Vlad the Impaler biography. Vlad III Tepes: biography, interesting facts and legends. The policy of cleansing the country of antisocial elements

Interesting facts from the life of Vlad Dracula

Vlad III Tepes (Dracula) - ruler of Wallachia (born approximately 1431 - died 1476)

Vlad Dracula (Dracul) is a real historical figure of the 15th century. The biography of Lord Dracula is interesting, tragic and based on information contained in Serbian, Polish, Byzantine and even Russian chronicles. The great Moscow sovereign Ivan III ordered to write down the history of the ruler Dracula, nicknamed Tepes (namely the ruler, not the count!) for the edification of his descendants. Many historians believe that these notes were carefully studied in his youth by Ivan Vasilyevich IV, who later received the nickname Grozny.

The famous humanist and poet Cardinal Aeneas Piccolomini (1405–1464), while traveling around Europe, personally met with Vlad Dracula. In his work “Cosmography,” the cardinal describes his appearance as follows: “A man of average height, with a high forehead and a face that sharply tapers towards the chin.”

To this description we will add that Vlad III Tepes and all other representatives of the Draculeshty family, including those living today, never suffered from pallor or other vampire ailments. Vlad himself was not really tall, but he had enormous physical strength. He had a large aquiline nose, broad shoulders and a thick neck. There was a lush head of dark hair on his head. According to chroniclers, Vlad was an excellent horseman and was excellent at wielding bladed weapons. In his younger years, he became the winner of the prestigious jousting tournament in Nuremberg in Germany.

Vlad's ancestors came to Romania and Moldova from Hungary in the 13th century. They adopted the language and faith of their new homeland, becoming its rulers. In the center of Chisinau there was a monument to the ruler of Moldavia, Mircea the Old, the grandfather of Vlad II. Wallachia was founded in 1290.

Exactly 100 years later, the illegitimate son of the ruler Mirce was born, who was named Vlad. He was distinguished by his courage and bravery in the battles that raged in those parts every now and then. The people nicknamed him Dracula, and in this nickname there is not even a hint of mysticism: Vlad II Dracula was a member of the secret knightly order of the Dragon, or rather, the defeated dragon. There is nothing secret that would not become obvious: many people, including the Turks, learned about the order.

At the end of 1431, Vlad II had a son, who also received the name Vlad in honor of his father.

“The Wallachian dog has become old and does not obey its owner,” the Sultan told the viziers, throwing a green silk cord onto a golden dish.
It was a sentence. Vlad II became the ruler of Wallachia, taking the throne of his father, who died at the request and verdict of the Turkish Sultan.

“Let's see if the dragon knights will help the new Wallachian ruler in battles with the warriors of Islam,” the Grand Vizier laughed sarcastically. “So that he doesn’t plot against the padishah, let him give his son as a hostage!”

So, while still a boy, the future Vlad III Dracula, later nicknamed Tepes (“Tepes” translated into Russian means “stake”), became a hostage of the Sultan.

In those days, in order to keep vassals always ready to rebel in obedience, the Turks took their children hostage and executed them with cruel death at the first manifestations of disobedience of their parents. Often the boys were first castrated, and then sent to the harem and only after a while they were killed. The hostage's life was constantly hanging in the balance. I had the opportunity to leave my father's house and be raised at the court of the Sultan.

For 7 long years, outwardly maintaining humility, the young man languished in captivity and only after the death of his father and older brother received freedom.

- You take your place parent,” the Grand Vizier nodded favorably as he released Vlad. – Don’t make mistakes if you want to save life and power.

He did not know that not much time would pass and the young Wallachian ruler, who had well learned the lessons of Turkish cruelty, would begin to instill panic in the Muslims and receive from them the nickname Kazykly - the Piercer!

God, what freedom this is! A recent hostage, mourning the death of his father, was released under escort on the condition of maintaining submission to the Ottomans and paying tribute. Vlad went home along with the officials, spies and guards assigned to him. But, once in his hometown of Seguisoara - on the territory of modern Romania, Dracula immediately threw off his mask of humility: he expelled all the Turks and, on pain of death, forbade them to appear in his possessions. This turned out to be not empty bravado of a 19-year-old youth who was eager for revenge!

Dracula chose the city of Brasov as his stronghold and began to prepare for a long and bloody war. His other stronghold was in Tirgovishte, which stood on the high bank of the Yalomirtsy River. At the same time, Gospodar Vlad III was actively involved in the internal affairs of his state.

From the Turks, Vlad adopted the cruel method of execution - impalement. Historical chronicles note: Dracula’s executioners achieved such virtuoso art (if brutal murders can be called art) that the stake passed through the human body, minimally touching internal organs. The victim suffered for a long time before dying. To prolong the agony, a special crossbar was nailed to the stake so that the body would not completely sit down, like on a skewer, and the victim would not die quickly.

Soon Vlad gathered all the boyars together with their families for a feast in the palace - in total, according to chroniclers, there were up to 500 guests. They feasted in Tirgovishte. Allegedly, Vlad III celebrated his accession to the throne. During the feast, when the wine flowed like a river, the ruler, with an innocent look, slyly asked the order of the tipsy guests:

- Tell me, boyars, how many rulers have you decided?
- A lot, sir! – the guests began to vying with each other. – Not one or two.
“Great,” Dracula grinned. And he shouted angrily: “They were all killed, like my father and older brother.” Killed because you constantly plotted and sold yourself wholeheartedly to the Turks, becoming blind executors of their will. Traitors! Now a new nobility will appear in my state! Hey guards! Take them all!

The ruler ordered those who were older, regardless of gender, to be impaled. He gathered the rest in the courtyard of his palace-castle and gloomily told them:
- You will go on foot under escort to Poenri. There, build a fortress on the top of the hill above the river. Whoever survives should consider himself lucky. Build day and night. A count awaits the careless!

In fact, Vlad III sent his enemy boyars to hard labor.

The Lord sincerely believed that all citizens must work for the good of their homeland, and therefore did not favor those who could not do this - the poor, the beggars, the sick and thieves.

One day the ruler addressed a speech to the city beggars - the crippled and the beggars:
– Do you want to get rid of the oppressive feeling of hunger forever and not chatter your teeth from the cold?
Hearing how the beggars and cripples murmured approvingly in response, Vlad III suggested:
- Come to me, become my guests.
A brotherhood of poor beggars, petty thieves and cripples were treated to glory in a large barn. When the “guests” got pretty tipsy, Vlad quietly went out and gave a signal to the palace guards. The soldiers he had trained quickly boarded up the windows and doors, and then set fire to the barn from 4 corners. A high flame quickly rose and dry boards crackled in the fire. The roar of the fire drowned out the screams of those burned alive.

According to the version of other chroniclers, the ruler gathered enemy spies in one of the old castles and burned it along with the traitors. This version is more plausible - small Orthodox Wallachia had enough enemies. As if between millstones, it was squeezed by the Muslim Ottoman Empire on one side and the Catholic kingdom of Hungary on the other.

Foreigners who visited Wallachia wrote with surprise that “there is no crime in the country.” All the years of the reign of Vlad III, in the square of his capital there was a large golden cup from which anyone could drink spring water. They were terrified of stealing, knowing what fate awaited the thief - stake! Vlad Dracula, nicknamed Tepes, did not spare thieves. This may seem strange, but the ruler enjoyed the love and trust of the people. He saw him as a protector, and the new boyars, created by the ruler to replace the executed traitors, stood up for their ruler.

In particular, Vlad did not favor the Turks. Chroniclers mention a case when the ruler strictly ordered the Sultan’s envoys who arrived to him:

- Bare your heads! You are in the palace of the Orthodox ruler of Wallachia.
“You know better than others: our faith in Allah does not allow us to do this.”
– Do you believe so fervently that you are ready to suffer for your faith and the prophet?
“Yes,” the Turks answered firmly, not knowing what the padishah’s vassal was planning.
- Hey, guards! - the ruler clapped his hands - Take them! Let the executioner nail their turbans to their heads!

The ruler preferred mass executions to single executions. Moreover, he ordered the stakes to be placed in the form of different patterns, and most often - circles. He especially loved executions during feasts. The Lord sat at a table laden with dishes and goblets of wine, and admired how the condemned were writhing in pain on the stakes.

But Vlad did not forget about other types of execution: he skinned criminals alive and threw them into boiling water. Beheaded, blinded. Strangled, hanged, cut off noses, ears, genitals and limbs. After the executions, the bodies were put on public display.

Dracula treated female chastity with special “trepidation.” The victims of his cruelty were girls deflowered, unfaithful wives and unchaste widows. Often their genitals were removed and their breasts were cut off. One such unfortunate woman, by order of the ruler, first had her breasts cut off, then her skin was torn off and impaled on a stake in the main square, and her flayed skin was placed next to her on the executioner’s bench.

However, Dracula not only eradicated crime and “pinned down” the debauchees. He did his best to protect his subjects from the violence of the even more cruel Turk enslavers.

Russian chroniclers talk more kindly about Dracula than German and, of course, Turkish ones. Wallachia and Muscovy sent diplomatic missions to each other, mostly consisting of Orthodox priests. Ivan III He was flattered that the Wallachian prince personally wrote letters to him in Church Slavonic.

1462 - Vlad III Dracula unexpectedly attacked the Turks and drove them out of the Danube Valley.

– Is our former hostage showing disobedience? – Having learned about this, Sultan Mehmed II, nicknamed the Conqueror, grinned. “Let them bring me his head on a platter!”

The Turks could not tolerate neglect of their power, which had already conquered a large part of Europe! Soon, a twenty-thousand-strong Janissary army advanced to the possessions of Vlad III, against which Dracula could field half as many fighters. But they burned with hatred for the enslavers, and the ruler managed not only to study the enemy’s language, but also to learn all his strengths and weaknesses. The Turks knew practically nothing about him as a military leader, while he had extraordinary military talent. The Gospodar occupied several well-fortified mountain fortresses and took control of the main passes.

He sent a select detachment of daredevils to meet the Ottomans, ordering them to capture the Turkish vanguard at any cost. Soon the brave men returned and brought the captured Janissaries. The Lord rejoiced.

In the morning, axes began to sound, stakes were sharpened and driven into the walls of Tirgovishte. The bound Janissaries began to be impaled on stakes. Belyuk-bashi, officers of the Janissary corps received the last honors: their stakes were gilded with ocher.

- To Wallachia! - Mehmed II growled when he learned about the fate of the Janissaries. - Go on a hike! No one will be spared, and the Wallachian ruler will be put on a chain like a dog.

But the ruler managed to prepare well for the invasion of the Turks. Having placed detachments along the route of the Ottoman army, he attacked at the most inopportune moments for the enemy - at crossings or at night. The 40,000-strong Turkish army retreated, and Vlad suffered few losses.

On the third campaign, the Sultan sent 250,000 soldiers against Vlad III the Impaler: more than the population of Wallachia, including women and children. The ruler fielded an army of 40,000 against the enemy. Dracula avoided large-scale clashes, preferring guerrilla tactics. He personally carried out reconnaissance and mostly made do with the forces of his guard. Dressing in Turkish clothes, Vlad the Impaler and his comrades raided the enemy camp at night, lit fires, and chopped down the Turks. Panic began, the sleepy Turks killed their own, and Vlad’s guards disappeared into the darkness.

Once, after a particularly bloody raid on the camp, selected Turkish cavalry rushed after a detachment of night Wallachian “werewolves”, and the entire Ottoman army moved after the vanguard. When dawn broke, a terrible sight met the eyes of the Turkish warriors. 7,000 of their horsemen, led by the noble commander Yunus Bey, sat not on horses, but... on stakes. In the same battle formation in which Vlad was pursued.

Retreating to the capital, Dracula burned villages and poisoned wells.
Approaching Tirgovishte, the Sultan saw an eerie picture, known in history as “Forest of stakes.” A whole forest of stakes grew in front of the city, on which Vlad planted about 20,000 Turks.

The stench of the bodies of those executed, decomposing in the sun, spread far in the sultry air.

“It is impossible to take the country away from a husband capable of such acts,” said the shocked Sultan.

As always, betrayal played a vile role. The Turks retreated, but did not retreat. Their fourth campaign against Wallachia ended in the defeat of the ruler.

Everyone betrayed Dracula: both the mercenaries and the Transylvanians who swore allegiance. The Moldovans were in no hurry to provide help. Even Radu’s brother took part in the campaign against Wallachia as part of the Turkish army.

Many boyars, who had recently stood up for the ruler, joined the Turks. They drove Vlad into the Poenri fortress. The prince's wife chose death over the shame of captivity and threw herself from a high tower. The Turks captured the fortress, but Vlad was able to escape through an underground passage.

For his time, Vlad III Tepes was a brilliantly educated man: he spoke Turkish, Hungarian, Latin, German and Russian, read books, had a quick pen and loved philosophy. Finding no other way out, Dracula went to seek help from the King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus.

Seeing the troubled Wallachian ruler, defeated in the bloody struggle with the Turks, Matthias was delighted - now Vlad is in his hands! He arrested him and ordered him to be imprisoned.

The years of Dracula's imprisonment were described in more detail by the Russian diplomat Fyodor Kuritsyn, clerk of Grand Duke Ivan III. Vlad spent the first period of captivity in prison, where he showed another of his many talents: he made boots, which the guard sold at the market. This significantly supplemented the meager diet of the noble captive.

Clerk Kuritsyn testifies: Vlad long years stayed in prison and steadfastly adhered to the Orthodox faith, although Matthias constantly persuaded him to accept Catholicism, promising freedom, the return of the throne and the hand of his cousin. The Russian chronicler connects Dracula's release with the fact that he nevertheless accepted “Latin charm” (Catholicism). However, recent research proves: Vlad did not betray Orthodoxy! Matthias's mercy is explained simply: the king of Hungary, receiving money from the Pope for the war against the infidels, abused “misuse.” He freed an ardent fighter against Islam so that he could rake in the heat with his hands.

According to Western chroniclers, even in prison, Dracula sharpened twigs with a knife and impaled rats, mice and birds on them. Allegedly having gained freedom 4 years later (according to other sources, only 14 years later), he married the king’s sister and lived in an ordinary house.

1476 - having received the help of the Transylvanians and Moldovans, Vlad invaded Wallachia and was again able to seize power. When the allies returned home, the Turks found the moment opportune and attacked Wallachia. The Lord resisted steadfastly, but died in the battle of Bucharest around 1480, at the age of 46. Allegedly, he became a victim of his own masquerade - habitually dressed as a Turk, the ruler went on reconnaissance, and when he returned, his soldiers mistook him for an enemy spy and killed him by piercing him with spears.

The boyars cut off the head of Vlad III to save their own heads (at least that's the legend), and sent it as a gift to the Turkish Sultan. This later gave birth to a belief: vampires die from a wasp stake and the separation of the head from the body. But Romanian peasants still believe today that Dracula is alive! Archaeologists who carried out excavations at the altar of the church in the Snatovsky monastery, where Vlad III Tepes was allegedly buried, did not find his body in the crypt. But in a secret crypt they found a skeleton with a crown on its skull and a necklace with the image of a dragon. Dracula? But which one?

The castle on the banks of the Arges River, where Dracula lived, is believed to be cursed. Wolves howl at night around it, and a host of bats live in the ruins.

But there is another version of the fate of Vlad III Dracula, which was outlined by some chronicles of Western Europe.

According to this version, the fatal role in the life of the ruler was played by the same Aeneas Piccolomini, who from the moment of their first meeting managed to become Pope Pius II. He wanted to go down in history as the head of the church, under whom Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher would be recaptured. Knowing Vlad personally, dad believed that only he was suitable for the role of leader of the troops in the new crusade against the infidels. The pope invited him to Rome, but the ruler was extremely reluctant to leave his possessions and sent his cousin to the pope in his place.

War is always a big expense! The Pope gave the Gospodar's cousin a huge sum, with a request to transfer it to Vlad, so that he would arm the assembled troops and move them against the Turks. The cousin swore to do everything exactly. Who knows how the fate of world history would have turned out if the dreams of Pius II had come true? Vlad was a very talented commander and fiercely hated the Turks! But Fate does things in its own way and chooses historical paths itself.

The cousin used the money he received from his dad to create a conspiracy against Vlad. Having managed to deceive the suspicious and distrustful ruler, he overthrew him from the throne, committing palace coup. But he did not dare to execute Tepes, so he imprisoned him in a fortress, placing a strong guard.

Like any scoundrel who usurped the throne, the new ruler was constantly looking for excuses for himself. He again began paying tribute to the Turks, and in 1464 he ordered the publication of a book about what a terrible villain Vlad Dracula was. Some real facts were interspersed on the pages of the book with outright lies; the artists hired by the new ruler made naturalistic illustrations that made an indelible impression on their contemporaries.

Until that time, practically no secular books were published—printing publications were usually of a religious nature. The new ruler, in fear of his overthrown brother and in the desire to justify himself in the eyes of his contemporaries and descendants, disdained all the rules of honor and moral prohibitions. Not to mention faith and conscience. In 1463, while Vlad the Impaler was still alive, he published the book “The History of Voivode Dracula.” It said that the ruler bathes in the blood of victims to preserve his youth and strength.

Lampoon went for a walk around Europe, spreading the dark glory of Vlad throughout various countries. The author reproduced portraits of Vlad, and later historians discovered them in museums in Vienna, Budapest, Nuremberg, and Berlin. It’s not for nothing that they say – a drop breaks a stone! The new ruler finally achieved his goal: the image of Tepes as a formidable warrior of the Turks faded over time in people’s memory.

In addition, the famous Dracula turned out to be not immortal - he died and was buried in a monastery surrounded by lakes, not far from modern Bucharest. Buried and forgotten for many centuries. It was only thanks to the efforts of the usurper that the image of the cruel ruler Dracula remained in folklore.

Yes, Vlad III the Impaler took many secrets to his grave! Now many museums are filled with attributes of “vampirism”, and Satanists consider Dracula to be their spiritual father. This is complete historical and religious illiteracy, lack of knowledge. In fact, the ruler of Wallachia believed passionately, was an Orthodox man, and built churches and monasteries.

It is characteristic that Turkish and German chroniclers aggravated the dark aspects of Dracule’s character and rule, while Romanian ones, on the contrary, whitewashed him. The Russians understand that the ruler of a small country is at the turn Christendom boldly resisted military Muslim expansion. And alone, without counting on anyone's help. Thanks to Vlad Tepes, the people of Romania, its language and culture, and the Orthodox faith were preserved. Perhaps it was no coincidence that he became a favorite hero?

How Vlad III the Impaler was made into a vampire

How did it happen that the name Dracula became a household name for characters in novels and horror films?

It all started at the end of the 19th century, almost 400 years after the death of Vlad III. The first ones were already burning electric lamps, the telegraph was working, steamships and battleships were sailing across the seas. Türkiye has long lost its former power and has turned into an ordinary, rather backward country.

And Europe was suddenly swept by a fashion for mediums and all sorts of otherworldly horrors - theaters were simply chasing plays where the action took place in ancient castles with ghosts and other nerve-tickling effects. Gentlemen publishers did not lag behind, demanding from the authors bloody dramas with a bloody slant.

Demand dictates supply: the “gold mine” was actively developed by journalist and playwright Brem Stoker. He had a quick pen, a wild, dark imagination, and he easily guessed what the public and theater owners needed. “Bloody” dramas and novels came out from his pen in batches. Stoker got rich from evil spirits, ghosts and similar evil spirits.

Once in Vienna he heard about the story of the ruler Vlad Dracula. Stoker immediately discarded wars and victories, cunning and long captivity, but turned the ruler Dracula into a count, endowing him with the traits of a bloody maniac, psychopath and vampire! It has become finest hour Bram Stoker - with his light hand, the image of a terrible bloodsucker began to walk around the world, luring innocent creatures into the castle and killing guests.

Other authors did not lag behind - did the vampire belong to Stoker alone?! Everyone wanted to make a fortune from vampires and ghosts. The books sold in large quantities, and the audience died at the performances. Later, the “vampiriad” began to be filmed - first in silent films, later in sound and color, and now on television screens and replicated on video cassettes and disks. The old terrible fairy tale-lie turned out to be surprisingly tenacious!

But do they remember the real Lord Vlad, not invented by idle scribblers? Remember! In Romania, it turns out, there is even a special society “Dracula”, uniting admirers of their idol.

In the town of Bran (also known as ancient Brosov, or Brasov), lost in the picturesque Carpathian mountains, on a high rocky hill rises the castle of the legendary Vlad the Impaler, made of strong wild stone. Over the past 600 years, the banner of enemy foreign conquerors has never flown over it! Now the castle is a museum where tourists like to come to see where and how the despot who became almost fabulous lived, the sworn enemy of the Turkish enslavers, who at the same time terrified his subjects. By the way, it was this real castle of the ruler Vlad Dracula that Hollywood filmmakers filmed when creating the world famous film.

The castle has a bad reputation among the local population. They say that at night the floorboards creak in the halls and long passages and the shadow of a cruel and unhappy ruler suddenly appears. And woe to anyone who gets in the way of the ghost. Therefore, there were few daredevils who would dare to spend the night in the halls of the famous castle-museum.

Believe it or not, one of them was the infamous Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. According to completely credible evidence, he saw the ghost of Dracula and even spoke to him.

1431, in Sighisoara. His father is Vlad II Dracul. Vlad received the nickname Dracula (son of the dragon) due to his father's membership (since 1431) in the elite knightly Order of the Dragon, created by Emperor Sigismund in 1408. Members of the order had the right to wear a medallion with the image of a dragon around their necks. The father of Vlad III wore the sign of the order, and also minted it on his coins and depicted it on the walls of the churches being built.

At the age of 12, together with younger brother Vlad was taken hostage and held in Turkey for 4 years. It was probably this fact that influenced the psyche of Vlad III and spoiled it. He was later described as an extremely unbalanced person with many strange ideas and habits. At the age of 17, he learned about the murder of his father and older brother by the boyars. The Turks freed him and placed him on the throne, which he left a few months later under the pressure of Janos Hunyadi. Dracula was forced to seek asylum from his allies in Moldova, but after four years, during the Moldavian Troubles, the ruler of Moldova, who was Vlad’s uncle, died.

Vlad Tepes fled again, this time with his cousin Stefan cel Mare - to Hungary, and spent four years in Transylvania - near the Wallachian borders. In 1456 he ascended the throne with the help of the Hungarians and Wallachian boyars. By the beginning of his reign, Tepes ruled about 500 thousand people. There is evidence that during the six years of his reign (1456-1462), Vlad Dracula destroyed up to one hundred thousand people. However, when detailed analysis sources, historians agree that these data are significantly exaggerated.

Tepes fought against the boyars for centralization state power. Armed free peasants and townspeople to fight internal and external dangers (the threat of conquest of lands by the Ottoman Empire). In 1461 he refused to pay tribute to the Turkish Sultan. As a result of his famous “Night Attack” on June 17, 1462, he forced the 30,000-strong Turkish army led by Sultan Mehmed II to retreat into the principality.

As a result of the betrayal of the Hungarian monarch Matthias Corvinus, he was forced to flee to Hungary in 1462, where he was imprisoned on false charges of collaboration with the Turks and served in prison without trial for 12 years. Having again become a ruler in 1476, he was killed by the boyars.

According to another version, from the 15th century, Vlad III was mistaken for a Turk in battle and, surrounded, pierced with spears, which, having noticed the mistake, was greatly regretted.

The basis of all future legends about the unprecedented bloodthirstiness of the ruler was a document compiled by an unknown author (presumably on the orders of the Hungarian king) and published in 1463 in Germany. It is there that for the first time any descriptions of the executions and torture of Dracula are found, as well as all the stories of his atrocities.

WITH historical point point of view, the reason to doubt the accuracy of the information presented in this document is extremely great. Apart from the obvious interest of the Hungarian throne in replicating this document (the desire to hide the fact that the king of Hungary had stolen a large sum allocated by the papal throne for the crusade), no earlier references to any of these “pseudo-folklore” stories have been found.

However, the dubiousness of the scale of Dracula’s atrocities did not prevent later rulers from “adopting” similar methods of conducting internal 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".

Tyranny of Dracula

According to a German document published in 1463, Vlad Dracula, as a ruler, was distinguished by extraordinary cruelty. However, as a result detailed analysis, many historians doubted the authenticity of this evidence, since their main purpose was to justify the lawless arrest of the ruler Dracula by the King of Hungary.

“I once came to him from the Turkish poklisarion 1, and always went down to him and bowed to him according to my custom, but did not remove my cap 2 from my heads. He asked them: “Why did you commit such a shame against 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 precisely from that anonymous source, written twenty-one years earlier.

There are several hypotheses regarding the reasons for attributing vampire properties to Vlad III. The first of them is the emergence of similar legends from other legends about his “bloodthirstiness.” With the second, the situation is a little more complicated.

Romanians have a belief: an Orthodox Christian who renounces his faith (most often converting to Catholicism) will certainly become a vampire, and the conversion to Catholicism of Vlad III the Impaler, who once robbed Catholic monasteries, became a very impressive event for his fellow believers. It is likely that the emergence of this belief is due to the mechanism of a kind of “compensation”: when converting to Catholicism, the Orthodox, although retaining the right to receive communion with the Body of Christ, refused to receive Communion by Blood, since for Catholics double communion is the privilege of the clergy. Accordingly, the apostate had to strive to compensate for the “damage,” and since betrayal of faith does not occur without diabolical intervention, then the method of “compensation” is chosen according to the diabolical prompting.

However, there is an opinion that Dracula did not change his faith, as this would lead to the loss of rights to the throne.

Famous cases about Vlad III Tepes

Below are some of the stories written by an unknown German author at the instigation of Hunyadi King Matthias in 1463:

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 coin more than it was. The merchant, having discovered the surplus, immediately informs Tepes. He laughs and says: “Well done, I wouldn’t say it—you should sit on a stake next to the thief.”

Tepes discovers that there are many beggars in the country - he convenes the beggars, feeds them to their fill 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 that 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.

According to the evidence of the ancient Russian story, unfaithful wives and widows who violated the rules of chastity, Tepes ordered to cut out the genitals and tear off the skin, exposing them to the point of decomposition of the body and eating it by birds, or to do the same, but first piercing them with a poker from the crotch to the mouth.

There is also a legend that there was a bowl at the fountain in the capital of Wallachia, made of gold; everyone could come up to it and drink water, but no one dared to steal it.

Features of Dracula's executions

Many stakes, with people suspended on them, were given various geometric shapes, born of the imagination of Tepes. There were various nuances of executions: one stake was driven through the anus, while Tepes specially ensured that the end of the stake was in no case too sharp - profuse hemorrhage could end the torment of the executed person too early. The ruler preferred that the torment of the executed person last at least a few days. Others had stakes driven through their mouths and into their throats, leaving them hanging upside down. Still others hung, pierced through the navel, while others were pierced through the heart. Executions were also used in the form of boiling alive in a cauldron, skinning and exposing to birds, strangulation, etc.

Vlad III 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, by the forests of those impaled one could judge the social status of the executed. There is a known case when one day the tyrant ordered his guards to nail the hats of foreign ambassadors to their heads, who refused to take them off when entering the count’s chambers. Mehmed II sent envoys; after learning about this, he went to war against Vlad.

Literary and screen image of Dracula

Dracula's reign had big 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, there is a poem by M. Behaim, who in the 1460s lived at the court of the Hungarian king Matthew Corvinus; German pamphlets are known, distributed under the title “About one great monster.” Various Romanian legends tell about Tepes, both directly recorded among the people and processed by the famous storyteller P. Ispirescu.

Vlad the Impaler became a literary hero soon after his death: “The Tale of the Muntyan Governor Dracula” was written about him in Church Slavonic (which was used as a literary language at that time in Romania), after the Russian embassy of Ivan III visited Wallachia, very popular in Rus' .

Tepes' death occurred in December 1476. He was buried in the Snagovsky monastery.

Count Dracula in the horror film Nosferatu. In the first quarter of the 20th century, following the appearance of Bram Stoker's novels Children of the Night and The Vampire (Count Dracula), as well as the classic German expressionist film Nosferatu: A Symphony horror" the main character of these works - "Count Dracula" - became the most memorable literary and cinematic image of a vampire. Now the image of Dracula is also often used in computer and video games. One of the most bright examples such games as Castlevania.

The emergence of a connection between the image of Vlad III Tepes and Count Dracula is usually explained by the fact that Bram Stoker heard the legend that Tepes became a vampire after 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.

In the middle of the 20th century, a whole pilgrimage of tourists began to visit the grave of the famous “vampire”. To reduce the flow of unhealthy attention to the tyrant, the authorities moved his grave. Now she is on the island and is guarded by the monks of the monastery. (Encyclopedia Wikipedia)

More about Vlad Tepes-Dracula.

The worst reputation in the world.

The very name of the hero of these essays sounds more than ominous. Dracula is the name of the leader of vampires from horror films, and this name is borrowed from Tepes, who is the prototype of the screen monster. “Dracula” also means “devil” in Romanian, and “Tepes” means “impaler”, “a lover of impalement”, which is the occupation of which Vlad became famous among the people for all time.

For more than five centuries, the ominous shadow of his terrifying reputation has been trailing behind Vlad the Impaler. It seems that we are actually talking about a fiend from hell. In fact, he was a fairly common figure for that era, to some extent outstanding, of course, in his personal qualities, among which demonstrative cruelty was by no means the least important.

However, after Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot, the scale of atrocities that are commonly associated with Tepes may seem small. And even in those days he had worthy competitors - for example, Tamerlane, who lived half a century before him.

Nevertheless, it was Vlad III Tepes who turned into mass consciousness into a monster that has no equal. If you count the circulation of films about Dracula and the number of their views, they will break the record, leaving behind both the villains mentioned above and Ivan the Terrible, who learned a lot from Tepes and surpassed his teacher.

There is still debate about the identity of the Wallachian ruler, and most of even quite serious books about him have titles like “Vlad the Impaler - Myth and Reality” or “Vlad Dracula - Truth and Fiction,” and so on to the best of the authors’ imagination. However, trying to understand events that are more than half a millennium distant from us, authors, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes intentionally, pile up new myths around the image of this person.

What was he really like? Let's try to figure it out, without any guarantee that we will be able to establish the truth. Because practically no historical source telling about him can be completely trusted.

1. Feudal customs.

Vlad Tepes-Dracula was most likely born in 1430 or 1431 (some even say 1428 or 1429), when his father, Vlad Dracul (without the "a" at the end), was a contender for the Wallachian throne, supported by the Holy Roman Emperor empire of the German nation by Sigismund of Luxembourg, was in Sighisoara, a Transylvanian city near the border with Wallachia (Muntenia).

In popular literature, the birth of Vlad is often associated with the moment of his father’s entry into the Order of the Dragon, where he was accepted on February 8, 1431 by Emperor Sigismund, who then also occupied the Hungarian throne. However, in fact, this is either just a coincidence, or even an attempt to invent such a coincidence. Our hero’s biography is full of such fictitious and sometimes real coincidences. They should be trusted with great caution.

It was thanks to his entry into the Order of the Dragon that Tepes's father received the family name "Dracul", which was later inherited by his son with the addition of the ending "a" or "ya", indicating belonging to the clan.

It is not at all obvious and even certainly unknown whether such a name was associated with the idea of ​​​​evil spirits. This issue will be discussed below. It is only known that it was used by foreign rulers in the official title of Tepes when he was the ruler of Muntenia. Tepes usually signed himself “Vlad, son of Vlad” with a list of all titles and possessions, but two letters are also known signed “Vlad Dracula”. It is clear that he bore this name with pride and did not consider it offensive.

The nickname "Tepes", which has such an eerie meaning, was not known in Romanian during his lifetime. Most likely, even before his death this nickname was used by the Turks. Of course, in Turkish sound: “Kazıkli”. However, it seems that our hero did not object at all to such a name.

After the death of the ruler, it was translated from Turkish and began to be used by everyone, under which he went down in history.

Although quite little is known about Tepes’s youth, it is still more known than about the youth of Stephen the Great. All historians begin the story about Stefan from the moment he ascended the throne. Only later is the death of Stefan's father in 1451 and other events dating back to earlier times briefly mentioned.

Even the year of Stefan's birth (roughly between 1435 and 1440) is given with even greater uncertainty than that of Tepes. From the youth of the Moldavian ruler, mainly episodes are known when he was next to his older comrade and cousin. Tepes was approximately seven to eight years older than Stefan. It is by how Tepes was trained and raised that the education received by Stefan is now judged.

It is known that Vlad spoke Latin, as well as German and Hungarian, from childhood, underwent good military training in the European style, and then, while a hostage to the Turkish Sultan, thoroughly studied the customs, language and military techniques of his future opponents. Tepes skillfully and inventively applied all of the above knowledge in practice. The style of his Latin official correspondence is excellent. Vlad owes many military victories over the Turks precisely to his knowledge of the intricacies of enemy behavior.

The vicissitudes of the dramatic, and, even if I may say so, fantastic fate of Vlad the Impaler become clearer if you understand the relationship between the two families, namely the Drakulesti - the clan of descendants of the father of the Impaler, Vlad Dracul (later his father’s brothers were also included in this family, who, generally speaking, , never had that name themselves), and Korvinov, whose two most important representatives, Janos and Matthias Hunyadi, played a decisive role in the events of Vlad’s life.

It cannot be said that there was enmity between these families, like between the Montagues and the Capulets. There were often moments when they could honestly be called mortal enemies. And yet the Shakespearean analogy does not apply here at all. Even the beginning “two equally respected families...” is not suitable - the Dracula family only rose to the level of princes, while Matthias Hunyadi became the king of Hungary. This became possible thanks to the undoubted merits of Janos as the organizer and leader of the anti-Turkish struggle in the Balkans.

The Draculesti dynasty (Draculesti) had competition “on equal terms” with their related Danesti family - descendants of one of the rulers of Muntenia Dan. These two families, in the struggle for the Wallachian throne, did not hesitate to destroy each other at any convenient opportunity.

Janos Hunyadi, having concentrated enormous power in his hands, even greater than his official position (at one time he was the ruler of the Kingdom of Hungary), controlled the destinies of Transylvania and Muntenia at his own discretion. He decided who would be the ruler of Muntenia, since his support guaranteed success for the applicant and death for his rival.

For a long time, Janos sided with the Daneshti clan, for which there are explanations. It all started after the unsuccessful Varna Crusade, when on November 10, 1444, a large coalition of European allies led by the Hungarian king Ladislaus was defeated. Vladislav fell in battle, and the second-ranking Christian leader, Hunyadi, managed to flee the battlefield under circumstances that many considered proof of his cowardice.

Modern historians, having analyzed both the reasons for the defeat at Varna and the events that unfolded on the battlefield, seem to have restored Janos's reputation. The defeat, it seems, should be blamed on Vladislav himself, who, being less experienced in military affairs than Hunyadi, did not want to listen to his opinion and made several fatal mistakes. There were two main ones: a halt on the eve of the battle instead of immediately starting the battle and a premature attempt to attack the main forces of the Turks with insufficient forces in the midst of the battle itself. That is, at first Vladislav hesitated too much, then he rushed, acting in both cases primarily out of stubbornness, wanting to show that he was not a worse military leader than Hunyadi.

Things were also bad with interaction with another military group - the galley fleet moving along the Danube under the leadership of Walerand de Wavrin. In general, the crusaders in this campaign showed very little organization, and although, thanks to the art of Janos Hunyadi, the battle was at some point almost won, it ended in defeat.

Janos was forced to agree with his crowned commander, and when he rushed into an adventure that cost him his life and the defeat of the allied army, he rushed to the rescue and at the same time found himself in a very risky position.

However, immediately after the lost battle, it was necessary to urgently look for someone to blame, and Janos, it seemed, could not be saved by either excuses or previous merits. None other than Tepes's father, Vlad Dracul, arrested Janos and imprisoned him, and another glorious fighter against the Ottomans, Gheorghe Brankovich, even offered to hand him over to the Turks. The Sultan, showing chivalry, refused the offer.

Nevertheless, after a very short time, Janos Hunyadi not only found himself free, but also became regent under the new young Hungarian king. This can only be explained by the fact that, in addition to past, very glorious, merits and actual innocence, Janos also had very influential patrons. Considering that representatives of the most powerful dynasties of Europe also laid claim to the regency, one can guess that none other than the Pope himself acted as intercessor for Janos.

In 1447, on the direct orders of Janos, the father of V. Tepes was killed, and a short time later, Vlad’s older brother Mircea also died a painful death.

In general, the impression remains that the Corvin and Draculesti families either exchanged very sensitive blows with each other, then, as if nothing had happened, they resumed cooperation, turning from fierce enemies into reliable comrades and back, while seemingly not feeling any strong feelings for each other. feelings.

Such relationships for a long time puzzled me, and the only explanation I found for myself was that they simply corresponded to the prevailing morals among the knights of that time, which, apparently, were very similar to the morals of modern mafia clans.

At the same time, the Corvin family, being in a superior position in relation to the Drăculesti family, dealt more sensitive blows. This did not prevent either Vlad’s father or Vlad himself from returning to the service of the Corvins after some time and serving them faithfully, sometimes even against their own interests. It is known that this could have been preceded by complex and tense negotiations.

Since Vlad’s father had to give in to a more powerful enemy - the Turkish Sultan - and agree to rather harsh conditions for cooperation with him (this is how his two sons were given hostage), the principle “might is right” was imprinted in the consciousness of Vlad the Impaler indelibly.

From Turkish captivity, Vlad returned to his homeland a complete pessimist, a fatalist and with the full conviction that the only driving forces of politics are force or the threat of its use.

There are historical figures whose cruel deeds chill the blood and inspire horror. According to biographers, he personally observed the torture of convicts, who were alternately doused with boiling water and ice water, and then drowned in the river. The Hungarian countess, who, according to legend, loved to bathe in the blood of young girls in order to preserve her youth, is not far behind.

This list can be continued endlessly, but it is worth noting the famous ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III the Impaler, who became the prototype of Dracula in the novel of the same name. The life of this bearer of the crown is shrouded in myths and true stories; they say that frightened enemies called Vlad the son of the devil. Tepes went down in history as an “impaler” and instigator of biological warfare, but in his native country he gained fame as a genius of military thought.

Childhood and youth

The biography of Tepes, a descendant of Vlad II Dracula and the Moldavian princess Vasiliki, partly remains a mystery, because scientists cannot give an exact answer when the ruler of Wallachia was born. Historians have only speculative facts and date his birth between 1429-1430 and 1436.

Young Tepes did not make a pleasant impression and had a repulsive appearance: his face was adorned with large, cold eyes and protruding lips. By ancient legend, the little boy saw right through people. Vlad's parent raised his offspring in accordance with strict rules that time, so initially the young man learned to wield a weapon, and only then began to learn to read and write.

Vlad spent his childhood in the historical region, the city of Sighisoara. At that time, Transylvania (now located in Romania) belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, and the house in which Tepes lived with his father and older brother still stands and is located at Zhestyanshchikov 5.

In 1436, Vlad II became the ruler of Wallachia and moved to the capital of this small state - Targovishte. The ruler's possessions were located between Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire, so the prince of Wallachia was ready for an attack by the Turks. To maintain sovereignty, Dracul was forced to pay tribute to the Turkish Sultan in wood and silver, as well as give expensive gifts to Turkish nobles.

Following the ancient custom, Vlad II sent his sons to the Turks, so Tepes and his brother Radu were held in voluntary captivity for four years. According to rumors, the brothers observed torture in Turkey, and Radu became the object of sexual violence. However, there is no reliable evidence that Vlad II sent his offspring to the Ottoman Empire as hostages.

Scientists, on the contrary, believe that the ruler of Wallachia was confident in the safety of his sons, since he himself often visited the Turkish Sultan. The only thing that Vlad and Radu had to fear during their stay in Turkey was the changeable mood of the Sultan, who loved to touch alcohol.

Governing body

In December 1446, the Hungarians carried out a coup d'état, as a result of which Vlad II's head was cut off and his older brother Tepes was buried alive. These events became the background to the formation of Dracula's character.

The Turkish Sultan learned about this Hungarian outrage and began to gather troops. Having defeated the Hungarians, the leader of the Ottoman Empire placed Tepes on the throne, displacing the Hungarian protege Vladislav II, who took the throne with the support of the Transylvanian governor Janos Hunyadi.

The Sultan lent Dracula Turkish troops, and in 1448 a new ruler appeared in Wallachia. The newly-minted ruler Tepes begins an investigation into the murder of his father and stumbles upon facts related to the boyars.

Janos Hunyadi declared Dracula's accession to the throne illegal, the Hungarian commander began to gather an army, but by that time Tepes had managed to hide in Moldova, then in Transylvania, from where he was expelled by Janos' supporters.

In 1456, Tepes again visited Transylvania, where he gathered an army of associates in order to conquer the throne of Wallachia. It is known that Vlad III ruled the state for 6 years and made his mark not only inside Wallachia, but also outside these lands. According to some sources, during his reign Tepes destroyed about one hundred thousand people, but this data has not been confirmed.

He also pursued church policies aimed at strengthening the church, provided material assistance to clergy, and also became famous for his military campaigns in Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire (Tepes refused to pay tribute). Among other things, Vlad III sent money transfers to the monasteries of Greece.

Personal life

Contemporaries describe Vlad the Impaler in different ways. Some say that he was a pale-faced and thin handsome man with a pitch-black mustache, while others claim that the ruler of Wallachia had a repulsive appearance, and his bulging, cold eyes instilled fear in everyone. But scientists agree on one thing: Vlad Dracul was infinitely cruel person.

It was not for nothing that the ruler was nicknamed “the impaler,” since impaling people was Vlad III’s favorite method of execution. Enemies who died such deaths bled to death, so pale bodies hung on sharpened sticks (Vlad preferred stakes with a rounded top, lubricated with oil, which were inserted into the rectum).

By the way, this is why Vlad Dracula was nicknamed a vampire in folklore and literary works, although there is no evidence that Tepes tasted human blood.

It is noteworthy that Sultan Mehmed II, seeing thousands of rotting corpses of the Turks, fled with his army without looking back. Vlad III liked this grave environment and his appetite even increased from the sight of the agony of his defeated enemies.

As for Tepes’s personal life, it was shrouded in mystical and mysterious halos: so many literary works have been written about his wives and mistresses that it is difficult to understand whether it is reality or fiction of the writers. Rumor has it that Dracula was married twice to certain Elizabeth and Ilona Sziladyi. The ruler of Wallachia had three sons: Mikhail, Vlad and Mikhnia the Evil.

Death

They say that Vlad III Tepes died in 1476 on the initiative of Lajota Basarab. But there is no exact information about how the enemy of the Ottoman Empire died. There are several opinions: either Vlad was killed by bribed subjects, or Tepes died from the sword during a battle with the Turks (allegedly Dracula was accidentally mistaken for an enemy).

Others testified that Tepes's heart stopped beating out of the blue while he was sitting in the saddle. According to unreliable information, Dracula's head was kept in the palace of the Turkish Sultan as a trophy.

Dracula

Vlad III Tepes received the nickname Dracula from his father, who was a member of the highly respected Order of the Dragon, fighting pagans and atheists. Members of this community wore medallions made of precious metals, which were engraved with a mythological monster. Tepes’s parent also minted coins depicting fire-breathing creatures. The surname Tepes went to Vlad after his death: the Turks awarded this nickname to the prince; the word “Tepesh” itself means “stake”.

More than one work has been written about such a colorful character as Vlad III, but the book that helped popularize Dracula as a fanged lover of blood was written by Bram Stoker.

It is worth saying that the Irish writer worked on his brainchild for seven years, studying historical works about the Wallachian ruler. But, nevertheless, Stoker’s manuscript cannot be classified as a biographical work. This is a full-fledged novel, embellished with fantasy and artistic metaphor.

Bram's work gave a new wave in the world of literature and cinema: numerous manuscripts about Dracula, who fears the Sun and garlic, began to appear, and were also filmed documentaries. The canonical image of Count Dracula, who lives in a gloomy castle and drinks blood, was created by the American actor Bela Lugosi (film “Dracula” (1931), who masterfully portrayed the pale-faced vampire.

Memory

• 1897 – novel “Dracula” (Bram Stoker)
• 1922 – film “Nosferatu. Symphony of Horror" (Friedrich Wilhelm)
• 1975 – opera “Vlad the Impaler” (Gheorghe Dumitrescu)
• 1992 – film “Dracula” ()
• 1998 – music album “Nightwing” about the life of Vlad Tepes (group Marduk)
• 2006 – musical “Dracula: Between Love and Death” (Bruno Pelletier)
• 2014 – film “Dracula” (Harry Shore)

Vlad the Impaler was born around 1429 or 1431 ( exact date birth, as well as death, is unknown to historians). He came from the Basarab family. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a Wallachian ruler who ruled a region in modern-day Romania. The mother of the child was the Moldavian princess Vasilika.

Family and famous nickname

Vlad III Tepes spent the first seven years of his life in the Transylvanian city of Sighisoara. His family's house housed a mint. It minted gold coins with the image of a dragon on them. For this, Vlad's father (and later himself) received the nickname "Dracul". In addition, he was enrolled as a knight in the Order of the Dragon, created by the Hungarian king Sigismund I. In his youth, the son was also called "Dracul", but later this form changed to the more famous - "Dracula". The word itself belongs to the Romanian language. It can also be translated as "devil".

In 1436, Vlad's father became the ruler of Wallachia and moved the family to the then capital of the principality of Targovishte. Soon the boy had a younger brother - Radu the Handsome. Then the mother died, and the father married a second time. Another brother of Dracula, Vlad the Monk, was born into this marriage.

Childhood

In 1442, Vlad III Tepes went on the run. His father quarreled with the Hungarian ruler Janos Hunyadi. The influential monarch decided to place his protege Basarab II on the Wallachian throne. Realizing the limitations of his own strength, Dracula's parent went to Turkey, where he was going to ask for help from the powerful Sultan Murat II. It was then that his family fled the capital so as not to fall into the hands of Hungarian supporters.

Several months have passed. The spring of 1443 arrived. Vlad II came to an agreement with the Turkish Sultan and returned to his homeland with a powerful Ottoman army. This army displaced Basarab. The Hungarian ruler did not even resist this coup. He was preparing for the upcoming Crusade against the Turks and rightly believed that it was necessary to deal with Wallachia only after defeating his main enemy.

The Hunyadi War ended with the Battle of Varna. The Hungarians suffered a crushing defeat in it, King Vladislav was killed, and Janos himself ingloriously fled from the battlefield. Peace negotiations followed. The Turks, as victors, could impose their demands. The political situation changed dramatically, and Dracula's father decided to defect to the Sultan. Murat agreed to become the patron of the Wallachian ruler, however, in order to ensure his loyalty, he demanded that valuable hostages be sent to Turkey. They were chosen to be 14-year-old Vlad Dracula and 6-year-old Radu.

Life with the Ottomans

Dracula spent four years in Turkey (1444-1448). It is traditionally believed that it was during this period that his character underwent irreversible changes. Returning to his homeland, Vlad Dracula became a completely different person. But what could have caused these changes? The opinions of biographers of the Wallachian ruler were divided on this matter.

Some historians claim that in Turkey, Dracula was forced to convert to Islam. Torture could indeed have a negative impact on the psyche, but there is not a single evidence of it in credible sources. It is also assumed that Tepes survived severe stress due to the harassment of the heir to the Ottoman throne, Mehmed, towards his brother Radu. The historian of Greek origin Laonik Chalkokondylos wrote about this connection. However, according to the source, these events took place in the early 1450s, when Dracula had already returned home.

Even if the first two hypotheses are true, Vlad III Tepes truly changed after he learned about the murder of his own father. The ruler of Wallachia died in the fight against the Hungarian king. By sending his sons to Turkey, he hoped that peace would finally come to his country. But in fact, the flywheel of the war between Christians and Muslims was only spinning up. In 1444, the Hungarians again went to Crusade against the Turks and were again defeated. Then Janos Hunyadi attacked Wallachia. Dracula's father was executed (his head was cut off), and in his place the ruler of Hungary installed his next protege - Vladislav II. Vlad's older brother was dealt with even more cruelly (he was buried alive).

Soon news of what happened reached Turkey. The Sultan gathered a formidable army and defeated the Hungarians in the Battle of Kosovo. The Ottomans contributed to the fact that in 1448 Vlad III Tepes returned to his homeland and became a Wallachian prince. As a sign of mercy, the Sultan presented Dracula with horses, money, magnificent clothes and other gifts. Radu remained to live at the Turkish court.

Short reign and exile

Dracula's first Wallachian reign lasted only two months. During this time, he only managed to begin an investigation into the circumstances of the murder of his relatives. The Romanian prince learned that his father was betrayed by his own boyars, who at the decisive moment defected to the Hungarians, for which the new government showered them with various favors.

In December 1448, Dracula had to leave the capital of Wallachia, Targovishte. Recovering from the defeat, Hunyadi announced a campaign against Tepes. The Gospodar's army was too weak to successfully resist the Hungarians. Having soberly assessed the situation, Dracula disappeared into Moldova.

This small country, like Wallachia, was ruled by its princes. The rulers of Moldavia, who did not have significant forces, were forced to agree to Polish or Hungarian influence. Two neighboring states fought each other for the right to be overlords of a small principality. When Dracula settled in Moldova, the Polish party was in power there, which guaranteed his safety. The overthrown ruler of Wallachia remained in the neighboring principality until, in 1455, Peter Aron, a supporter of the Hungarians and Janos Hunyadi, established himself on the throne.

Return to power

Fearing that he would be handed over to his sworn enemy, Dracula left for Transylvania. There he began to gather the people's militia in order to retake the Wallachian throne (which was then again occupied by the Hungarian protege Vladislav).

In 1453, the Turks captured the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople again aggravated the conflict between Christians and Ottomans. Catholic monks appeared in Transylvania and began to recruit volunteers for a new crusade against the infidels. On holy war They took everyone except the Orthodox (they, in turn, went to Tepes’s army).

Dracula in Transylvania hoped that the Wallachian prince Vladislav would also go to liberate Constantinople, which would make his task easier. However, this did not happen. Vladislav was afraid of the appearance of the Transylvanian militia on his borders and remained in Targovishte. Then Dracula sent spies to the Wallachian boyars. Some of them agreed to support the applicant and help him with the coup d'état. In August 1456, Vladislav was killed, and Tepes was proclaimed ruler of Wallachia for the second time.

Shortly before that, the Turks again declared war on Hungary and besieged Belgrade, which belonged to it. The fortress was saved. The crusade, which was supposed to end with the liberation of Constantinople, turned towards Belgrade. And although the Turks were stopped, a plague epidemic began in the Christian army. Nine days before Dracula came to power in Wallachia, his opponent Janos Hunyadi, who was in Belgrade, died from this terrible disease.

Prince and nobility

Vlad's new reign in Wallachia began with the execution of the boyars responsible for the deaths of his brother and father. Aristocrats were invited to a feast dedicated to Easter. There they were given a death sentence.

According to legend, right during the solemn feast, Dracula asked the boyars sitting at the same table with him how many Wallachian rulers they found alive. None of the guests could name less than seven names. The question was ominous and symbolic. The incredible turnover of rulers in Wallachia spoke only of one thing: the nobility here is ready to betray their prince at any moment. Dracula could not allow this to happen. He took the throne quite recently, his position was still precarious. In order to gain a foothold at the helm of power and demonstrate his determination, he carried out demonstration executions.

Although the ruler was unpleasant to know, he could not get rid of it completely. Under Tepes, there was a council of 12 people. Every year the ruler tried to update the composition of this body as much as possible in order to include enough people loyal to himself.

Dracula's Domain

Vlad's first priority on the throne was to deal with the taxation system. Wallachia paid tribute to Turkey and the authorities needed a stable income. The problem was that after Dracula’s accession to the throne, the principal treasurer of the principality fled from Wallachia to Transylvania. He took with him a register - a collection where all the data on taxes, taxes, villages and cities of the state was entered. Because of this loss, the principality initially experienced financial problems. The next treasurer was found only in 1458. The new cadastre, necessary to restore the tax system, took three years to prepare.

On the territory that belonged to Dracula there were 2,100 villages and 17 more cities. At that time there was no population census. Nevertheless, historians, with the help of secondary data, managed to restore the approximate number of the prince’s subjects. The population of Wallachia was about 300 thousand people. The figure is modest, but in medieval Europe there was practically no demographic growth. Regular epidemics interfered, and Dracula’s century was especially rich in bloody events.

The largest cities of Tepes were Targovishte, Campulung and Curtea de Arges. They were the actual capitals - the princely courts were located there. The Wallachian ruler also owned the profitable Danube ports, which controlled trade in Europe and the Black Sea region (Kilia, Braila).

As mentioned above, Dracula's treasury was replenished mainly through taxes. Wallachia was rich in livestock, grain, salt, fish, and wineries. In the dense forests that occupied half the territory of this country, there was a lot of game. From the east, spices (saffron, pepper), fabrics, cotton and silk, rare for the rest of Europe, were delivered here.

Foreign policy

In 1457, the Wallachian army went to war against the Transylvanian city of Sibiu. The initiator of the campaign was Vlad III Tepes. The history of the campaign is vague. Dracula accused the city residents of helping Hunyadi and quarreling him with his younger brother Vlad the Monk. Having left the lands of Sibiu, the Wallachian ruler went to Moldova. There he helped his longtime comrade Stefan, who supported Dracula during his exile, ascend to the throne.

All this time, the Hungarians did not stop their attempts to re-subdue the Romanian provinces. They supported a challenger named Dan. This rival of Dracula settled in the Transylvanian city of Brasov. Soon Wallachian merchants were detained there and their goods were confiscated. Dan's letters are the first to mention that Dracula liked to resort to the cruel torture of impalement. It was from her that he received his nickname Tepes. From Romanian this word can be translated as “ringer”.

The conflict between Dan and Dracula escalated in 1460. In April the armies of the two rulers met in bloody battle. The Wallachian ruler won a convincing victory. As a warning to his enemies, he ordered the already dead enemy soldiers to be impaled. In July, Dracula took control of the important city of Fagaras, which had previously been occupied by Dan's supporters.

In the fall, an embassy from Brasov arrived in Wallachia. He was received by Vlad III the Impaler himself. The prince's castle became the place where a new peace treaty was signed. The document applied not only to the Brasovians, but also to all Saxons living in Transylvania. Prisoners on both sides were freed. Dracula promised to join an alliance against the Turks, who threatened the possessions of Hungary.

War with the Ottomans

Since his homeland was Romania, Dracula was Orthodox. He actively supported the church, gave it money and defended its interests in every possible way. At the expense of the prince, it was built near Giurgiu. new monastery Komana, as well as the temple in Tyrgshor. Tepes also gave money to the Greek Church. He donated to Athos and other Orthodox monasteries in the country captured by the Turks.

Vlad III Tepes, whose biography during his second reign turned out to be so closely connected with the church, could not help but fall under the influence of Christian hierarchs, who convinced the authorities in any European country to fight against the Turks. The first sign of the new anti-Ottoman course was the agreement with the Transylvanian cities. Gradually, Dracula became more and more inclined towards the need for war with the infidels. The Wallachian Metropolitan Macarius carefully pushed him to this idea.

It was impossible to fight the Sultan with the forces of one professional army. There simply were not enough people living in poor Romania to equip an army as colossal as the Turks thought it was. That is why Tepes armed the townspeople and peasants, creating an entire people's militia. Dracula in Moldova managed to get acquainted with a similar defense system of the country.

In 1461, the Wallachian ruler decided that he had enough resources to talk with the Sultan on equal terms. He refused to pay tribute to the Ottomans and began to prepare for an invasion. The invasion actually took place in 1462. An army of up to 120 thousand people, led by Mehmed II, entered Wallachia.

Dracula did not allow the Turks to carry out the war according to his scenario. He organized a partisan struggle. Wallachian troops attacked the Ottoman army in small detachments - at night and suddenly. This strategy cost the Turks 15 thousand lives. Moreover, Tepes fought according to scorched earth tactics. His partisans destroyed any infrastructure that could be useful to the invaders in a foreign land. The executions so beloved by Dracula were not forgotten either - impalement became the worst nightmare of the Turks. As a result, the Sultan had to leave Wallachia with nothing.

Death

In 1462, shortly after the end of the war with the Ottoman Empire, Dracula was betrayed by the Hungarians, who deprived him of his throne and imprisoned his neighbor for twelve years. Formally, Tepes ended up in prison on charges of collaborating with the Ottomans.

After his release, when it was already 1475, he, left without power, began to serve in the Hungarian army, where he held the position of royal captain. In this capacity, Vlad took part in the siege of the Turkish bastion of Sabac.

In the summer of 1476, the war with the Ottomans moved to Moldavia. Stephen the Great, whose friend Dracula, continued to rule there. The year Tepes was born fell on a time of troubles, when events of enormous scale took place at the junction of Europe and Asia. Therefore, even if he wanted to return to peaceful life, he would not have been able to do so.

When Moldavia was saved from the Turks, Stefan of Moldova helped Dracula re-establish himself on the Wallachian throne. Targovishte and Bucharest were ruled at that time by pro-Ottoman Lajot Basarab. In November 1476, Moldavian troops captured the key cities of Wallachia. Dracula was proclaimed prince of this unfortunate country for the third time.

Soon Stefan's troops left Wallachia. Tepes had a small army left. He died in December 1476, just a month after establishing his power. The circumstances of his death, like Dracula's grave, are not known for certain. According to one version, he was killed by a servant bribed by the Turks, according to another, the prince died in battle against the same Turks.

Bad reputation

Today, Vlad Dracula is much better known not for the historical facts of his life, but for the mythical image that developed around his personality after the death of the prince. It's about, of course, about the famous Transylvanian vampire, who adopted the name of the Wallachian ruler.

But how did this character come about? The most incredible rumors circulated about the real Dracula during his lifetime. In Vienna in 1463, a pamphlet was written and published about him, in which Tepes was described as a bloodthirsty maniac (facts about executions by impalement and other evidence of numerous Romanian wars were used). The same collection included the poem “On the Villain,” written by Michael Beheim. The work insisted that Tepes was a tyrant. The executions of girls and children were mentioned. Vlad III Tepes himself, married to Ilona Sziladyi, had three sons: Michael, Vlad and Mikhnia.

In 1480 "The Tale of Dracula the Voivode" appeared. It was written in Russian by clerk Fyodor Kuritsyn, who worked in the embassy department under Ivan III. He visited Hungary, where he was on an official visit to King Matthias Corvinus to conclude an alliance against Poland and Lithuania. In Transylvania, Kuritsyn collected several stories about Dracula, which he later used as the basis for his story. The work of the Russian clerk differed from the Austrian pamphlet, although it also contained scenes of cruelty. However, the image of Dracula gained real worldwide fame much later - at the end of the 19th century.

Stoker's image

Today, only Romania itself seems to know about this: Dracula was not a vampire or a count, but the ruler of Wallachia in the 15th century. For most people around the globe, his name is associated only with the undead. The idea that Vlad III the Impaler drank blood was made popular by the Irish writer Bram Stoker (1847 - 1912). With his novel Dracula, he transformed the historical character into the category of a mythical creature and a popular hero of mass culture.

The image of a vampire, one way or another, is in every pagan culture and religion. Generally speaking, it can be called a “living corpse” - a dead creature that maintains its life by drinking the blood of its victims. For example, among the ancient Slavs a ghoul was considered a similar creature. Stoker was fond of mysticism and decided to take advantage of the notoriety of the real Dracula for his novel about a vampire. The writer also called him Nosferatu. In 1922, this word was included in the title of an epoch-making horror film by Friedrich Murnau.

The image of Dracula has become a classic for the entire world cinema and the horror genre. Throughout the 20th century, the industry returned again and again to Stoker's story about the Transylvanian Count (according to the Guinness Book of Records, 155 feature-length films were made). However, there are only a dozen films dedicated to Tepes, who lived in the 15th century.