Vlad III of Wallachia Hagyakborn in Sighisoara in 1431 and died in Bucharest between 1476 and 1477, was a Romanian aristocrat, prince of Wallachia in the 15th century. He reigned in three different periods, two of which were very short, and had to deal with the rise of the Ottoman Empirewho after some wars managed to defeat him. Maybe Vlad was suffering from haemolacrythe disease in which tears contain blood. While he was still alive, stories began to circulate accusing him of worse atrocities and atrocities (but not different from those carried out by other sovereigns of the time). It was said, in particular, that he had enemies and prisoners condemned to an atrocious death, that of impalement and, not surprisingly, after his death he was nicknamed Vlad the Impaler. In 1897 the Irish writer Bram Stoker drew inspiration from these legends to create the character of count Dracula (whose name is related to terms such as “dragon”, “snake”, “devil”), a vampire who needs to drink the blood of other human beings to survive and who lives in a castle in Transylvaniaa region of Romania.
Who was Vlad III “the Impaler”
To create the figure of Dracula, Bram Stoker drew inspiration from a real-life character: Vlad III Draculeaborn in 1431 in the city of Sighisoara. Vlad was the voivode (prince) of Wallachia, a region now included in Romania, south of Transylvania. He was the son of Vlad II Draculwho had this name because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order created by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg. Therefore Vlad III was also known by the patronymic of Draculeathat is, son of Dracul.
Vlad II was voivode from 1436 to 1447 (with an interruption between 1442 and 1443) and had to face the progressive expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which, starting from Anatolia, conquered vast territories in the Balkan peninsula. Vlad II was forced to hand over his sons, Vlad (i.e. the future Vlad III) and Radu, to Sultan Murad II, who held them as hostages.
In 1447 the kingdom of Hungary, led by the regent Janos Huniadyinvaded Wallachia and in the ensuing battle Vlad II was killed. Murad II, wanting to prevent Wallachia from falling under Hungarian control, freed Vlad III and placed him on the Wallachian throne. Vlad, however, was overthrown by his rival Vladislav II only two months later and forced into exile. He fled to Hungary, where he was reconciled with Hunyadi, and in 1456 he regained the throne.
How Vlad III of Wallachia died: the clash with the Ottomans
Vlad had to face the expansion of the Ottomans, who in 1453, under the leadership of the new Sultan Mohammed II, had conquered Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine Empire. The voivode refused to submit and repelled an invasion in 1462. The victory was celebrated as a success of Christianity by the Pope and the European States. The Ottomans, however, soon returned to the assault, also taking advantage of the support of Radu, who had remained with the sultan, defeated the voivode and replaced him with his brother.
Vlad took refuge in Hungary, but the sovereign Mattia Corvinoson of Hunyadi, had him imprisoned, not wanting to risk having to wage war with the Ottomans. In 1475, after Radu’s death, Vlad III regained the Wallachian throne, benefiting from Hungarian support, but after a few months he died in circumstances that have never been clarified, probably killed by men linked to Radu or by the Ottomans.
There is also a version of the story according to which the voivode was taken prisoner by the Ottomans and then ransomed by his daughter, who then took him to safety in Italy. According to this version, Vlad’s body he would be buried in Naplesin the church of Santa Maria la Nova. However, this is a story without foundation, also because it does not appear from any reliable source that the voivode had a daughter.
Is it true that Vlad III Draculea was cruel and bloodthirsty?
Ever since he was alive, Vlad III was accused of worse cruelties and atrocities. It was said that he frequently inflicted the penalty of impalementthat is, a particularly cruel form of death sentence, in which the condemned person is pierced with a stake through the anal orifice; if vital organs are not damaged, impalement does not immediately cause death but gives rise to atrocious suffering. It was also said of Vlad that, faced with two Ottoman ambassadors who had refused to remove his turban, he ordered it literally nailed to their heads; that he loved to feast in the presence of the impaled bodies of his enemies and that he boiled their bodies; finally that after the victory against the Turks he had thousands and thousands of prisoners impaled, creating a sort of forest of corpses.
The black legend began to circulate on the initiative of Mattia Corvinowho in 1463, the year after having Vlad imprisoned, published a pamphlet full of anecdotes about the cruelty of his enemy.
How much truth was there? Vlad was certainly a cruel and bloodthirsty rulerwho condemned his enemies to impalement or other torture. However, it is very likely that the stories contain exaggerations. Also, Vlad he was not the only sovereign to use such methods. In his time, in fact, respect for human life and for people’s suffering was very different from today. Torture and atrocious punishments were frequently used by almost all political and religious authorities, also with the aim of instilling terror in their enemies. To give an example, Murad II had the sons of the despot of Serbia, his prisoners, blinded with two red-hot irons on the suspicion that they wanted to escape.
Accusing Vlad of brutality and sadism was also necessary to justify his arrestgiven that, thanks to the war against the Turks, he was considered a hero of Christianity. In Romania, moreover, the voivode is still today considered a national herocapable of defending the country’s independence.
The black legend, in any case, continued to circulate. It was inspired by it that at the end of the 19th century the Irish writer Bram Stoker created the character of Count Dracula, associating the figure of Vlad with that of vampires and inventing or altering numerous other details, starting from the setting in Transylvania instead of Wallachia .
