Vlad Tepes - The Impaler
The order of the Dracul is a Dragon
Born: 1431
Vocation: Prince, or voivode, of Wallachia in modern-day Romania, for seven years during the mid 1400s.
Favorite Self-Picked Nickname: Vlad Draculea, or Vlad the Devil's Son.
Favorite Nickname of Others: Vlad the Impaler (given to him after his death).
Died: 1476. Killed during a battle, either by an enemy combatant, by mistake by his own troops, or by a hired assassin.Was Dracula, the blood-drinking, shape-shifting, coffin-sleeping vampire, based on an actual person? Legend has it that the Bram Stoker, the 19th century author who created the vampire character of Count Dracula, modeled him after the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, a 15th century prince of Wallachia, in modern-day Romania. Was Vlad a vampire?
Even while Vlad was alive, his reputation for cruelty was widespread throughout Europe and in the Ottoman Empire. Vlad controlled his region strictly, and treated his enemies mercilessly. Villagers who refused to pay his taxes, competitors who tried to overthrow his rule, and invading forces met with a broad variety of brutal punishments, including the impaling that he was famous for. Eventually, he became known as Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler.
So where did the name Dracula come from? Vlad’s father, also called Vlad, was its originator. When the King of Hungary made him a knight of the Order of the Dragon, father Vlad added Dracul to his name, which means “dragon” but also “devil.” Vlad junior liked this name so much he called himself Vlad Draculea, to mean the Devil’s son. Later, the nickname was distorted to Dracula.
Despite his cruelty, which some say was no worse than any other European tyrant, Vlad was not a vampire. In fact, there is no evidence Bram Stoker did much research on Vlad the Impaler for his book. And there is no evidence Vlad drank blood.
If that’s the case, where did the connection between Vlad the Impaler and Count Dracula come from? Not from Bram Stoker. Stoker’s novel never mentions the name Vlad although his papers indicate he knew about the historical prince known as Dracul, hence the name of his character. The flawed connection between Vlad and Count Dracula came much later after the novel was published, as historians uncovered more information about Vlad’s life, and Hollywood did the rest to fuse fact and fiction.
