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. Nickname Dracula (rum. Dracul), which means dragon, he inherited from his father, who wore a medallion of a knightly society with the image of a curled dragon around his neck. During the reign of Vlad, the dragon appeared already on the coins, which came into general use. Tepes meant stalker from the Romanian țeapă, which translates as a stake.

Portrait of Vlad III

Biography

It was not possible to establish the exact date of Vlad's birth: approximately he was born in the period from 1430 - 1436. Together with his parents and older brother Mircea (rum. Mircea) lived in Sighisoara. At present, the address of this house is: Sighisoara, st. Zhestyanshchikov, 5.

After Vlad's father ascended the Wallachian throne, he moved his family from Sighiashora to Wallachia. There, after the birth of the third son Radu (rum. 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 a change in the character of Dracula. He became more pessimistic. According to historians, the reason for the change was the murder in 1446 of his father and older brother Vlad by the Hungarians, as well as psychological abuse 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 set about investigating 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 Moldova, where in March 1449 his second cousin Bogdan II ascended the throne. In 1449, Dracula left Moldavia and went 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 take the Wallachian throne again. The reign lasted six years, during which Dracula became widely known outside of 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.

Theodore Aman, "Boyars Caught at a Feast by the Messengers of Vlad the Impaler"

In 1461, the ruler of Turkey, dissatisfied with Dracula's refusal to pay tribute, declared war on him. During the hostilities, Vlad proves 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 plotting with the Turks and imprisoned for 12 years.

In 1475, Vlad III was released from imprisonment, and already in November 1476, he overthrew Layota Basarab 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.

Separately, it is worth talking about his cruelty. There is a legend that he ripped open his belly to his mistress, who announced her imaginary pregnancy, with the words "I warned that I do not like lies."

Vlad Tepes and the corpses of his enemies

He dealt with his enemies with all originality: he chopped off their heads, boiled them alive, skinned them and ripped open their stomachs. And impalement was his favorite torture. All his subjects knew how much Vlad did not like traitors and thieves.

And let's talk about this most interesting character during his lifetime, who became a legend and earned the nickname "horror of the Ottomans" among the people. And at the same time we will try to separate, so to speak, "the wheat from the chaff." He became the prince (ruler) of Wallachia three times, spent 12 years in prison, hid from enemies many times, was a living "collateral" for the Turks, eradicated crime in his principality and was the only opponent of the Ottoman warriors who instilled fear in them, bordering on panic alone. appearance on the battlefield.

Exact date of birth Vlad III Basaraba, which is exactly what his real name sounds like, is unknown. Between 1429 and 1431 in the city of Sighisoara, a son was born in the family of Prince Vlad II Dracula and the Moldavian princess Vasiliki. In general, the ruler of Wallachia had four sons: the eldest Mircea, the middle ones Vlad and Radu, and the youngest - also Vlad (the son of the second wife of Prince Vlad II - Koltsuna, later Vlad IV the Monk). Fate will not be favorable to the first three of them. Mircea will be buried alive by the Wallachian boyars in Targovishte. Radu will become the favorite of the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, and Vlad will bring his family the bad reputation of a cannibal. And only Vlad IV the Monk will still live his life more or less calmly. The family crest was a dragon. It was in the year of Vlad's birth that his father joined the Order of the Dragon, whose members swore on blood to protect Christians from the Muslim Turks. It is from his father that Vlad III will inherit his family nickname - Dracula. In his youth, Vlad III was called Dracul (Rom. Dracul, that is, "dragon"), inheriting his father's nickname without any changes. However, later (in the 1470s) he began to indicate his nickname with the letter “a” at the end, since by that time it had become most famous in this form.

Dracula's childhood passed here in this house, which has been preserved in the city of Sighisoara in Transylvania to this day, at st. Zhestyanshchikov, 5. The only thing that, over the past 500 years, the Transylvania region itself has changed its state affiliation, in the 15th century it belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, but now it, the city of Segisoara and the house in which Dracula lived with his father, mother and older brother, are located on territory of Romania.

The family of the future ruler of Wallachia lived in Segisoara until 1436. In the summer of 1436, Dracula's father took the Wallachian throne and, no later than the autumn of that year, moved the family from Sighisoara to Targovishte, where the capital of Wallachia was located at that time. According to all sources, Vlad III received an excellent education in the Byzantine style for those times. However, he did not manage to complete his education in full, because politics intervened. In the spring of 1442, Dracula's father quarreled with Janos Hunyadi, who at that time was the de facto ruler of Hungary, as a result of which Janos decided to install another ruler in Wallachia - Basarab II.
In the summer of 1442, Dracula's father went to Turkey to Sultan Murat II to ask for help, but he was forced to stay there for 8 months. At this time, Basarab II established himself in Wallachia, and Dracula and the rest of his family were hiding. In the spring of 1443, Dracula's father returned from Turkey along with the Turkish army and deposed Basarab II. Janos Hunyadi did not interfere with this, as he was preparing for a crusade against the Turks. The campaign began on July 22, 1443 and lasted until January 1444. In the spring of 1444, negotiations began on a truce between Janos Hunyadi and the Sultan. Dracula's father joined the negotiations, during which Janos agreed that Wallachia could remain under Turkish influence. At the same time, the sultan, wanting to be sure of the devotion of the "Wallachian governor", insisted on a "pledge" (amanat in Turkish). The word "pledge" meant that the sons of the "governor" should come to the Turkish court - that is, Dracula, who at that time was about 14 years old, and his brother Radu, who was about 6 years old. Negotiations with Dracula's father ended on June 12, 1444 of the year. Dracula and his brother Radu went to Turkey no later than the end of July 1444.

Modern researchers agree on one thing: it was in Turkey that Vlad received some kind of psychological trauma that forever made him the one who is remembered with horror and delight throughout Romania. There are several versions of what happened:
1. The future ruler of Wallachia was tortured by the Turks to convert to Islam.
2. As if Vlad's younger brother, Radu, was seduced by the heir to the Turkish throne, Mehmed, making him his favorite lover. In particular, a medieval author writes about this - the Greek historian Laonik Chalkokondil. However, according to him, this episode belongs to more late period 1450s.
3. The brutal murder of his father and elder brother in December 1446. The death occurred as a result of a coup d'état carried out by the Wallachian boyars, with the support of the Hungarians. Hunyadi's henchman, Vladislav II, ascended the throne of Wallachia. Dracula's father, on the orders of the Hungarian commander, was beheaded, and Dracula's older brother was buried alive.
4. Well, the most common - the customs at the Sultan's palace were so "simple" that under their influence later Vlad showed his sadistic inclinations. For example, according to legend, Vlad and his younger brother witnessed (they were specially brought) an "investigation" of the theft of a rare vegetable (perhaps a cucumber!) In the Sultan's greenhouse. Each of the 12 gardeners who had access to the greenhouse at one time or another that day had their stomach torn open, and the seventh in a row found what they were looking for. Those who have not been ripped open are lucky, those who have already been ripped open, "graciously allowed to survive", but the criminal who ate the fruit was still alive on a stake.

In the autumn of 1448, Dracula, together with the Turkish troops lent by the Sultan, entered the Wallachian capital - Targovishte. When exactly this happened is not known exactly, but there is a letter from Dracula dated October 31, where he signs himself as "voivode of Wallachia." Immediately upon accession to the throne, Dracula begins an investigation into the events related to the death of his father and brother. During the investigation, he learns that at least 7 boyars who served his father participated in the conspiracy and supported Prince Vladislav, for which they received various favors.
Meanwhile, Janos Hunyadi and Vladislav, who had lost the battle of Kosovo, arrived in Transylvania. On November 10, 1448, Janos Hunyadi, while in Sighisoara, announced that he was starting a military campaign against Dracula, calling him an "illegal" ruler. On November 23, Janos was already in Brasov, from where he moved with the army to Wallachia. On December 4, he entered Targovishte, but Dracula had already fled by that time.

From 1448 to 1455, Vlad Dracula lives in exile at the court of the Moldavian sovereigns. In 1456, Dracula was in Transylvania, where he gathered an army of volunteers to go to Wallachia and take the throne again. At that time (since February 1456) a delegation of Franciscan monks headed by Giovanni da Capistrano was in Transylvania, who were also gathering a volunteer army to liberate Constantinople, captured by the Turks in 1453. The Franciscans did not take the Orthodox on a campaign, which was used by Dracula, attracting the rejected militias to their ranks. In April 1456, a rumor spread throughout Hungary that a Turkish army led by Sultan Mehmed was approaching the southern borders of the state. On July 3, 1456, in a letter addressed to the "Saxons of Transylvania", Janos Hunyadi announced that he had appointed Dracula "defender of the Transylvanian regions." After that, Janos, together with his troops, departed for Belgrade, already almost surrounded by the Turkish army. Belgrade was also followed by a militia assembled by the Franciscan monk Giovanni da Capistrano, which was originally supposed to go to Constantinople, and Dracula's army stopped on the border of Transylvania with Wallachia. The Wallachian prince Vladislav II, fearing that in his absence Dracula could take the throne, did not go in defense of Belgrade.

On July 22, 1456, the Turkish army retreated from the Belgrade fortress, and in early August, Dracula's army moved to Wallachia. The Wallachian boyar Mane Udrische helped Dracula to gain power, who had already gone over to his side and persuaded several other boyars from the princely council under Vladislav to do the same. On August 20, Vladislav was killed, and Dracula became a Wallachian prince for the second time. 9 days before (August 11) in Belgrade, Dracula's longtime enemy and murderer of his father, Janos Hunyadi, died of the plague.

In his family castle Targovishte, Vlad avenged the death of his father and older brother. According to legend, he invited the boyars to a feast in honor of Easter (500 people), and then ordered to stab (as options, poison or impale) all of them to one. It is believed that it is with this execution that the bloody procession of the great tyrant Vlad Dracula begins. So the legends tell, but the chronicles convince by another - at the feast, Dracula only scared the boyars, and got rid of only those whom he suspected of treason. During the first years of his reign, he executed 11 boyars who were preparing a coup against him. Having avoided a real threat, Dracula began to restore order in the country. He issued new laws. For thefts, murders and violence of criminals, only one punishment awaited - death. When public executions began in the country, people realized that their ruler was not joking.
In this regard, true equality before the law reigned in the principality of Wallachia: no matter who you were, a boyar with a three-hundred-year-old pedigree, or a rootless beggar, death awaited you for any crime or disobedience to the dragon prince. Often long and painful. The legend claims that in this way he destroyed all the beggars and those who did not want to work. There is an opinion that gradually he deliberately made people afraid of himself. He even selected scary stories about his cruelty. But, what is most strange, the common people LOVED their "dragon".
A contemporary describes the Vlachs as a very thieving and impudent people. Imagine his surprise when, a year after the beginning of the reign of Vlad Dracula, it was possible to throw a gold coin on the street and come tomorrow to find it lying in the same place.

Also widely known is the episode with the Turkish ambassadors, described by the Russian ambassador to Hungary Fyodor Kuritsyn in 1484 in The Tale of Dracula Voevoda:

"I came to him once from the Turkish poklisarium<послы>, and when you go up to him and bow down according to your custom, and cap<шапок, фесок>I didn’t take off my 3 chapters. He asks them: “What for the sake of tacos do you do a great favor to the sovereign and such a shame do you do to me?” They answered: “This is our custom, sovereign, and our land has.” He told them: “And I want to confirm your law, but stand strong,” and commanded them to nail caps to their heads with a small iron nail and let them go, rivers to them: “Go tell your sovereign, he has learned to endure that shame from you, we but not with skill, let him not send his custom to other sovereigns who do not want to have it, but let him keep it with him.

In 1461, Vlad Dracula refused to pay tribute to Sultan Mehmed. The Ottomans did not forgive this, and in the same spring, a 250,000-strong army of Turks invaded Wallachia (according to modern data, it was still smaller "only" 100-120 thousand). However, Dracula did not give up and launched a real and merciless attack against the conquerors. guerrilla war. He armed everyone. In his 30,000-strong army, peasants and nobles, monks and beggars fought together, even women and children from the age of 10 participated in battles with the Turks. On July 17, 1461, as a result of the famous "night attack", Vlad's army defeated and forced the huge army of Mehmed II to retreat. Turkish prisoners captured in this battle from 2000 to 4000 thousand people were put on stakes. Moreover, senior commanders on stakes with gold tips, officers on stakes with silver tips, but ordinary soldiers had to be content with an ordinary tree. Even by Turkish standards, such a massacre was a little too much. It was then that Vlad got his Ottoman nickname - Kazykly (tur. Kazıklı from the word Tur. kazık [kazyk] - "count"). That is, in the translation "kolschik", or "stalker". Later, it was this nickname that was simply translated into Romanian literally - Tepes (Rom. Țepeș). If we summarize the most famous names and nicknames of Vlad, we get: Vlad III the Dragon Impaler. Sounds like it?

In the same 1461, due to the betrayal of the Hungarian monarch Matthias Korvin, Dracula was forced to flee to Hungary, where he was later taken into custody on false charges of collaborating with the Turks and spent 12 years in prison.

In 1475, Vlad III Dracula was released from a Hungarian prison and again began to participate in campaigns against the Turks. In November 1475, as part of the Hungarian army (as one of the commanders of King Matthias, "royal captain"), he went to Serbia, where from January to February 1476 he participated in the siege of the Turkish fortress of Šabac. In February 1476, he took part in the war against the Turks in Bosnia, and in the summer of 1476, together with another "royal captain" Stefan Bathory, he helped the Moldavian prince Stefan the Great defend himself from the Turks.
In November 1476, Vlad Dracula, with the help of Stefan Bathory and Stefan the Great, overthrew the pro-Turkish Wallachian prince Layota Basarab. On November 8, 1476, Targovishte was taken. On November 16, Bucharest was taken. On November 26, the general meeting of the noble people of Wallachia elected Dracula as their prince.
Then the troops of Stefan Bathory and Stefan the Great left Wallachia, and only those soldiers who were directly subordinate to him (about 4,000 people) remained with Vlad Dracula. Shortly after this, Vlad was treacherously murdered on the initiative of Layota Basarab, but the sources differ in the stories about the method of murder and the direct perpetrators.
Medieval chroniclers Jakob Unrest and Jan Długosz believe that he was killed by his servant, who was bribed by the Turks. The author of The Tale of Dracula Governor Fyodor Kuritsyn believes that Vlad Dracula was killed during the battle with the Turks.
Also preserved is the testimony of the Moldavian prince Stefan, who helped Vlad take the Wallachian throne:
"And I immediately gathered the warriors, and when they came, I joined with one of the royal captains, and, united, we brought the said Drahulu to power. And he, when he came to power, asked us to leave our people to him as guards, because he did not trust the Vlachs too much, and I left him 200 of my people. And when I did this, we (with the royal captain) withdrew. And almost immediately that traitor Basarab returned and, having overtaken Drahula, who was left without us, killed him, and all my people were also killed, with the exception of 10."

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 there are any descriptions of the executions and tortures of Dracula, as well as all the stories of his atrocities.
From a historical point of view, the reason to doubt the accuracy of the information presented in this document is extremely high. In addition to the obvious interest of the Hungarian throne in replicating this document (the desire to hide the fact of the theft by the king of Hungary of a large amount allocated by the papal throne for the crusade), no earlier references to any of these “pseudo-folklore” stories were found.

A list of the atrocities of Vlad Dracula the Impaler in this anonymous document:
There is a known case when Tepes summoned about 500 boyars and asked them how many rulers each of them remembers. It turned out that even the youngest of them remembers at least 7 reigns. Tepes' answer was an attempt to put an end to such an order - all the boyars were impaled and dug around the chambers of Tepes 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 they are catching and impaling the thief, on the orders of Tepes, the merchant is thrown a purse, in which there is one coin more than it was. The merchant, having discovered a surplus, immediately informs Tepes. He laughs and says: “Well done, I wouldn’t say - you should sit on a stake next to the thief”;
Tepes discovers that there are many beggars in the country. He convenes them, feeds them to their heart's content and addresses the question: “Don't you want to get rid of earthly suffering forever?” On a positive answer, Tepes closes the doors and windows and burns all those gathered alive;
There is a story about a mistress who tries to deceive Tepes by talking about her pregnancy. Tepes warns her that she 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!”;
A case is also described when Dracula asked two wandering monks what the people say about his reign. One of the monks replied that the population of Wallachia scolded him as a cruel villain, and the other said that everyone praised him as a liberator from the threat of the Turks and a wise politician. In fact, both one and the other testimonies were fair in their own way. And the legend, in turn, has two endings. In the German "version", Dracula executed the former for not liking 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 credible pieces of evidence in this document is that Dracula liked to have breakfast at the site of an execution or the site of a recent battle. He ordered to bring him a table and food, sat down and ate among the dead and dying on the stakes of people. 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 it. “No strength to endure, a terrible stench,” the unfortunate man replied. 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 above everyone, and the stench does not reach you”;
According to an old Russian story, Tepes ordered to cut out the genitals of unfaithful wives and widows who violate the rules of chastity, and rip off their skin, exposing the bodies to the point of decomposing the body and eating it by birds, or do the same, but after piercing them with a poker from the crotch to the mouth;
Those who came to him demanding recognition of vassalage to the ambassadors Ottoman Empire Dracula asked the question: "Why didn't they take off their hats in front of the Orthodox ruler." Hearing the answer that they would bare their heads only in front of the Sultan, Vlad ordered the turbans to be nailed to their heads.

Just illustrations for this "document" from 1463

However, modern historians deny most of these horror films, considering them fiction. Although Tepes impaled people in the hundreds, and the Turks (whom he apparently did not consider to be people) even in the thousands. And the "honesty" of his subjects was bought with the lives of 15% of the population of Wallachia. He was simultaneously feared to the point of fainting, hated, idolized and loved. Few of the medieval rulers evoked such conflicting emotions in those around them.
And another, and more famous "life" of Vlad Tepes Dracula began in the first quarter of the 20th century, after the appearance of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula".

According to legend, the ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III Basarab Dracula, nicknamed Tepes, is buried either here: in the Komana monastery, founded by Vlad 15 years before.

Or in the Church of the Annunciation in Snagov.

Almost six centuries ago, such a person appeared in history as the Wallachian ruler (prince) Vlad Tepes, and since that time an ominous shadow of his gloomy reputation has been trailing behind him. Sometimes it even seems that we are not talking about a person, but about a real fiend who, due to a misunderstanding, fell to earth. For most, he is known as the "horror on the wings of the night", a bloodthirsty vampire, a dictator who impaled for the most insignificant offense, and this list can be continued for a very, very long time. Vlad Tepes in the minds of people is a terrible monster, which had no equal before him. Or maybe ... maybe Vlad Tepes was a common figure for his era, who had different personal qualities, just among which his cruelty was by no means the last place? All kinds of horror films are shot about Count Dracula and books are written that freeze the blood. There are still heated debates about the personality of this Wallachian prince, many attempts are being made to find out the relationship between myths and reality, fiction and truth in the stories about this man. But almost every time when trying to understand Vlad the Impaler and his life, from which we are separated by almost six centuries, then unconsciously, and sometimes even intentionally, new myths and legends are created about Count Dracula.
Who really was Vlad Tepes, and why exactly did he get the position of the most “main and famous vampire”? Who, in reality, was that person who, for millions of moviegoers and readers, became the embodiment of a vampire? In the homeland of the count, in Romania, he is usually considered the champion of “real justice”, the defender and savior of the motherland. One of the researchers expressed this strange state of affairs as follows: “The notorious Vlad Tepes, Count Dracula, Wallachian patriot and sadist.”
The riddles of this person begin as soon as we try to find out the full name, nickname and title of our hero. Some chronicles with full confidence call the Wallachian prince Vlad III, while others - with no less confidence - Vlad IV. And they are not talking about the son and father (the serial number of the father of Tepes, who was also called Vlad, varies accordingly), but about one prince. Considering the time that has passed since their death, such discrepancies should be slightly surprising ... But after all, no one confuses the numbers of much more numerous French kings Louis!
The year of the count's birth, and the date, have not been precisely established. Vlad Tepes-Dracula, most likely, was born in 1431 or 1430 (some researchers even name 1429 or 1428), when the father of the future “vampire”, Vlad Dracul, one of the contenders for the Wallachian throne, with the support of the emperor of the “Holy Roman Empire” Sigismund of Luxembourg, was in Sighisoara, a Transylvanian city near the border with Wallachia.
In popular science literature, the birth of Vlad the Younger is often associated with the moment Vlad the Elder entered the Order of the Dragon, where his father was admitted on February 8, 1431, by order of Emperor Sigismund, who then also occupied the throne of Hungary. But with the core of everything, in fact, this is either just a coincidence or an attempt by individuals to invent such a coincidence. There are plenty of similar fictional, and sometimes real, coincidences in the life of Vlad Tepes-Dracula. Any such coincidence should be treated with great caution.
So, the father of Vlad III, the ruler and prince of Wallachia Vlad II (although according to some historical documents after all, Vlad III), while in his youth at the court of the emperor of the “Holy Roman Empire”, really became a member of the Order of the Dragon, and the order was prestigious - its adherents were obliged to imitate the Christian St. times associated with the armies of the Turkish Sultan, crawling into Europe from modern Anatolia. It was his entry into the Order of the Dragon that Vlad's father received the nickname Dragon (Dracul), which later passed down to the hero of this story. Moreover, not only Vlad was called that, but also his two brothers Radu and Mircho. Therefore, it has not yet been established whether such a nickname was associated with the idea of ​​evil spirits or vice versa. As a constant reminder of this vow, the knights wore the image of the dragon, which was killed by George, hanging with outstretched wings and a broken back on the cross.
But here Vlad II overdid it: he not only showed himself with the sign of the order in front of his subjects, but also minted coins with the image of a dragon, and he even depicted dragons on the walls of churches under construction. In the eyes of his people, Vlad II looked like a dragon worshiper, and the nickname given to him in the order was fixed among the people - Vlad Dracul (Dragon). In The Tale of Dracula the Governor, the author writes bluntly: “The name of Dracula is in the Vash language, and ours is the Devil. Toliko is wicked, as by his name, so is his life.
There are documents in which this nickname was used by foreign rulers when Vlad III was officially titled when he was the ruler of Wallachia. Tepes usually signed documents with the signature “Vlad, son of Vlad” indicating all his possessions and titles, but two letters are known where he signed “Vlad Dracul”. From this it follows that he bore the name Dracula with pride and did not find it offensive to himself.
The nickname Tepes (Tepes, Tepez or Tepesh - variants are allowed in the Romanian transcription), which has such a terrible meaning (in Romanian “Piercer”, “Impaler”, “Impaler”), Romanians did not use during his lifetime. But even before the death of Vlad, the Turks used it. In Turkish sound, this nickname sounds like “Kazykly”. According to the surviving information, it seems that the Wallachian ruler did not object to such a nickname. After the death of the prince, the nickname was translated from Turkish and everyone began to use it, under it Vlad entered world history.
There is a portrait of a formidable "vampire" preserved in the Tyrolean castle of Ambras. But historians have doubts: it is unlikely that he was exactly the same as Tepes portrayed by a medieval artist. Vlad's contemporaries admitted that, unlike his brother Rad, called Handsome, he was not marked by beauty. But he was very strong physically, an excellent swimmer and rider.
But whether he was a feisty sadist or a brave and uncompromising hero who had no right to pity, everyone has their own truth. Let's turn to history.
The Principality of Wallachia in those days was that very small state, which, as the wise Lord Bolingbroke noted from The Glass of Water, gets any chances if two large ones claim its territory at once. In this case, the interests of Catholic Hungary, advancing on Orthodoxy, and the Muslim Porte, claiming world domination, converged on Wallachia. Wallachia was an area sandwiched between Turkish possessions from the south (especially after 1453, when Byzantium crushed by the Turks fell) and Hungary from the north.
In addition, rich Transylvania (or Semigradje), which belonged to Hungary, was hiding behind small Wallachia, where crafts developed rapidly, a branch of the Great Silk Road passed, self-governing cities founded by the Saxons grew. Semigrad merchants were interested in the peaceful coexistence of Wallachia with the aggressor Turks. Transylvania was a kind of buffer territory between the Hungarian and Wallachian lands.
The peculiarity of the geopolitical position of Wallachia, as well as religious specificity (the confession of Orthodoxy by the people and sovereigns) contrasted it with both Muslim Turkey and the Catholic West. This led to the extreme inconsistency of military policy. The rulers either went along with the Hungarians against the Turks, or let the Turkish armies into Hungarian Transylvania. The Wallachian rulers more or less successfully used the struggle of the superpowers for their own purposes, enlisting the support of one of them, so that the next palace coup overthrow the protégé of another. It was in this way that Vlad Sr. (father) ascended the throne, with the help of the Hungarian king, overthrowing his cousin. However, Turkish pressure increased, and the alliance with Hungary did little. Vlad the elder recognized the vassal dependence of Wallachia on the Porte.
Such coexistence was achieved according to the scenario traditional for that time: the princes sent their sons to the court of the Turkish Sultan as hostages, who were treated well, but in the event of a rebellion in a vassal state, they were immediately executed. The sons of the Wallachian ruler became such a guarantor of obedience: Radu the Handsome and Vlad, who would earn his far from innocent nickname later.
Meanwhile, Vlad Sr. continued to maneuver between two fires, but in the end he was killed, along with his son Mircho, either by the Hungarians, or by his own boyars.
In addition, speaking of the horrors that are inextricably linked with the name of Dracula, one should remember the state of the country and the system of power that existed there. Sovereigns were elected to the throne from the same clan, but the choice was not determined by any specific principles of succession to the throne. Everything was decided exclusively by the alignment of forces in the circles of the Wallachian boyars. Since any of the members of the dynasty could have many both legitimate and illegitimate children, any of whom became a contender for the throne (it would have been one of the boyars to put him on it!), The consequence of this was a fantastic leapfrog of rulers. A "normal" transfer of power from father to son was rare. It is clear that when the presumptuous ruler sought to consolidate his powers, terror was put on the agenda, and both the relatives of the ruler and the all-powerful boyars turned out to be its object.
Terrorist, so to speak, reigns were both before and after Vlad III. Why, then, did what happened under him enter into oral traditions and literature as having surpassed everything conceivable and unthinkable, having gone beyond the limits of the most cruel expediency? The deeds of this ruler, widely disseminated in the written works of the 15th century, really chill the blood.
The very life of Vlad (in the Romanian legends, he is also the commander Tepes) seems to be an incessant transition from one extreme situation to another. At the age of thirteen, he was present at the defeat of the Wallachian, Hungarian and Slavonian troops by the Turks in the battle of Varna, then the years of his stay in Turkey as a hostage issued by his father (then he learned Turkish language). At the age of seventeen, Vlad learns about the murder of his father and older brother by the boyars from the "Hungarian" party. The Turks free him and put him on the throne.
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 the force or the threat of its application.
He did not last long on the throne for the first time: the Hungarians threw off the Turkish protege and put their own on the throne. Vlad was forced to seek asylum from the allies in Moldova. However, four more years pass, and during the next (already Moldovan) turmoil, the ruler of this country, a supporter of Vlad, dies, who hospitably received him in Moldova. A new escape - this time to the Hungarians, the true culprits of the death of Dracula's father and brother, and four years of stay in Transylvania, at the Wallachian borders, greedy waiting in the wings.
In 1456, the situation finally developed favorably for the fugitive ruler. Once again, Dracula takes the throne with the help of the Wallachian boyars and the Hungarian king, dissatisfied with his previous protégé. Thus began the reign of Vlad Tepes in Wallachia, during which he became the hero of legends and performed most of his deeds, which still cause the most controversial assessments.
In the fourth year of his reign, Dracula immediately stops paying tribute to the Turks and gets involved in a bloody and unequal war with the Sultan's Porte. For the successful conduct of any war, and even more so with such a formidable opponent, it was necessary to strengthen their power and restore order in their own state. Tepes set about implementing this program in his usual style.
The first thing, according to historical chronicle, Vlad did, having established himself in the then capital of Wallachia, the city of Targovishte, found out the circumstances of the death of his brother Mircho and punished the perpetrators. He ordered to open the grave of his brother and made sure that, firstly, he was blinded, and secondly, he turned over in his coffin, which proved the fact of being buried alive. According to the chronicle, Easter was just being celebrated in the city and all the inhabitants dressed up in the best clothes. Seeing malicious hypocrisy in such behavior, Tepes ordered that all the inhabitants be put in chains and sent to hard labor to restore one of the castles intended for him. There they had to work until the ceremonial clothes turned into tatters.
The story sounds psychologically quite reliable, and the document in which it is contained seems to be trustworthy. This is not a pamphlet written by Vlad's enemies, but a solid work compiled by an impassive chronicler, and almost simultaneously with the events taking place.
However, let us ask ourselves the question: is it possible to believe this story described in the chronicle?
Power in Wallachia was seized by Vlad on August 22, 1456, after the massacre of a rival, whose death occurred on August 20. What does Easter have to do with it, because it was going towards autumn?
More plausible is the assumption that these events refer to the first accession of Vlad to the throne in 1448, immediately after the death of his brother. However, then he ruled only two autumn months - from October to early December, that is, no Easter holiday couldn't be either.
It turns out that we are dealing with a legend that somehow distorted reality and linked together different incidents that were initially unrelated to each other. Although, perhaps, some of the details that fell into the chronicle correspond to reality. For example, the episode with the opening of Mircho's grave. Such an event could actually happen, and as early as 1448, when Tepes became ruler for the first time.
What is certainly confirmed by the mentioned chronicle is the fact that the legends about the reign of Vlad Tepes began to take shape almost immediately with the beginning of this reign. By the way, although all these stories contained a description of the various cruelties committed by Vlad, their general tone was rather enthusiastic. They all agreed that Tepes in as soon as possible brought order to the country and achieved its prosperity. However, the means that he used in this case are far from being so unanimously enthusiastic in our time.
Since the second accession of Dracula, something unimaginable has been happening in the country. By the beginning of his reign, there were about 500 thousand people under his rule (including those adjacent to Wallachia and controlled areas of Transylvania). For six years (1456-1462), not counting the victims of the war, over 100 thousand were destroyed by Dracula's personal order. Is it possible that a ruler, even a medieval one, would destroy a fifth of his subjects like this for a great life? Even if in some cases it is possible to try to bring terror to some rational basis (intimidation of the opposition, tougher discipline, etc.), the numbers still raise new questions.
The origin of the legends about Dracula requires explanation. Firstly, the activities of Vlad Tepes were depicted in a dozen books - first handwritten, and after the invention made by Gutenberg and printed, created mainly in Germany and in some other European countries. All of them are similar, so, apparently, they rely on some one common source. The most important sources in this case are the poem by M. Behaim (a German who lived in the 1460s at the court of the Hungarian king Matt Korvin), as well as German pamphlets distributed under the title "On a Great Monster" at the end of the same century.
Another group of collections of legends is represented by manuscripts in Russian. They are close to each other, similar to the German books, but in some ways they differ from them. This is an old Russian story about Dracula, written in the 1480s, after the Russian embassy of Ivan III visited Wallachia.
There is also a third source - oral traditions that still exist in Romania - both directly recorded among the people and processed by the famous storyteller P. Ispirescu in the 19th century. They are colorful, but controversial as a support for the search for truth. The fairy-tale element that has accumulated in them over several centuries of oral transmission is too great.

There are such 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. Not far behind is the Hungarian countess, who, according to legend, loved to bathe in the blood of young girls in order to preserve her youth.

This list is endless, but it is worth noting the famous ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III Tepes, who became the prototype of Dracula in the novel of the same name. The life of this wearer of the crown is shrouded in myths and true tales, 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 conjectural facts and date his birth between 1429-1430 and 1436.

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

Vlad spent his childhood in the historical region, the city of Sighisoara. Then 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 possessions of the ruler 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 with 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, together with his brother Radu, were held in voluntary captivity for four years. According to rumors, in Turkey, the brothers watched the torture, and Radu became the object of sexual violence. However, there is no authentic 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 be afraid of during their stay in Turkey was the changeable mood of the Sultan, who liked to touch alcohol.

Governing body

In December 1446, the Hungarians carried out a coup d'état, as a result of which Vlad II was beheaded, and his elder brother Tepes was buried alive in the ground. These events became the background for the formation of the character of Dracula.

The Turkish sultan found out about this Hungarian arbitrariness, and he began to gather troops. Having defeated the Hungarians, the leader of the Ottoman Empire put Tepes on the throne, deposing the Hungarian henchman Vladislav II, who took the throne with the support of the Transylvanian governor Janos Hunyadi.

The Sultan lent Turkish troops to Dracula, 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 managed to hide in Moldova, then in Transylvania, from where he was expelled by Janos' supporters.

In 1456, Tepes again visits Transylvania, where he gathers 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 was noted not only inside Wallachia, but also outside these lands. According to some sources, during his reign Tepes killed about a hundred thousand people, but these data are not confirmed.

He also pursued a church policy aimed at strengthening the church, provided material assistance to the clergy, and also became famous for 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 Tepes in different ways. Some say that he was a pale-faced and thin handsome man with a pitch-black mustache, while others argue that the ruler of Wallachia had a repulsive appearance, and his bulging cold eyes instilled fear in everyone and everyone. But scientists agree on one thing: Vlad Dracul was an infinitely cruel person.

It was not in vain that the ruler was nicknamed the "impaler", since impaling people on a stake was Vlad III's favorite method of execution. Enemies who died such a death bled, so pale bodies hung on pointed sticks (Vlad preferred cola with a rounded top, lubricated with oil, which were inserted into the rectum).

By the way, this is why Vlad Dracula was called a vampire in folklore and literary works, although there is no evidence that Tepes tried 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 such a grave situation and his appetite even increased from the sight of the agony of defeated enemies.

As for the personal life of Tepes, she 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 this is reality or fiction of writers. Rumor has it that Dracula was married twice to certain Elizabeth and Ilona Siladya. The ruler of Wallachia had three sons: Michael, Vlad and Mihnia Evil.

Death

It is said that Vlad III Tepes died in 1476 at the initiative of Layota 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 by the sword during the battle with the Turks (allegedly Dracula was accidentally mistaken for an enemy).

Others testified that Tepes' heart stopped beating for no reason while he sat in the saddle. According to unreliable information, the head of Dracula 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 precious metal medallions engraved with a mythological monster. Also, the parent of Tepes minted coins, where fire-breathing creatures were depicted. The surname Tepes went to Vlad after his death: the Turks awarded the prince with such a nickname, the very word "tepes" means "count".

More than one work has been written about such a colorful character as Vlad III, but a 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 attributed to 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 began to appear about Dracula afraid of the Sun and garlic, 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 skillfully reincarnated as a pale-faced vampire.

Memory

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

The prototype of the book Dracula was not an Anglophile and did not sleep in a coffin, but lived in a Transylvanian castle, caused fear among his subjects and, with certainty, “swallowed” human blood. He spilled it in liters, impaling thousands of unfortunate people. He wasn't a vampire, he was something much scarier. As you already understood from the name, this is the 3rd.

Irish writer Bram Stoker, before writing the novel Dracula, published in 1897, looked for inspiration while in the English city of Whitby. He used for this purpose the collection of the local municipal library, where, probably, he came across a historical reference to the deeds of the absolute master of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula. So the cruel prince became the prototype of the most famous vampire in literature.

In fact III was born in 1431 in the city of Sighisoara in Transylvania. His father Vlad II Dracul was a member of the Order of the Dragon founded by Sisigmund Luxembourg, whose goal was to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe.

Because of this, Vlad received the nickname "Draco" - "dragon", transformed by the people of Wallachia into "Dracul", which means "devil". It was later inherited by Vlad III in the form of "Drăculea", which means "son of the dragon".

Vlad Tepes, being an eleven-year-old boy, fell into Turkish captivity, in which he spent 7 years. After the death of his father, betrayed by the boyars, in 1477, he was elevated to the throne of Wallachia by Sultan Murad II.

However, very quickly, due to the intervention of the Hungarian troops, Vlad had to flee to Moldova. He regained the throne in 1456 with the help of the Hungarians, who were disappointed with the pro-Turkish policy pursued by the previous owner.

Vlad Tepes: Bloody Legends

During his six-year reign, Dracula used an iron fist policy and displayed exceptional cruelty. Without a doubt, he sentenced to death, and his favorite way of depriving him of life was impalement (hence the nickname Tepes, from Rum.

The tyrant's prisoners were skinned, limbed, quartered, or boiled alive in huge cauldrons. Inflicting pain brought him so much satisfaction that he even built a special machine for inflicting sophisticated torture.

In 1457, Vlad decided to get even with the Wallachian nobles. He invited them in for a feast.

After a successful feast, he grabbed them with his families: he ordered the oldest to be immediately impaled around the city, and used all the rest for the grueling construction work of the Poenari Citadel, the famous "Dracula's Castle", the ruins of which are now.

This massacre went down in history under the name "Bloody Easter". At its core, it was a crackdown on political opposition. To justify Dracula, we can say that these boyars were guilty of treason, as a result of which Vlad III's father lost his head, and his brother was buried alive.

Vlad Tepes led an effective internal politics. He focused primarily on strengthening the country's economy.

Assessing the importance of trade in the development of the state, he decided to support the Wallachian merchants by restricting the access of foreign "businessmen" to the markets in three cities: Targsor, Kampulung and Targovishte, which caused their fury. When the Saxon merchants began to try to overthrow the prince, he decided to attack and devastate the Transylvanian city of Brasov.

Wallachian merchants

Vlad's cruelty has become the motif of many legends, more or less true. Allegedly, listening to the groans of people brought Dracula so much joy that he could celebrate and eat among the unfortunate impaled. There is even a 15th-century woodcut depicting the scene.

At one fine moment, one of the courtiers dared to close his nose so as not to hear the smell of decaying bodies. Dracula, who noticed this, felt offended and ordered to put the subject on the highest possible stake, so that he "could rise above the stench."

War with the Sultan

In 1461, the Sultan's chancellor Catatolinos came to the prince with an appeal to pay his debts on a personal tribute. Until that time, peaceful relations with the Turks deteriorated, because Vlad stopped paying jizya - an Islamic tax on non-believers.

Dracula "received" the Sultan's messenger in his own way. Katatolinos was impaled high enough not to "offend the honor" of the Sultan's envoy. Another version of the legend speaks of two ambassadors who were ordered by Vlad to nail their hats to their heads, which they dared not take off before the greatness of the prince.

In the spring of 1462, the army of Mehmed II invaded the Wallachian land. This campaign quickly became devastating to the Ottomans because Vlad was a cunning and shrewd strategist. His behavior was inhuman and merciless, however, extremely effective. He used scorched earth tactics. By his order, villages were burned, and wells and water tanks were poisoned, which made it difficult for the army to march inland.

Tepes knew how to organize deadly ambushes and thoughtful tricks. On June 17, 1462, he attacked the Sultan's camp, dressing the army in Turkish clothes before that. This caused confusion among the Turks, who were unable to recognize the opponents from their comrades. As a result, they fought each other for a long time after the Wallachian army left the battlefield.

At some point, Vlad even applied " biological weapons”, sending infectious patients to the enemy camp. When the Ottomans finally managed to reach Targovishte, Dracula decided to finally break the morale of the enemy.

Twenty thousand Turkish prisoners were placed on the path of the troops, impaled. It was nothing but psychological warfare. The sight of the decomposing bodies of the brothers, being torn to pieces by vultures, caused horror in the hearts of the Turks. The Sultan ordered to retreat.

Vlad Dracula: Black PR

Dracula appears to be an extremely cruel person: a prince who takes pleasure in the sight of torture and murder. However, some historians justify Dracula's behavior. They say it's worth remembering that those were the times.

Killing, poisoning or maiming political enemies were on the agenda. The famous "landing" on a stake was only a variation of the death penalty. IN Western Europe, among other things, was breaking with a wheel, burning at the stake or drowning.

It should also be noted that some of sensational stories about the bloody deeds of Dracula, in fact, slander, promoted by the opponents of the prince.

In 1463, as the printing arts were gaining momentum, a short, six-page pamphlet was published describing the brutality of Vlad III. In fact, it was a pamphlet, the purpose of which was to slander the Wallachian master, and its content was built on the claims of merchants who did not particularly like Dracula.

Similarly, “fair” can be “The Tale of Dracula the Governor” by Michel Beheim. The author, mainly based on rumors, redraws the hypostasis of the Wallachian master, depicting him as a madman, obsessed with bloodlust.

Such libels were very popular. They were born, including in Nuremberg and Strasbourg. Interestingly, jokes about Tepes were “born into the world” in Russian cities as well. Despite the obvious similarities, the Russian libel portrayed Dracula in a much more favorable light, less often describing his violence.

The personality of Tepes, of course, did not improve either the book by Bram Stoker or the films based on it, which, probably, forever reunited the name of the Wallachian master with the image of a bloody vampire.

But the fact remains that Stoker indirectly contributed to the resurrection of this little-known personality, who for many is a model national hero and a freedom fighter for his country, defending Europe from Islamic invaders.