We all know that Dracula, the human-blood fiending bat/ man, is an icon and a legend in our time, but do you know how he came to receive this high honor as one of the scariest figures in history, as well as one of the most popular Halloween costumes? Nicolae Bulat is a visiting Fulbright Scholar here at WU, and the Director of the Soroca Museum of History and Ethnography in his country of Moldova. His museum deals directly with the history of Moldova, a neighboring province of Wallachia, the home of Dracula and the infamous county of Transylvania.
Bulat knows well the evolution of the 15th century Romanian Prince, Vlad Dracula, into the fierce vampire. The prince came into power during crusades against Turks and was interested in protecting Catholicism. ” Dracul,” in Romanian language, means “Dragon.” The Romanians decided to call Vlad Tepes, “Dracul,” after his father’s dragon-like nature.
Prince Dracula was concerned with protecting his country against the Turks, and maintaining independence of Wallachia. He was a very respected and powerful leader to his people, and feared by them as well. Vlad was concerned that all his subjects should work and be productive in this time of conflict, so, he looked upon the poor, vagabonds, and highwaymen, as thieves. He addressed his people and invited them to an enormous barbeque. In accordance with his plan, he knew that the poor and sick of Wallachia would be the only men to attend, because all of the respected peoples would be working. The vagabonds went to his court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. Once they ate and drank until intoxication, Dracula ordered the hall to be locked up with them inside. Dracula’s men surrounded the hall with hay and other flammable objects, and set it on fire. That night, Vlad Dracula burned 341 Hungarian merchants. No one survived.
Starting in 1456 and for the next six years, the prince committed many cruelties, and his controversial reputation developed. His brutal punishment techniques included ordering people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, hacked, nailed, buried alive, and stabbed. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes.
Dracula’s reputation for fierceness extended to his insistence on honesty and order, especially in the tale of the Golden Cup. Dracula wanted to see just how far his power could take him, so he placed a golden cup on display in the central square of Tirgoviste. Thirsty travelers could use the cup to drink from but they could not take it to a well. Dracula declared the cup had to remain on the square. According to the available historic sources, almost any crime could be punished by impalement. Therefore the cup was never stolen and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad’s reign. People were afraid that if they lifted the cup, they would be reported to Dracula as trying to steal it, and thus be speared or worse.
The third story, which helped aid Dracula in his transformation into a fierce killer, is one of a Russian merchant who lied to Dracula about his purse being stolen. When Dracula learned of this money-grubber’s lie, he had two nooses set up. One for the execution of the merchant, and the other for the robber who the merchant claimed stole his purse.
The moral of the story.always be honest, or Dracula will have you killed. Someone eventually had him killed in December 1476.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2001 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.