For Bram Stoker, he served as the prototype for the main character in the novel Dracula.
His name was Vlad III Basarab. He was Prince of Wallachia three times: from October 1448 to December 1448, from August 22, 1456 to 1462, from November 1476 to December 1476. During this time, he earned himself a reputation as a sadist. He inherited the nickname Dracula (Romanian: Dracul), which means dragon, from his father, who wore a medallion of a knightly society with an image of a coiled dragon around his neck. During the reign of Vlad, the dragon appeared on coins that came into general use. Tepes meant impaler from the Romanian țeapă, which translates as stake.
Portrait of Vlad III
Biography
It was not possible to establish the exact date of Vlad’s birth: he was approximately born between 1430 and 1436. Together with his parents and older brother, Mircea (Romanian: Mircea) lived in Sighisoara. The current address of this house is: Sighisoara, st. Zhestyanshchikov, 5.
After Vlad's father ascended the Wallachian throne, he moved his family from Sigiašora to Wallachia. There, after the birth of her third son Radu, Dracula's mother died.
Portrait of Vlad II, father of Tepes
Due to political intrigues in 1444, Vlad was forced to leave for Turkey for two years. Upon returning to Wallachia, many noticed changes in Dracula's character. He became more pessimistic. According to historians, the reason for the changes was the murder of Vlad’s father and older brother by the Hungarians in 1446, as well as psychological violence by the Turks.
In the autumn of 1448, with the support of the Turkish army, he ascended the throne of Wallachia, where, without wasting time, he began to investigate the death of his brother and father. He learned that seven boyars had betrayed his family.
On November 10, 1448, Janos Hunyadi (lat. Ioannes Corvinus) declared war on Vlad and sent his troops to Targovishta, where, according to him, Dracula and his army were supposed to be. Vlad chose to hide in Moldavia, where in March 1449 his second cousin Bogdan II ascended the throne. In 1449, Dracula left Moldavia and headed to Transylvania, where he recruited an army of volunteers to regain his throne.
Dracula's Castle in Transylvania
Only on August 20, 1456, Vlad was able to retake the Wallachian throne. The reign lasted six years, during which Dracula became widely known outside Wallachia.
The beginning of his executions began with the “Easter execution”. The boyars involved in the death of his father and brother were executed at a festive feast. Ten boyars were killed.
Theodor Aman, “Boyars caught at a feast by the envoys of Vlad the Impaler”
In 1461, the ruler of Turkey, dissatisfied with Dracula's refusal to pay tribute, declared war on him. During the military operations, Vlad proves himself to be a competent commander, but feeling the numerical superiority of the Turkish army, he leaves his losing army at the mercy of the winner and hides in the possessions of the Hungarian king Matthias. In Hungary, Vlad was suspected of conspiring with the Turks and was imprisoned for 12 years.
In 1475, Vlad III was released from captivity, and already in November 1476 he overthrew Layota Basaraba from the Wallachian throne. On November 26, the noble people of Wallachia elected Dracula as their ruler for the third time. He ruled for only a month. In December 1476, on the orders of Layot Basarab, Vlad Dracula was killed.
We should also talk about his cruelty. There is a legend that he ripped open the belly of his mistress, who announced her imaginary pregnancy, with the words “I warned you that I don’t like lies.”
Vlad Tepes and the corpses of his enemies
He dealt with his enemies with all his originality: he chopped off heads, boiled them alive, tore off their skin and ripped open their stomachs. And impalement was his favorite torture. All his subjects knew how much Vlad disliked traitors and thieves.
Without exaggeration, the most famous vampire of all time can be considered the legendary Count Vlad the Impaler (Tepes) Dracula.
Vlad Tepes was born in 1431 in Transylvania, in the tiny town of Sighisoara. His father was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which is why he received the nickname Dracula. The history of Count Dracula's family is quite tragic. His older brother was captured by the Turks and burned alive by them, and the younger Tepes went over to the side of the enemy and fought against his relatives.
Whether Vlad the Impaler was actually a vampire cannot be established, but according to the story of Dracula, he turned into one of the most terrible and bloody rulers.
Castle of Vlad the Impaler - Dracula
Count Dracula punished his enemies and all those who were guilty in one favorite way - he impaled them. The stories of the atrocities of Vlad the Impaler were so terrible that people began to associate the count’s name with the Romanian word “dracul”, which means “devil”.
Vlad Tepes took the Wallachian throne in 1443 after the death of his father and older brother. Count Dracula was distinguished by cunning and cunning. One of the legends tells how Dracula deceptively lured a Turkish detachment into an ambush. At the same time, a preliminary agreement was reached between him and the Turks on a meeting and peace negotiations. Despite the agreement, Vlad Tepes captured the Turks, ordered them to be stripped naked and impaled. He then gave the order to burn them alive.
Vlad Tepes destroyed not only his enemies. His own subjects also became his victims; no one was immune from possible reprisals. The count suspected absolutely everyone of treason. One day, his soldiers detained a group of merchants traveling with a trade caravan through the land of Wallachia. By order of Vlad the Impaler, they were all arrested and burned.
Portrait of Count Dracula
In 1462, driven by atrocities and constant fear for their lives, the boyars overthrew the tyrant. The Wallachian Count Dracula spent 20 years in captivity. However, the need for Vlad the Impaler to participate in the war against the Ottoman invaders forced the boyars to release him.
The exact causes and time of death of the bloody tyrant Dracula have not been established. Some sources talk about the betrayal of a group of his associates, who killed their master. According to other sources, Vlad the Impaler, after defeat in the Battle of Bucharest, disguised himself as a Turk and tried to escape. However, he failed, and by order of Sultan Mehmed II, he was executed in Istanbul by cutting off his head, after which the ruler ordered his head to be impaled and put on public display.
It is known for certain that Dracula was buried in the Snagov monastery, not far from the city of Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
The barbaric fantasy of Vlad the Impaler was not limited to impalement and burning people alive. Count Dracula tried to come up with more and more new ways of torture and killing. By order of Tepes, nails were torn out, ears and heads were torn off. If there were not enough stakes to carry out executions, Dracula ordered the condemned to be blinded and then strangled or boiled alive in hot oil. The tyrant himself experienced great pleasure from contemplating the torment of his victims.
Count Dracula as a vampire.
In the truest sense of the word, Dracula was not a vampire. In any case, no evidence of his consumption of human blood was found. He gained fame as a great bloodsucker thanks to the literary fantasy of the famous English writer Bram Stoker. It was he who forced Count Dracula to rise from the grave and turn into an immortal bloodsucker.
In 1994, not far from the small town of Chelyakovitsy, located in the Czech Republic, a strange burial dating back to the beginning of the 11th century was discovered. In 11 pits there were 13 bodies, whose hands were tied with leather belts, and aspen stakes were stuck into the heart area. Researchers have determined that the remains belong to men of approximately the same age. No scientific explanation for this fact could be found.
Let's decide once and for all. Who is he - the great and terrible Count Dracula...
The Romanian ruler Vlad III, better known as Dracula (1431-1476), came from the family of Basarab the Great, ruler of Wallachia (1310-1352), who in a difficult struggle defended the independence of his state from Hungary.
Vlad III's father, Vlad II, seized the throne in 1436, overthrowing his cousin with the support of the Hungarian king Sigismund of Luxembourg. But later, yielding to Turkish pressure, Vlad II was forced to renew his vassal obligations to the Wallachian rulers and send his two sons, Vlad and Radu, as hostages to the Sultan’s court.
Hungary, of course, also increased pressure, and Vlad II constantly had to maneuver, seeking compromises.
However, in 1447 he was killed by order of the regent of the Hungarian kingdom, the legendary Janos Hunyadi, and the Wallachian throne was occupied by a new Hungarian protege.
In 1448, seventeen-year-old Vlad made his first attempt to seize the throne. Taking advantage of the fact that Hunyadi's troops were defeated by the Turks, Vlad, with Turkish help, reigned under the name of Vlad III.
Vlad III gained “world fame” during his lifetime. Mainly - thanks to frantic courage and equally frantic bloodthirstiness, which even in the gloomy era of the Late Renaissance seemed pathological. He was unimaginably cruel to his enemies, allies, and subjects: he chopped off their heads, burned them, tore off their skin, forced them to commit cannibalism, boiled them alive, ripped open their bellies, impaled them, etc. etc. Dracula was particularly good at impalement.
One day, without any reason, he attacked his own innocent city and killed 10 thousand subjects under torture. Many of them were impaled - so he earned another nickname - “tepes”, or “impaler”.
During the wildest of the massacres he organized in 1460, on St. Bartholomew's Day in one of the cities of Transylvania, 30 thousand people were impaled.
Count Dracula was more than just a sadist
His cruel punishments had some political meaning. For example, when the envoys of the Turkish court dared not to remove their headdresses in his presence, he ordered the turbans to be nailed to their heads, which was undoubtedly a defiantly bold demonstration of independence. Depending on the social status of the condemned, the stakes varied in length, diameter, color, and were used to create intricate geometric shapes - something like a “garden of torture,” where Vlad III loved to feast at his leisure, and the stench of corpses and the groans of those in agony did not spoil his appetite. That is why Vlad III entered the history of Romania under the nickname “Tepes” (lit. “Impaler”).
Even in a Hungarian prison, Vlad III, according to the ancient Russian “Tale of Dracula the Voivode,” remained true to his passions: he caught or bought mice and birds, which he tortured, impaled and beheaded. The fury of Vlad III (in German sources he is called "wutrich" - "furious", "monster", "fierce"), it seems, was fairly tired not only of his enemies, but also of his subjects, and in 1476 they killed Tepes at the age of 45. His severed head was preserved in honey and delivered as a trophy to the Sultan. According to the 15th century version, Vlad III was mistaken for a Turk in battle and, surrounded, pierced with spears, which, having noticed the mistake, was greatly regretted.
But if everything was so, then why did Vlad III, having managed to kill five attackers, not have time to explain to the others that he was their commander? And why did the “mourning” compatriots, trumpeting the head of the dead ruler, send it to the Sultan?
Some saw in him the national hero of Romania, a defender against Muslim expansion, a fighter against boyar abuses (C. Giurescu), others considered Vlad III an unprincipled tyrant, no different from other “Machiavellian” sovereigns of the Late Renaissance, and called him a “terrorist” ruler. , the forerunners of Stalin and Hitler (R. McNally and R. Florescu).
However, by all accounts, Dracula acquired the reputation of a vampire warlock only at the end of the 19th century - thanks to the imagination and talent of Bram Stoker (1847-1912), author of the famous novel "Dracula" (1897). Indeed, in written sources there is no mention of warlocks and vampirism of the Wallachian ruler. But if we take into account the specifics of these sources, it turns out that the fantasies of the English novelist were by no means groundless.
Therefore, information about Dracula should be interpreted not only in the historical-pragmatic aspect, but - and above all - in the mythological one. This concerns the name itself, or rather the nickname of Vlad III Dracula. Fyodor Kuritsyn, the alleged author of “The Tale of Dracula the Voivode,” characterizing Vlad III, directly says that “the name is Dracula in the Vlash language, and ours is the Devil. Here the Russian scribe of the 15th century makes a mistake, although not a fundamental one. In Romanian, “devil” is “dracul”, and “Dracula” is “son of the devil”.
The nickname “Dracul” was given to the father of Vlad III, but historians traditionally explain that the connection with evil spirits has nothing to do with it.
It is no coincidence that local peasants, who had never heard of Stoker’s novel, considered Dracula’s Castle an unclean place even in the 20th century.
Of course, there is reason to believe that the soldiers of Vlad III turned their spears against the ruler out of fear and revenge or for the sake of a Turkish reward, and cut off their head in order to send it to the Sultan and thereby curry favor or visually confirm the fulfillment of the “order” - the head of Tepes was exhibited in Istanbul on public view. But despite all this, Dracula’s warriors acted exactly as custom prescribed to deal with vampires: the bloodsucker’s body had to be pierced with a sharp weapon, and the head had to be separated from the body.
From this point of view, the story of Dracula's tomb is also characteristic. Vlad III was buried not far from the place of his death - in the Orthodox Snagov monastery, which his family patronized.
P.S. So Dracula is not a vampire, but a mere mortal!
Chassbourg, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary
Bucharest, Principality of Wallachia
2) Ilona Zhilegay
Vlad III Basarab, also known as Vlad Tepes(Rum. Vlad Țepeș - Vlad Kolovnik, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Piercer) and Vlad Dracula(Rum. Vlad Drăculea (November or December - December) - ruler of Wallachia in, - and. The nickname "Tepesh" ("Impaler", from Roman. ţeapă [tsyape] - "stake") received for cruelty in dealing with enemies and subjects , whom he impaled. A veteran of the wars against Turkey. The residence of Vlad III was located in Targovishte. Vlad received the nickname Dracula (Son of the Dragon or Dragon the Younger) in honor of his father, who was (since 1431) in the elite knightly Order of the Dragon, created by Emperor Sigismund in 1408. year . Members of the order had the right to wear a medallion with the image of a dragon on their necks. Vlad III’s father not only wore the sign of the order, but also minted it on his coins and depicted it on the walls of the churches being built, for which he received the nickname Dracul - the Dragon (or the Devil).
Biography
As a result of the “Night Attack” on June 17, 1462, he forced the 100-120 thousand Ottoman army led by Sultan Mehmed II to retreat into the principality.
In the same year, as a result of the betrayal of the Hungarian monarch Matthias Corvinus, he was forced to flee to Hungary, where he was imprisoned on false charges of collaboration with the Turks and served in prison for 12 years.
Anonymous German document from 1463
The basis for all future legends about the unprecedented bloodthirstiness of the ruler was a document compiled by an unknown author (presumably on the orders of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary) and published in 1463 in Germany. It is there that descriptions of the executions and torture of Dracula, as well as all the stories of his atrocities, are first found.
From a historical point of view, there is extremely great reason to doubt the accuracy of the information presented in this document. Apart from the obvious interest of the Hungarian throne in replicating this document (the desire to hide the fact that King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary stole a large sum allocated by the papal throne for the crusade), not a single earlier mention of these “pseudo-folklore” stories has been found.
I came to him once from the Turkic poklisariy<послы>, and when she went down to him and bowed according to her custom, and<шапок, фесок>I didn’t take off my chapters. He asked them: “Why did you inflict such a shame on the great sovereign and commit such disgrace?” They answered: “This is our custom, sir, and this is our land.” He said to them: “And I want to confirm your law, so that you stand strong,” and he commanded them to nail the caps to their heads with a small iron nail and let them go, telling them: “As you go, tell your sovereign, he has learned to endure that shame from you, we but not with skill, but do not send his custom to other sovereigns who do not want to have it, but let him keep it for himself.”
This text was written by the Russian ambassador to Hungary Fyodor Kuritsyn in 1484. It is known that in his “The Tale of Dracula the Voivode” Kuritsyn uses information from precisely that anonymous source, written 21 years earlier.
Below are some of the stories written by an unknown German author:
- There is a known case when Tepes called together about 500 boyars and asked them how many rulers each of them remembered. It turned out that even the youngest of them remembers at least 7 reigns. Tepes's response was an attempt to put an end to this order - all the boyars were impaled and dug in around Tepes' chambers in his capital Targovishte.
- The following story is also given: a foreign merchant who came to Wallachia was robbed. He files a complaint with Tepes. While the thief is being caught and impaled, the merchant is given, on Tepes’ orders, a wallet containing one more coin than it had. The merchant, having discovered the surplus, immediately informs Tepes. He laughs and says: “Well done, I wouldn’t say it - I wish you were sitting on a stake next to the thief.”
- Tepes discovers that there are many beggars in the country. He convenes them, feeds them to the full and asks the question: “Wouldn’t they like to get rid of earthly suffering forever?” In response to a positive response, Tepes closes the doors and windows and burns everyone gathered alive.
- There is a story about a mistress who tries to deceive Tepes by talking about her pregnancy. Tepes warns her that he does not tolerate lies, but she continues to insist on her own, then Tepes rips open her stomach and shouts: “I told you that I don’t like lies!”
- An incident is also described when Dracula asked two wandering monks what people were saying about his reign. One of the monks replied that the population of Wallachia reviled him as a cruel villain, and another said that everyone praised him as a liberator from the threat of the Turks and a wise politician. In fact, both testimonies were fair in their own way. And the legend, in turn, has two endings. In the German "version", Dracula executed the former because he did not like his speech. In the Russian version of the legend, the ruler left the first monk alive and executed the second for lying.
- One of the creepiest and least believable pieces of evidence in this document is that Dracula liked to have breakfast at the site of his execution or the site of a recent battle. He ordered a table and food to be brought to him, sat down and ate among the dead and people dying on stakes. There is also an addition to this story, which says that the servant who served Vlad food could not stand the smell of decay and, clutching his throat with his hands, dropped the tray right in front of him. Vlad asked why he did this. “I can’t stand it, the terrible stench,” answered the unfortunate man. And Vlad immediately ordered to put him on a stake, which was several meters longer than the others, after which he shouted to the still living servant: “You see! Now you are taller than everyone else, and the stench does not reach you.”
- Dracula asked the ambassadors of the Ottoman Empire who came to him demanding recognition of vassalage: “Why didn’t they take off their hats to him, the ruler.” Hearing the answer that they would bare their heads only in front of the Sultan, Vlad ordered the caps to be nailed to their heads.
Literary and screen image of Dracula
The reign of Dracula had a great influence on his contemporaries, who shaped his image in the folklore tradition of the Romanians and their neighboring peoples. An important source in this case is the poem by M. Behaim, who in the 1460s lived at the court of the Hungarian king Matthew Corvinus; German pamphlets distributed under the title “About One Great Monster” are known. Various Romanian legends tell about Tepes, both directly recorded by the people and processed by the famous storyteller P. Ispirescu.
Vlad III became a literary hero soon after his death: it was written about him in Church Slavonic (which was used as a literary language in Romania at that time), after the Russian embassy of Ivan III visited Wallachia, very popular in Rus'.
The emergence of a connection between the image of Vlad Tepes and Count Dracula is usually explained by the fact that Bram Stoker heard the legend that Tepes became a vampire after his death. It is unknown whether he heard such a legend; but there were grounds for its existence, since the killer Tepes was cursed more than once by the dying, and, in addition, changed his faith (although this fact is questioned). According to the beliefs of the Carpathian peoples, this is quite enough for posthumous transformation into a vampire. However, there is another version: after the death of Vlad the Impaler, his body was not found in the grave...
On his instructions, the victims were impaled on a thick stake, the top of which was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the vagina (the victim died almost within a few minutes from excessive blood loss) or anus (death occurred from a rupture of the rectum and developing peritonitis, the person died within several days in terrible agony) to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was installed vertically. The victim, under the influence of the weight of his body, slowly slid down the stake, and death sometimes occurred only after a few days, since the rounded stake did not pierce the vital organs, but only went deeper into the body. In some cases, a horizontal crossbar was installed on the stake, which prevented the body from sliding too low and ensured that the stake did not reach the heart and other vital organs. In this case, death from loss of blood did not occur very soon. The usual version of execution was also very painful, and the victims writhed on the stake for several hours.
Tepes sought to compare the height of the stakes with the social rank of those executed - the boyars were impaled higher than the commoners, thus the social status of the executed could be judged by the forests of those impaled.
Copycats
The dubiousness of the scale of Dracula’s atrocities did not prevent later rulers from “adopting” similar methods of conducting domestic and foreign policy. For example, when John Tiptoft, Earl of Worchester, probably having heard a lot about effective "draculistic" methods during diplomatic service at the papal court, began to impale Lincolnshire rebels in 1470, he himself was executed for actions - as the sentence read - "contrary to the laws of this countries".
See also
| in Wikisource | |
The legend of the "king of the vampires", the prince, is still alive Dracula. In Romania, not far from the Tihut Pass, there are still dilapidated walls of the Poenari fortress. Local residents claim that today the spirit of Vlad III still roams the earth. Neither heaven nor hell accepted him. And therefore he is forced to wander around the world, tormented by a thirst for human blood.
During the day, Dracula hides in the ruins of the fortress. At night he goes out and looks for his victims in the light of the moon. Legend has it that anyone bitten by the prince immediately turns into a vampire, with protruding fangs and small wounds on the neck. But who really was this formidable prince?..
The surroundings of the former castle of the famous prince now seem like quiet corners of paradise. Vlada III, better known as Dracula. And then, in the 15th century, local residents avoided this place, just to avoid falling into the hands of a cruel ruler.
As soon as a man looked at Prince Vlad, fear gradually took over all his thoughts. Indeed, according to historians, he had a terrifying appearance: a narrow face, a long nose, a protruding lower lip, large glass eyes that hid the prince’s feelings.
It was with his bulging eyes that people associated Dracula’s ability to instill fear and horror in his captive through hypnotic influence. It seemed that Dracula's gaze penetrated into the very soul, and its owner could easily find out everything that a person was thinking about. However, many modern scientists believe that this eye shape may be nothing more than a consequence and one of the signs of Graves’ disease, which is often found in residents of mountain villages.
People say: “The face is the mirror of the soul.” Indeed, being the ugliest of the three brothers, Vlad was also distinguished by his cruel and independent disposition. The intent, almost unblinking gaze of cold fish eyes, a contemptuously compressed mouth, a narrow, protruding chin - everything suggests that Prince Dracula was a vain, proud man who hated and despised people.
No taller than average, Vlad III possessed enormous physical strength. So, he could swim across the river without much difficulty. In the Middle Ages there were many large rivers and small rivulets, but there was a clear lack of bridges. A warrior who could not swim well was doomed to death.
Dracula was also known in the 15th century as an excellent artilleryman. This talent of the prince deserves special attention all the more if we remember the fact that in those days - when small and large wars were fought in almost every country - boys were taught horse riding and shooting from various types of weapons from childhood. Each young man masterfully wielded weapons. Therefore, earning the fame of a magnificent warrior and horseman was not at all an easy task back then.
The life and death of Vlad Tepes (Tepes), Dracula, are shrouded in a dense veil of mystery. Local residents claim that the grave of the bloody prince is located in the Snagovsky monastery. But more recently, historians have stated that that grave is a cenotaph, that is, a grave without burial.
The time and place of birth of Vlad III is shrouded in mystery. According to some sources, he was born between 1428 and 1431. It was not possible to find more precise information. This is due to the fact that at that time the monastery walls could not protect manuscripts from fire. And since there were countless fires at that time, people and written monuments, including documents, often died from them.
The birthplace of Dracula is determined to be a relatively small house located on Kuznechnaya Street, located in one of the districts of Sighisoara. It still attracts many tourists traveling around Romania.
Historians are not entirely sure that Vlad III was born in that exact place. However, surviving documents indicate that in the 15th century the house belonged to the father of Vlad Tepes, Vlad II Dracul. Dracul translated into Russian means "dragon". This means that the old prince was part of the Romanian Order of the Dragon. Members of this organization were once involved in the forcible conversion of “infidels” to Christianity. By the end of the first quarter of the 15th century, Prince Vlad II already had three sons. But only one of them, Vlad, was able to become famous throughout the centuries.
Poenari Fortress
It must be said that in his youth, Prince Vlad III managed to win over the common people and earn their love and respect. Indeed, according to handwritten sources, at that time he was a real knight of the Middle Ages, a man of honor and duty. He was especially distinguished by his ability to lead the course of the battle. The warriors who fought under the command of the talented commander Vlad Tepes always won battles.
Historians of those years recall Dracula as a fairly democratic statesman. He always opposed the seizure of Romania by foreigners, as well as the division of his native lands. In addition, he directed the activities of the principality primarily towards the development of national crafts and trade. Vlad III paid special attention to the fight against criminals: thieves, murderers and swindlers. At the same time, the most sophisticated and cruel methods of punishing the guilty were chosen.
The people's love for Prince Dracula and his extraordinary popularity among the inhabitants of medieval Wallachia are completely justified. Contemporaries remember him as a people's defender, always at odds with the boyars, who always oppressed the common people. In addition, the military victories won by Vlad III more than redeemed his toughness. Patriotic Romanians were proud of their commander, who knew how to win victories even in a battle that was clearly doomed to lose.
However, the most important quality of Tepes’s character, which determined the goodwill of the people, was almost fanatical religiosity. At that time, the church had a strong influence on the life of society. The sovereign, having secured the support of the holy fathers, could confidently count on the obedience of the people under his control. “What about the incredible cruelty inherent in Dracula?” - you ask.
The answer is simple: then it was considered a common thing to punish severely, and then go to church to atone for sins and thank God for the blessings of life. Meanwhile, the people mourned those executed, not daring to grumble and resist their master - after all, his power was “sacred.” C'est la vie, the French say in such cases.
For its part, the church was also interested in friendship with the princes. In this case, the complacent ruler could endow the monasteries with land and villages. And in return, he received blessings from the clergyman for various deeds and actions (including cruel and bloody ones). Vlad III usually distributed similar gifts to clergy after another military victory or in a fit of religious feeling (so that God would forgive sins).
Chronicles testify; Wanting to reduce the crime rate in his small state, Prince Vlad Tepes did not spare the guilty and used the most severe methods of punishment. His reprisal was not long in coming. The criminal, as they say, was burned at the stake or executed on the scaffold without trial. The ruler of Wallachia did not spare the gypsies. A fire or a sword also awaited them: according to Tepes, they were all potential thieves, horse thieves, and also vagabonds.
Until now, the content of many gypsy stories boils down to covering those terrible events when Prince Dracula carried out mass executions of gypsies. To some extent, the great ruler of Wallachia achieved the desired result. Chroniclers said that since then crime in the prince’s domains has come to naught. The following example can be given to confirm the words of the medieval historian. If someone found a gold coin on the street, then under no circumstances picked it up. This would mean stealing someone else's property, for which one could pay with one's life.
And how many contradictory rumors are circulating around the construction of the Poenari fortress. It turns out that, having planned the construction, Vlad Tepes ordered all the wanderers who came to Tirgovista to celebrate Easter to be brought to him by force. After this, he stated that the pilgrims would be able to return to their homes only after they had completed the construction of the fortress. People who knew the harsh character of the Romanian prince did not argue and got to work with enthusiasm, because everyone wanted to return to their native places as soon as possible.
Soon a new castle was built. However, the fortress, built with the help of lies and coercion, did not bring good luck to its owner and could not protect him during the siege of the Turks. When the Turks captured Poenari in 1462, Prince Dracula was forced to flee from the foreigners. The princess who remained in the fortress did not want to become a prisoner of the victors, just like her husband, who became famous for his incredible cruelty. She threw herself down from the high fortress wall and crashed. In memory of her, only the white stones of the destroyed fortress and the second name of Arges remained - “princess river”.
The Romanian prince Vlad III earned his nickname Tepes (Tepes) due to his own cruelty. Translated into Russian, “tepesh” means “to impale.” A similar method of execution, borrowed by Europeans from the Turks, was used quite often by medieval sovereigns. In this case, the stake was either driven into the body of the offender with strong blows of the hammer, or the condemned person was literally put on a stake fixed in the ground. The executioners mastered this type of execution so well that it cost them nothing to drive a stake into the victim’s body so that she would writhe in death throes for at least a week.
It was the method of punishing criminals described above that became Dracula’s favorite. With his help, he successfully resolved issues not only of domestic but also foreign policy. The number of people who became victims of such reprisals by the prince alone is measured in several tens of thousands.
It seemed that Dracula's cruelty knew no bounds. Not only gypsies and captured Turks, but also any citizen of Wallachia who committed a crime could be executed. It is in the fear and reluctance to end up on the chopping block or at the stake that the secret of the honesty of the medieval Romanian, mysterious to a modern European, lies. After the news of a new sophisticated execution spread further and further throughout the principality, there were no people willing to try their luck. All citizens preferred to lead the life of sinless righteous people.
It must be admitted that, despite his cruelty, Dracula was a fair judge. Not only ordinary citizens, but also fairly wealthy ones were punished for the slightest offense. The same historical chronicles indicate that seven merchants were impaled on charges of concluding trade agreements with the Turks. Thus, the acquaintance of the Wallachian merchants with the enemies of the Christian faith, the “dirty Turks”, tragically ended in Shesbourg.
The chronicle or chronicle, to which German sources about Dracula go back, was clearly written by Tepes’ ill-wishers and portrays the ruler and his life in the most negative tones. It’s more difficult with Russian sources. They do not abandon the depiction of Vlad's cruelty, but they try to give it more noble explanations than the German ones, and emphasize the emphasis so that the same actions look more logical and less dark under the given circumstances.
Here are a few tales from various sources. It is not possible to verify their authenticity:
A foreign merchant who came to Wallachia was robbed. The merchant files a complaint to the ruler. While the thief is caught and impaled, with fate, in general, “in fairness” everything is clear; on the orders of Dracula, a wallet was thrown to the merchant, which contained one more coin than was stolen. The merchant, having discovered the excess, immediately informs Tepes about it. He just laughs at this: “Well done, I wouldn’t say it - you should sit on a stake next to the thief.”
Another example. Vlad Dracula happily feasts, as an ancient Russian author wrote, among the “corpse.” The servant who brings the dishes winces. To the ruler’s question “Why?” it turns out that the servant cannot stand the stench. “Resolution” of Tepes: “So put the servant higher up, so that the stench does not reach him.” And the poor fellow writhes on a stake of unprecedented height.
Dracula’s “diplomacy” is also remarkable. I suggest reading the translation from the Old Russian language: “Dracula had such a tradition: when an inexperienced messenger from the king or from the king arrived to him and could not give an answer to Dracula’s insidious questions, he impaled the messenger, saying: “It’s not my fault.” in your death, but either your sovereign, or you yourself. Do not lay the blame on me. If your sovereign, knowing that you are inexperienced and incompetent, sent you as an ambassador to me, a wise ruler, then your sovereign killed you. you; but if you personally decided to go, ignorant, then you killed yourself."
An excellent example is the reprisal of Turkish envoys who, according to the tradition of their country, bowed to Dracula without removing their hats. Dracula praised this custom, and in order to further strengthen them in this custom, he ordered the caps to be nailed to the heads of the messengers.
Chroniclers claim that Dracula’s cruel temper was brought up in the palace of the Turkish Sultan. Every year the prince of Wallachia had to transport a certain amount of silver and wood to Turkey. In order for the prince not to forget about his duty, the Sultan ordered the son of Vlad II to be escorted to his palace. So, twelve-year-old Vlad III ended up in Turkey. It was there that he became acquainted with various methods of punishing guilty and disobedient citizens of the state.
Rarely a day passed in Turkey without an execution. Two stories will help readers imagine the whole picture of sad life in medieval Istanbul.
Once there was a trial of two sons of one of the Romanian princes, who did not pay tribute on time. For some reason, at the last moment before the execution, the Sultan “relented” and ordered the boys not to be impaled, but to be blinded. At the same time, blindness was perceived then as the greatest mercy.
The second story tells about the theft of cucumbers - vegetables considered an exotic delicacy in Turkey. One day, the Sultan’s vizier was missing two cucumbers from his garden bed. Then it was decided to rip open the bellies of all the gardeners who worked at the palace. The fifth of them contained a cucumber. The Sultan ordered the culprit to be executed on the block. The rest “could go home to their homes.”
Having learned about Vlad III’s stay in captivity of the Turkish Sultan, where day after day he became an eyewitness to the abuse of people, it is not difficult to guess the reasons for his cruel character from hatred of the Turks. What kind of person could grow out of a twelve-year-old boy who lived in that hell, when every day he saw only one thing: human suffering, the death throes of thousands of executed people and the martyrdom of people.
Naturally, the freedom-loving Slavs did not like dependence on the Turkish Sultan. Father and son - the rulers of Wallachia - firmly believed that someday their principality would be freed from the yoke of Turkey.
Upon returning from captivity, Vlad III decided to free the Wallachians forever from the power of the Turks at any cost. And so, four years after inheriting the princely throne, Tepesh announced to the Turks that he did not intend to pay tribute in the future. Thus, a challenge was made to the Ottoman Empire. Then Sultan Murad sent a small detachment of a thousand horsemen to Wallachia.
However, luck turned against the Turkish warriors. They were captured and impaled within one day. And for the Turkish aga, who commanded the punitive detachment, Dracula even ordered a special stake to be prepared - with a gold tip.
After Murad learned that his envoys had suffered a shameful defeat, he decided to send an entire army to Wallachia. This was already the beginning of open war between the Ottoman Empire and Wallachia. The final battle between the Turks and the Wallachians took place in 1461. Thanks to the dedication of the Slavs, the Turks were defeated. After this, Prince Vlad 111 went to war against Transylvania, located next to Wallachia. The Transylvanian nobility (mostly the wealthiest merchants) had long been concerned about the violent temper of the owner of the nearby principality.
They decided to get rid of their unpredictable, cruel and capricious neighbor. However, Prince Dracula was ahead of them. Like a terrible hurricane he swept through with his army, sweeping away everything in his path. Romanians still remember the five hundred compatriots executed on Chesbourg Square at that terrible time.
Then the victorious prince returned home. However, it was then that danger befell him. Outraged by the excesses of the Wallachians, the trading elite of Transylvania published a pamphlet on behalf of the author, who wished to remain anonymous. Its content boiled down to a retelling of recent events, the capture of Transylvania by Vlad III, his atrocities and cruelty. The anonymous poet also added that the Wallachian prince was supposedly going to attack and conquer the Hungarian principality in the near future. King Dan III of Hungary was furious when he learned of the anger and insolence of the Prince of Wallachia, as well as his intention to seize the state.
After Dracula's fortress was taken by the Turks, its owner decided to flee to Hungary. Arriving there, he found himself a prisoner of King Dan III. For 12 long years, the Grand Duke of Wallachia languished in prison. It was then that he was able to conquer Dan with his obedience and humility. Tepes even converted to Catholicism in order to win over the monarch of the Slavic state.
At last the heart of the good King of Hungary softened, and he released the prisoner. Already free, the prince married the niece of the monarch, and later even gathered a large army from Hungarian mercenaries to go to war with Wallachia and win the throne.
In the fall of 1476, the army of Vlad Tepes approached Wallachia. But, as it later turned out, luck abandoned the commander, famous for his military victories, forever. In the first battle, the Hungarian army was defeated, and Vlad III himself was captured by the Wallachian boyars.
Considering his death at the hands of his former subjects shameful, Tepesh escaped from captivity and was killed by boyar soldiers. However, other sources claim that death suddenly overtook Vlad III when he was already sitting on a horse and intending to escape from Wallachia.
Be that as it may, the body of Prince Vlad III Tepes, Dracula, was subsequently cut by the boyars into many pieces, which were scattered across the field. However, the monks of the Snagovsky monastery, who more than once received generous gifts from the hands of the sovereign, sincerely loved and pitied the prince, who accepted martyrdom. They collected the remains of Dracula and buried them near the monastery.
After the death of the cruel but fair prince, contemporaries more than once argued about where his soul ended up: in heaven or in hell. It was from these ongoing disputes that the now well-known legend was born, which says that the Romanian spirit does not accept either hell or heaven. They say that the rebellious soul of Prince Dracula is still looking for peace and, not finding it anywhere, wanders the earth in search of more and more victims.