as Mihnea cel Rău, and another two with his

second wife, a relative of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

Biography Early years

Vlad was very likely born in the citadel (a military fortress) of Sighişoara in

Transylvania, during the winter of 1431. He was born as the second son to his

father Vlad Dracul and his mother Princess Cneajna of Moldavia. He had an

older brother named Mircea and a younger brother named Radu the Handsome.

Although his native country was Wallachia to the south, the family lived in exile in

Transylvania as his father had been ousted by pro-Ottoman boyars. In the same

year as his birth, his father, Vlad Dracul, could be found in Nuremberg, where he

was vested into the Order of the Dragon. At the tender age of five, young "Vlad"

was also initiated into the Order of the Dragon.

Hostage of the Ottoman Empire

Vlad's father was under considerable political pressure from the Ottoman sultan.

Threatened with invasion, he gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan and

gave up his two younger sons as hostages so that he would keep his promise. These

years were influential in shaping Vlad's character; he was often whipped by his

Ottoman captors for being stubborn and rude. Here is where he learned his torture

tactics. He developed a well-known hatred for Radu and for Mehmed, who would

later become the sultan. According to McNally and Florescu, he also distrusted his

own father for trading him to the Turks and betraying the Order of the Dragon

oath to fight them.

Brief reign and exile

Vlad's father was assassinated in the marshes near Bălteni in December of 1447

by rebellious boyars allegedly under the orders of John Hunyadi. Vlad's older

brother Mircea was also dead at this point, blinded with hot iron stakes and buried

alive by his political enemies at Târgovişte. To protect their political power in the

region, the Ottomans invaded Wallachia and the Sultan put Vlad III on the

throne as his puppet ruler. His rule at this time would be brief; Hunyadi himself

invaded Wallachia and ousted him the same year. Vlad fled to Moldavia until

October of 1451 and was put under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II.

Turning tides

Bogdan was assassinated by Petru Aron, and Vlad, taking a gamble, fled to

Hungary. Impressed by Vlad's vast knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of

the Ottoman Empire as well as his hatred of the new sultan Mehmed II, Hunyadi

pardoned him and took him in as an advisor. Eventually Hunyadi put him forward

as the Kingdom of Hungary's candidate for the throne of Wallachia.

In 1456, Hungary invaded Serbia to drive out the Ottomans, and Vlad III

simultaneously invaded Wallachia with his own contingent. Both campaigns were

successful, although Hunyadi died suddenly of the plague. Nevertheless, Vlad was

now prince of his native land.

Main reign (1456–62)

Vlad's actions after 1456 are well documented. He seems to have led the life of all

the other princes of Wallachia, spending most of his time at the court of

Târgovişte, occasionally in other important cities, such as Bucharest, drafting

laws, meeting foreign envoys and presiding over important judicial trials. He

probably made public appearances on relevant occasions, such as religious holidays

and major fairs. As a pastime he probably enjoyed hunting on the vast princely

domain, with his friends. He made some additions to the palace in Târgovişte (out

of which Chindia Tower is today the most notable remainder), reinforced some

castles, like the one at Poienari, where he also had a personal house built nearby.

He also made donations to various churches and monasteries, one such place being

the monastery at Lake Snagov where he is supposed to have been buried[citation

needed].

The early part of Vlad’s reign was dominated by the idea of eliminating all

possible threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups, i.e. the boyars.

This was done mainly by physical elimination, but also by reducing the economic

role of the nobility: the key positions in the Prince’s Council, traditionally

belonging to the country’s greatest boyars, were handed to obscure individuals, some

of them of foreign origin, but who manifested loyalty towards Vlad. For the less

important functions, Vlad also ignored the old boyars, preferring to knight and

appoint men from the free peasantry.

A key element of the power of the Wallachian nobility was their connections in the

Saxon-populated autonomous towns of Transylvania, so Vlad acted against these

cities by eliminating their trade privileges in relation with Wallachia and by

organizing raids against them. In 1459, he had 30,000 of the German settlers

(Saxons) and officials of the Transylvanian city of Kronstadt who were

transgressing his authority impaled.

Since the death of Vlad's grandfather (Mircea the Elder) in 1418, Wallachia

had fallen into a somewhat anarchical situation. A constant state of war had led to

rampant crime, falling agricultural production, and the virtual disappearance of

trade. Vlad used severe methods to restore some order, as he needed an economically

stable country if he was to have any chance against his external enemies.

Vlad III was also constantly on guard against the adherents of the Dăneşti

clan. Some of his raids into Transylvania may have been efforts to capture would-

be princes of the Dăneşti. Several members of the Dăneşti clan died at Vlad's

hands. Vladislav II of Wallachia was murdered soon after Vlad came to power in

1456. Another Dăneşti prince, suspected to have taken part in burying his brother

Mircea alive, was captured during one of Vlad's forays into Transylvania.

Rumors (spread by his enemies) say thousands of citizens of the town that had

sheltered his rival were impaled by Vlad. The captured Dăneşti prince was forced

to read his own funeral oration while kneeling before an open grave before his

execution.

Personal crusade

Following family traditions and due to his old hatred towards the Ottomans, Vlad

decided to side with the Hungarians. To the end of the 1450s there was once again

talk about a war against the Turks, in which the king of Hungary Matthias

Corvinus would play the main role. Knowing this, Vlad stopped paying tribute to

the Ottomans in 1459 and around 1460 made a new alliance with Corvinus. This

angered the Turks, who attempted to remove him. They failed, however; later in

the winter of 1461 to 1462 Vlad crossed south of the Danube and devastated the

area between Serbia and the Black Sea.

In response to this, Sultan Mehmed II, the recent conqueror of Constantinople,

raised an army of around 60,000 troops and 30,000 irregulars and in the spring

of 1462 headed towards Wallachia. Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror was greeted by

the sight of a veritable forest of stakes on which Vlad the Impaler had impaled

20,000 Turkish prisoners.[9] With his army of 20,000–30,000 men Vlad was

unable to stop the Turks from entering Wallachia and occupying the capital

Târgovişte (June 4, 1462), so he resorted to guerrilla war, constantly organizing

small attacks and ambushes on the Turks. The most important of these attacks took

place on the nights of June 16–17, when Vlad and some of his men allegedly entered

the main Turkish camp (wearing Ottoman disguises) and attempted to assassinate

Mehmed. The Turks eventually left the country, but not before installing Vlad’s

brother, Radu the Handsome, as the new prince; he gathered support from the

nobility and chased Vlad to Transylvania, and by August 1462 he had struck a

deal with the Hungarian Crown. Consequently, Vlad was imprisoned by Matthias

Corvinus.

His first wife, whose name is not recorded, died during the siege of his castle in

1462. The Turkish army surrounded Poienari Castle, led by his half-brother

Radu the Handsome. An archer shot an arrow through a window into Vlad's main

quarters, with a message warning him that Radu's army was approaching.

McNally and Florescu explain that the archer was a former servant of Vlad who

sent the warning out of loyalty despite having converted to Islam to get out of

enslavement by the Turks. Upon reading the message, Vlad's wife flung herself off

the tower into a tributary of the Argeş River flowing below the castle. According to

legend she remarked that she "would rather have her body rot and be eaten by the

fish of the Argeş than be led into captivity by the Turks." Today, the tributary is

called Râul Doamnei (the Lady's River).

In captivity

The exact length of Vlad's period of captivity is open to some debate. The Russian

pamphlets indicate that he was a prisoner from 1462 until 1474. Apparently his

imprisonment was none too onerous. He was able to gradually win his way back into

the graces of Hungary's monarch; so much so that he was able to meet and marry a

member of the royal family (the cousin of Matthias) and have two sons who were

about ten years old when he reconquered Wallachia in 1476. McNally and Florescu

place Vlad III the Impaler's actual period of confinement at about four years from

1462 to 1466. It is unlikely that a prisoner would have been allowed to marry into

the royal family. Diplomatic correspondence from Buda during the period in

question also seems to support the claim that Vlad's actual period of confinement

was relatively short. The openly pro-Turkish policy of Vlad's brother, Radu (who

was prince of Wallachia during most of Vlad's captivity), was a probable factor in

Vlad's rehabilitation. During his captivity, Vlad also adopted Catholicism.

Apparently in the years before his final release in 1474 (when he began

preparations for the reconquest of Wallachia), Vlad resided with his new wife in a

house in the Hungarian capital (the setting of the thief anecdote). Vlad had a son

from an earlier marriage, Mihnea cel Rău.

Return to Wallachia and death

Around 1475 Vlad the Impaler was again ready to make another bid for power.

Vlad and voivode Stefan Báthory of Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed

force of Transylvanians, a few dissatisfied Wallachian boyars, and a contingent of

Moldavians sent by Vlad's cousin, Prince Stephen III of Moldavia. Vlad's

brother, Radu the Handsome, had died a couple of years earlier and had been

replaced on the Wallachian throne by another Ottoman candidate, Basarab the

Elder, a member of the Dăneşti clan. At the approach of Vlad's army, Basarab

and his cohorts fled, some to the protection of the Turks, others to the shelter of the

Transylvanian Alps. After placing Vlad Ţepeş on the throne, Stephen Báthory

and the bulk of Vlad's forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak

position. Vlad had little time to gather support before a large Ottoman army

entered Wallachia determined to return Basarab to the throne. Vlad's cruelties over

the years had alienated the boyars who felt they had a better chance of surviving

under Prince Basarab. Apparently, even the peasants, tired of the depredations of

Vlad, abandoned him to his fate. Vlad was forced to march to meet the Turks with

the small forces at his disposal, somewhat less than four thousand men.

There are several variants of Vlad III the Impaler's death. Some sources say he

was killed in battle against the Ottoman Empire near Bucharest in December of

1476. Others say he was assassinated by disloyal Wallachian boyars just as he

was about to sweep the Turks from the field or during a hunt. Other accounts have

Vlad falling in defeat, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards

(the troops loaned by Prince Stephen III of Moldavia remained with Vlad after

Stephen Báthory returned to Transylvania). Still other reports claim that Vlad,

at the moment of victory, was struck down by one of his own men. There are

accounts that Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to

Istanbul and preserved in honey, where the sultan had it displayed on a stake as

proof that Kazıklı Bey was finally dead. However, Romanian historian and Vlad

biographer Matei Cazacu suggests in a 2005 British documentary on Vlad's life

(David Paradine Productions Ltd) that the Turks removed the scalp of their

victims' heads rather than behead them. Vlad's remains were discovered buried at

the entrance of a church by a grandfather of Radu Florescu.[citation needed]

Legacy

The legacy and the legend of Vlad Ţepeş is mostly the result of different stories

about him. The Romanian, German, and the Russian stories all have their origins

in the 15th century. Besides the written stories the Romanian oral tradition

provides another important source for the life of Vlad the Impaler: legends and

tales concerning the Impaler have remained a part of folklore among the Romanian

peasantry. These tales have been passed down from generation to generation for five

hundred years. Through constant retelling they have become somewhat garbled and

confused and they have gradually been forgotten in later years. However, they still

provide valuable information about Dracula and his relationship with his people.

[10] Many of the tales contained in the pamphlets are also found in the oral

tradition, though with a somewhat different emphasis. Among the Romanian

peasantry, Vlad Ţepeş was remembered as a just prince who defended his people

from foreign aggression, whether those foreigners were Turkish invaders or German

merchants. He is also remembered as a champion of the common man against the

oppression of the boyars. National poet of Romania Mihai Eminescu wrote the

memorable verses "Unde eşti tu, Ţepeş Doamne, ca punând mâna pe ei, Să-i

împarţi în două cete: în smintiţi şi în mişei" (where are you, lord Ţepeş, to get

them and split them into two gangs, fools and rascals"). 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. Presidential candidate Traian Băsescu

referred to Vlad Ţepeş and his method of punishing illegalities in his anticorruption

discourse during the election campaign of 2004.

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. For example, in

some versions the foreign ambassadors received by Vlad Ţepeş at Târgovişte are

Florentine, in others they are Ottoman (McNally and Florescu believe he may have

done this to both nationalities at different times). The nature of their offense

against the Prince also varies from version to version. 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.

Atrocities

The reputation of Vlad Ţepeş was considerably darker in Western Europe than in

Eastern Europe and Romania. In the West, Vlad III Ţepeş has been

characterized as an exceedingly cruel madman. The number of his victims ranges

from 40,000 to 100,000.

Much of the information about his atrocities and cruelty comes from the German

stories written about him, which were for the most part politically, religiously and

economically inspired propaganda against Vlad Ţepeş. 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

80,000. In addition to the 80,000 victims mentioned he also had whole villages

and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground.[12] These numbers are most

likely exaggerated. For example in one episode in the German stories Vlad impaled

600 merchants from Braşov and confiscated all their goods. A document written by

Vlad’s rival Dan III in 1459 mentions the merchants number who were impaled to

be forty-one. It is highly unlikely that a rival of Vlad’s would have reduced the

number of Vlad's victims.

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 exaggeration of cruelties in the German stories is

quite clear when compared to the Russian or the Romanian stories about Vlad

Ţepeş from which the meaningless violence and cruel atrocities are almost absent.

The exaggerated and propagandistic view is especially clear in one sentence in the

stories: He caused so much pain and suffering that even the most bloodthirstiest

persecutors of Christianity like Herodes, Nero, Diocletius and all other pagans

combined hadn’t even thought of.

In the memoirs of the Serbian Janissary Konstantin Mihailović, it is

documented by Mihailović that the Ottomans feared Vlad III, and Mihailović

goes into great detail about how Vlad III would often cut off the noses of Turkish

soldiers, sending them to Hungary to boast of how many of the enemy he had

killed. Mihailović also documents that the Ottomans were fearful of Wallachian

attacks at night. He does allude to the famed "forrest of the impaled", where Vlad

III was alleged to have lined the roadways with thousands of impaled Turkish

soldiers. However, Mihailović did not actually see this. 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.

The actions taken by Vlad Ţepeş must be viewed in the light of the standards and

morality of his time. Most of the actions taken by Vlad can be justified on moral

grounds or they had a utilitarian purpose or in some cases both.[15] Most of the

tortures done by Ţepeş in the different stories were actually normal punishments in

that time. 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.

Impalement was Ţepeş's preferred method of torture and execution. 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.[16]

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 10,000 were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu (where

Vlad the Impaler had once lived) in 1460. Another allegation asserts that during

the previous year, on Saint Bartholomew's Day (in August), Vlad the Impaler

had 30,000 of the merchants and officials of the Transylvanian city of Braşov

that were breaking his authority impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the

period shows Vlad the Impaler feasting amongst a forest of stakes and their grisly

burdens outside Braşov, while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims.

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.

Vlad Ţepeş is alleged to have committed even more impalements and other tortures

against invading Ottoman forces. 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. It has also been said that in 1462 Mehmed II, the

conqueror of Constantinople, a man noted for his own psychological warfare tactics,

returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled

corpses outside Vlad's capital of Târgovişte. 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 40,000. 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 thirty 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. The

younger and healthier nobles and their families were marched north from Târgovişte

to the ruins of Poienari Castle in the mountains above the Argeş River. 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 labour 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. Apparently Vlad Ţepeş was determined that his own power be on a modern

and thoroughly secure footing. 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.[citation needed]

The German stories about Vlad Ţepeş

The German stories circulated first in manuscript form in the late 15th century and

the first manuscript was probably written in 1462 before Vlad’s arrest.[17] 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. The

poem called Von ainem wutrich der heis Trakle waida von der Walachei (“Story of

a Bloodthirsty Madman Called Dracula of Wallachia”) was written and

performed at the court of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor during the winter

of 1463.[18]

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 15th

century to the year 1500 and the found pamphlets date from 1488 to 1559-1568.

Eight of the pamphlets are actually incunabulum because they were printed before

1501. The German stories about Vlad Ţepeş consist of altogether 46 short episodes,

although none of the manuscripts, pamphlets or the poem of Beheim have all of the

episodes in them. 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, incunabulum and pamphlets with mainly three different titles with

variations.[19]

The German stories about Vlad Ţepeş were written most likely for political

reasons, especially to blacken the image of the Wallachian ruler. The first version

of the German text was probably written in Braşov by a Saxon scholar. According

to some researchers the writer of the text did little else than mirror the state of mind

of the Saxons in Braşov and Sibiu who had borne the brunt of Vlad’s wrath in

1456-1457 and again in 1458-1459 and 1460. Against this political and cultural

backdrop it is quite easy to understand the hostility towards Vlad Ţepeş. Although

there is historic background for the events described in the German stories, some of

them are either exaggerated or even fictitious. The Hungarian king Mathias

Corvinus is also said to have had a part in the blackening of the image of Vlad

Ţepeş. Corvinus had received large subsidies from Rome and Venice for the war

against the Ottomans, but because of a conflict with Emperor Frederick III of the

Holy Roman Empire he couldn’t afford the military support for the fight. By

making Vlad a scapegoat Corvinus could justify his reasons for not taking part in

the war against the Ottomans. He arrested Vlad and used a forged letter where

Vlad announced his loyalty to the Sultan, as well as the horror stories about Vlad,

to justify his actions to the Pope. In 1462 and 1463 the court in Buda fostered the

dissemination of the negative legend of Vlad in central and Eastern Europe, and

capitalized on the horrors attributed to him.[20] The purpose of the stories soon

changed from propaganda to literature and became very popular, best-sellers of

their time, in the German world in the 15th and 16th centuries. Part of the reason

for this success was the newly invented printing press, which allowed the texts to

filter to a wide audience.

Vlad's atrocities against the people of Wallachia were usually attempts to enforce

his own moral code upon his country. According to the pamphlets, he appears to

have been particularly concerned with female chastity. Maidens who lost their

virginity, adulterous wives, and unchaste widows were all targets of Vlad's cruelty.

Such women often had their sexual organs cut out or their breasts cut off. They

were also often impaled through the vagina on red-hot stakes that were forced

through the body until they emerged from the mouth.[16] One report tells of the

execution of an unfaithful wife. The woman's breasts were cut off, then she was

skinned and impaled in a square in Târgovişte with her skin lying on a nearby

table. Vlad also insisted that his people be honest and hard-working.[citation

needed] Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to find themselves

mounted on a stake beside common thieves. Vlad also viewed the poor, sick and

beggers as thieves. One horrific tale tells of him inviting all the sick and poor in the

area to a large dinner only to have them locked inside and the building burned.

Another famous story tells of Vlad Tepes, after seeing a man with a missing

button, tells the man to take him to his house. The man, believing that Vlad Tepes

wished to give him a good supper and maybe a new shirt, invited him welcomlingly.

When they arrived, Vlad Tepes immediatly walked to the man's wife and asks her

why he had a missing button. She responded that they were poor and could not

affored to buy any buttons. Enraged, Vlad Tepes cut off the woman's hands as a

sign to those around to never let a man go about so poorly.

The Russian stories about Vlad Ţepeş

The Russian or the Slavic version of the stories about Vlad Ţepeş called Skazanie

o Drakule voevode (Tale about Voivode Dracula) is thought to have been written

sometime between 1481 and 1486. Copies of the story were made from the 15th

century to the 18th century. There are some twenty-two extant manuscripts about

Vlad in Russian archives.[21] The oldest one is from the year 1490 and it ends as

following: First written in the year 6994 (meaning 1486), on 13 February; then

transcribed by me, the sinner Elfrosin, in the year 6998 (meaning 1490), on 28

January. The Tale about Voivode Dracula is neither chronological nor consistent,

but mostly a collection of anecdotes of literary and historical value concerning Vlad

Ţepeş. There are 19 episodes or anecdotes in the Tale about Voivode Dracula and

they are longer and more constructed than the German stories. The Tale itself can

be divided into two sections. The first 13 episodes are more or less non chronological

events and are most likely closer to the original folkloric oral tradition about Vlad.

The last six episodes are thought to have been written by a scholar who had the idea

of collecting the anecdotes because they are chronological and seem to be more

structured. The Tale about Voivode Dracula starts with a short introduction and

then with the story about the nailing of hats to ambassadors heads and it ends with

the death of Vlad Ţepeş and information about Vlad’s family.[22]

Out of the 19 episodes there are ten that are almost the same as in the German

stories.[23] Although there are similarities between the Russian and the German

stories about Ţepeş there is a clear distinction with the attitude towards Vlad

Ţepeş in these stories.

Unlike in the German stories the Russian stories tend to give a more positive

image of Vlad. He is seen as a great ruler, a brave soldier and a just sovereign.

There are also tales about atrocities but even most of them seem to be justified as

the actions of a strong one-man ruler. Out of the 19 episodes only four seem to be

exaggerated with violence.

Some elements of the episodes of the Tale about Voivode Dracula were later added

to Russian stories about Ivan IV of Russia.

The nationality and identity of the original writer of the Tale about Voivode

Dracula is disputed. The two most plausible explanations are that the writer was

either a Romanian priest or a monk somewhere in Transylvania or a Romanian or

Moldavian from the court of Stephen the Great in Moldova. One theory is also

that the writer would have been a Russian diplomat named Fedor Kuritsyn but it

is very unlikely that we can find a name to the real writer of the Tale.

The vampire legend and Romanian attitudes

It is most likely that Bram Stoker found the name for his vampire from William

Wilkinsons book called An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and

Moldavia: with various Political Observations Relating to Them. It is known that

Stoker made notes about this book.

It is also suggested by some that because Stoker was a friend of a Hungarian

professor (Arminius Vambery/Hermann Vamberger) from Budapest, Vlad's name

might have been mentioned by this friend. Regardless of how the name came to

Stoker's attention, the cruel history of the Impaler would have readily lent itself to

Stoker's purposes.

The events of Vlad's life were played out in a region of the world that was still

basically medieval even in Stoker's time. The Balkans had only recently shaken off

the Turkish yoke when Stoker started working on his novel and ancient superstitions

were still prevalent. Transylvania had long been a part of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire, but it had also been an Ottoman vassal (although it never fell under

Turkish domination, and was in fact semi-independent and at times under

Habsburg influence).

Recent research suggests that Stoker knew little of the Prince of Wallachia.

Some have claimed that the novel owes more to the legends about Elizabeth

Báthory. (See Dracula — Historical connections for more detail).

The legendary vampire was and still is deeply rooted in that region. There have

always been vampire-like creatures in various stories from across the world.

However, the vampire, as he became known in Europe, largely originated in

Southern Slavic and Greek folklore — although the tale is virtually absent in

Romanian culture.

A veritable epidemic of vampirism swept through Eastern Europe beginning in the

late 17th century and continuing through the 1700s. The number of reported cases

rose dramatically in Hungary and the Balkans.

From the Balkans, the "plague" spread westward into Germany, Italy, France,

England, and Spain. Travelers returning from the Balkans brought with them

tales of the undead, igniting an interest in the vampire that has continued to this

day. Philosophers in the West began to study the phenomenon.

It was during this period that Dom Augustine Calmet wrote his famous treatise

on vampirism in Hungary. It was also during this period that authors and

playwrights first began to explore the vampire legend.

Stoker's novel was merely the culminating work of a long series of works that

were inspired by the reports coming from the Balkans and Hungary.

Given the history of the vampire legend in Europe it is perhaps natural that

Stoker should place his great vampire in the heart of the region that gave birth to

the story. Once Stoker had determined on a locality Vlad Dracula would stand out

as one of the most notorious rulers of the selected region. He was obscure enough

that few would recognize the name and those who did would know him for his acts

of brutal cruelty; Dracula was a natural candidate for vampirism.

Tales of vampires are still widespread in Eastern Europe. Similarly, the name

of Dracula is still remembered in the Romanian oral tradition but that is the end of

any connection between Dracula and the folkloric vampire.

Outside of Stoker's novel the name of Dracula was never linked with the vampires

encountered in the folklore.

Despite his alleged inhuman cruelty, in Romania Dracula is remembered as a

national hero who resisted the Turkish conquerors and asserted Romanian national

sovereignty against the powerful Hungarian kingdom. He is also remembered in a

similar manner in other Balkan countries, as he fought against the Turks.

It is somewhat ironic that Vlad's name has often been thrown into the political

and ethnic feuds between Hungarians and Romanians, because he was ultimately

far from an enemy of Hungary. While he certainly had violent conflicts with some

Hungarian nobles, he had just as many Hungarian friends and allies, and his

successes in battle with the Turks largely benefited Hungary in the long term.

Hungary later found itself under siege but was never entirely penetrated by

Ottoman forces.

Though neither the first nor the last powerful ruler to take on the Ottoman

Empire, Dracula's demoralizing battle tactics were quite influential in damaging

the illusion of Turkish invincibility and reversing the European aura of

appeasement.

It should be taken into account that Romanian folklore and poetry paints Vlad

Ţepeş as a hero, anything but a vampire. His favorite weapon being the stake,

coupled with his reputation in his native country as a man who stood up to both

foreign and domestic enemies, gives Dracula the virtual opposite symbolism of

Bram Stoker's vampire.

For this reason, the association of his name with vampirism does not make sense

to Romanians. In Romania he is still considered by some to be a "savior" to the

people of his country. He is also considered one of the greatest leaders and

defenders of Romania and was voted one of "100 Greatest Romanians" in the Mari

Români television series aired in 2006.

A good description of Vlad Dracula survives courtesy of Nicholas of Modrussa,

who wrote:

He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cruel and terrible

appearance, a long straight nose, distended nostrils, a thin and reddish face in

which the large wide-open green eyes were enframed by bushy black eyebrows, which

made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven but for a moustache.

The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck supported the

head, from which black curly locks were falling to his wide-shouldered person.

His famous contemporary portrait, rediscovered by Romanian historians in the

late 19th century, had been featured in the gallery of horrors at Innsbruck's

Ambras Castle. It is significant support for the Romanian counter-legend that the

Romanian intellectual Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, claiming to apply Johann

Kaspar Lavater's method to Vlad's depiction in one of the woodcuts, concluded that

his subject mostly resembled the likes of William Shakespeare and Cesare Borgia.

Ţepeş' image in modern Romanian culture has been established in reaction to

foreign perceptions: while Stoker's book did a lot to generate outrage with

nationalists, it is the last part of a rather popular previous poem by Mihai

Eminescu, Scrisoarea a III-a, that helped turn Vlad's image into modern

legend, by having him stand as a figure to contrast with presumed social decay

under the Phanariotes and the political scene of the 19th century (even suggesting

that Vlad's violent methods be applied as a cure).

This judgement was in tune with the ideology of the inward-looking regime of

Nicolae Ceauşescu, although the identification did little justice to Eminescu's

personal beliefs.

All accounts of his life describe him as unrepentantly ruthless, but only the ones

originating from his Saxon detractors paint him as exceptionally sadistic or

somehow insane. These pamphlets continued to be published long after his death,

though usually for lurid entertainment rather than propaganda purposes.

It has largely been forgotten until recently that his tenacious efforts against the

Ottoman Empire won him many staunch supporters in his lifetime, not just in

modern day Romania but in the Kingdom of Hungary, Poland, the Republic of

Venice, and even the Holy See, not to take into account Balkan countries. A

Hungarian court chronicler reported that King Matthias "had acted in opposition

to general opinion" in Hungary when he had Dracula imprisoned, and this played

a considerable part in Matthias reversing his unpopular decision. During his time

as a "distinguished prisoner" before being fully pardoned and allowed to reconquer

Wallachia, Vlad was hailed as a Christian hero by visitors from all over Europe.

Vlad in popular culture and in the media

Apart from the Dracula movies, which are partially based on Vlad as well as

Elizabeth Bathory, there has been comparatively fewer movies about the man who

inspired the vampire. In 1979, Romania released a movie based on his six-year

reign and his brief return to power in late 1476 called Vlad Ţepeş (sometimes

known, in other countries, as The True Story of Vlad the Impaler), in which the

character is portrayed with a mostly positive perspective, while, at the same time,

also mentioning the excesses of his regime and his practice of impalement. The lead

character is played by Ştefan Sileanu[28].

The 2000 movie Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula[29], filmed on

location in Hungary and starring Rudolf Martin, attempts to portray Vlad the

Impaler as a generally sympathetic, though tragic figure. The film takes a number

of liberties with the details of his life, but remains overall a fairly accurate outline

of his story. In literature, he is found as a main character of the book the

Historian, published in 2005.

Vigo the Carpathian from the 1989 film Ghostbusters II was loosely based on Vlad

Tepes.

The 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most faithful

film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, claims that the Dracula character is

actually Vlad the Impaler. In the opening of the film, which is set in

Transylvania in 1462, he leaves his beloved wife Elisabeta at his castle to fight an

army of Turks, who have invaded Transylvania and are threatening all of

Christendom. Vlad Draculea, as he is known in the film, leads his army to victory

against the Turks and impales many of them on stakes, before praising God for his

triumph. However, he then experiences a premonition in which Elisabeta flings

herself out of the window of the castle to her death in the river hundreds of feet

below, since the surviving Turks shot an arrow through the castle window, with a

letter attached to it falsely informing her of Vlad's death in the battle.

Rushing back to the castle, a distraught Vlad is shown his wife's dead body in

the chapel, and is told by an elderly priest that due to her suicide, Elisabeta's soul

cannot enter heaven. Overcome with grief and anger, Vlad renounces God and

proceeds to plunge his sword into a stone crucifix nearby, causing blood to gush out

of the hole and fill up the floor of the entire chapel. Vlad then swears that he will

live beyond his own death and avenge Elisabeta's unnecessary death with all the

powers of darkness, and then drinks some of the blood from a goblet next to the

stone crucifix.

Over four hundred years later in 1897, Vlad is still alive in Transylvania and is

revealed through the course of the film to have been transformed into a vampire,

becoming known as Dracula and possessing all of the strengths and weaknesses

described in Bram Stoker's novel.

The film then follows the plot of the novel, except the character of Mina Harker

is revealed to be the reincarnation of Elisabeta, sharing her exact physical

appearance, and a passionate romance between Mina and Dracula is added in the

film to coincide with the opening of the film (Dracula turning Mina into a vampire

so they can be together as husband and wife for an eternity, just as he and

Elisabeta were meant to be together all of their lives). In the climax of the film,

once Dracula has been fatally wounded by having his throat slashed and a hunting

knife embedded into his heart, Mina/Elisabeta provides the finishing blow by

impaling the dying Vlad/Dracula to the floor with the knife, who reverts back to his

original Vlad appearance and then dies. Through Dracula's death, Mina is freed

of the vampire's curse, in accordance with the novel.

The film presents Vlad the Impaler as a brutal but tragic character who became

the immortal vampire Dracula out of his love for his deceased wife, and shows his

actions as Dracula to be his own personal war against God for denying the entry of

Elisabeta's soul into heaven, mixing historical fact with the fiction of Bram

Stoker's world-famous vampire character. His appearance as Vlad is similar to

historical depictions of Vlad the Impaler; his suit of armour in the battle against

the Turks has a distinct wolf-like appearance; he is shown to be able to fight

multiple armed men single-handedly, both as Vlad and Dracula, and golden

dragons appear frequently on his clothes and in his castle once he becomes the

vampire Dracula. In the film, Vlad/Dracula was played by Gary Oldman, and

Elisabeta/Mina was played by Winona Ryder.

GWAR, an American metal band has done a song called "Vlad the Impaler."

Vlad will be one of the major character in the game Legendary Warriors, where he

is simply called "Vlad von Dracul". In the game, he is portrayed as a cold and

overly evil but powerful character, but still shown as fighting on the heroes side. He

is also an equivalent of sorts for Yukimura Sanada or Zhao Yun in that he is

a"cover character" for the game. In the game, he wields a wooden stake