Re: On trial…
Well it seems either nobody has heard or nobody cares… :naak:
Either that or nobody is visiting the History section anymore and I am toiling amidst my dusty tomes and just getting as old as my surroundings here… :cb:
Anyway if you did not know heres a few facts on the Dracula of Myth and what he really was. I continue with my story of Vlad the Impaler 1431-1476
As I have already pointed out the Dracula name was merely a title which originated from the word Dracul and was adopted by Viviode Vlad the second to make him Vlad Dracula. He was forced to accept vassal status and send his two legitimate sons as hostage to the Turkish court at Edirne.
Here is the most popular Painting of Vlad the Impaler.
Here the two boys Vlad (who would become the Impaler) and his younger brother Radu were taught to be loyal vassals of the Turks. Radu liked his tutors and ended up jumping at the chance to join the winning team. Vlad on the other hand was more patriotic and showed his rebbelious side to his captors… not wise becuase the Turks sent him to Tokat fort. Hoping to break this rebelious son of a prince the Turks may have subjected Vlad to cruel treatment but we can be certain that he learned much of the trade he was to become famous for, in the dungeons and torture chambers of Tokat Fort.
Upon the Murder of Vald the second his son was dragged out of his cell by the Turks and told how his father the loyal Vlad had been killed by his noblemen, his eldest son Mircea also buried alive. Vald was propped up by the Turks who invaded Wallachia and put Vlad on the seat of power…
The result was that in the three periods in which he ruled Vlad came to be known as Tepes (Impaler) by his own people and Kaziklu Bey (Impaler lord) by the Turks. The name came from his famed prefference of killing enemies and anyone who incured his displeasure by using the stake.
Offcourse this cruel and terrible method of execution was used since ancient times… but Vlad took it to terrible proportions.
But was he really this cruel or were the stories much made up by his opponents mere propaganda. In fact unlucky for Vlad the Impaler, his life was one in which the printing press had been invented in the German states and other parts of Europe. Just his luck that one of the first popular subjects of mass produced litrature were horror stories of Vlads actions and all this was published while he was still alive.
Vlad is also known thanks to the recent book Dracula popular fiction in the last century by Bram Stoker. However Stokers work is completely unrelated to the real Vlad and mentions him in perhaps a five line passage… Stoker however was writing a horror story that was already old news.
Heres some accounts of the real man. I advise those of sensitive nature to skip the section of red it makes very frightfull reading.
**One of his earliest actions was taken against the nobles of Tirgoviste whom he held responsible for the deaths of his father and brother. According to an early Romanian chronicle, in the spring of 1457, Vlad invited the nobles and their families to an Easter feast. After his guests had finished their meal, Vlad’s soldiers surrounded them, rounded up the able-bodied and marched them fifty miles up the Arges River to Poenari, where they were forced to build his mountain fortress. His prisoners labored under very difficult conditions for many months. Those who survived the gruelling ordeal were impaled. **
"He had some of his people buried naked up to the navel and had them shot at. He also had some roasted and flayed. "
“He captured the young Dan [of the rival Danesti clan] and had a grave dug for him and had a funeral service held according to Christian custom and beheaded him beside the grave.”
“He had a large pot made and boards with holes fastened over it and had people’s heads shoved through there and imprisoned them in this. And he had the pot filled with water and a big fire made under the pot and thus let the people cry out pitiably until they were boiled quite to death.”
“He devised dreadful, frightful, unspeakable torments, such as impaling together mothers and children nursing at their breasts so that the children kicked convulsively at their mothers’ breasts until dead. In like manner he cut open mothers’ breasts and stuffed their children’s heads through and thus impaled both.”
**"He had all kinds of people impaled sideways: Christians, Jews, heathens, so that they moved and twitched and whimpered in confusion a long time like frogs. **
**“About three hundred gypsies came into his country. Then he selected the best three of them and had them roasted; these the others had to eat.” **
If you think most of that was made up, it is not even close to his most horrific acts. Vlad was most famous for having created a forest of impaled corpses, so frightening was this sight that the Sultan Mehemt the Fatih (conqueror of Istanbul) was forced to pull back his army horrified at this site which would have been as scary as a Nuclear weapon in our times.
Over the centuries however Vlad has had many depections and some are obviously lies and here is the opening passage of one of the Paphlets published about him.
The Frightening and Truly Extraordinary Story of a Wicked Blood-drinking Tyrant Called Prince Dracula.
Such sensationalsim is the reason that his forest of stakes attrocity has swelled from a few hundred corpses to tens of thousands.
Here are the facts.
There is not a scrap of evidence to support that Vlad ever drank or even came close to drinking blood.
Vlad was not a count he was actually a nobleman of greater rank equivalent to a Prince.
His barbaric cruelty was not as unique as it seems contemporary rulers used eqaully brutal means against thier people. Ivan the Terrible is far worse than Dracula ever was and yet he gets much less attention.
Vlad was the last of the Order of the Dragon a long finished order of Crusaders originally created to fight a holy war against the Turks.
Vlad was a powerfull ruler who is loved by his own people and feared by his enemies.
Bran Castle was not his home, if anything it was built long after he had passed away. In fact the real Castle Dracula is the ruins of Peonari Castle much further North.
http://www.travelswithsheila.com/castle2.jpg
Here is the Classic image of Dracula’s Castle.
This is the Real thing.
Dracula was not from Transilvania he ruled the Principality of Wallachia now part of Romania.
So what can we summarise about this man?
While he certainly was not the blood drinking count of fiction… he certainly existed and perhaps deos deserve his title but he is not as bad as the books make out.
I hope nobody has nightmares after this. Becuase oue next historical Villain is just as dramatic and well known and much worse. :eek:
Look forward to seeing you guys again soon and thanks for reading.
in this world and definately if theres any Justice in the next world.
