dracula essays on the life and times of vlad the impaler

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Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler Paperback – 31 Dec. 2019

• Print length 444 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Center for Romanian Studies
• Publication date 31 Dec. 2019
• Dimensions 13.97 x 2.79 x 21.59 cm
• ISBN-10 159211010X
• ISBN-13 978-1592110100
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Center for Romanian Studies; 2nd Revised ed. edition (31 Dec. 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 444 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 159211010X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1592110100
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.79 x 21.59 cm
• 5,192 in Royal Historical Biographies
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• 18,263 in European Historical Biographies

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Dracula: Essays of the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler Kindle Edition

Dracula – the fifteenth-century Romanian prince, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. This book includes a wide range of studies on the life and times of Vlad III Dracula by leading historians and scholars from around the world. It presents a diversity of viewpoints, allowing the reader to understand the different historical perspectives with which Vlad is viewed in modern historiography. It also includes a wealth of supplementary materials, essential for anyone interested in learning about the life of Vlad the Impaler. Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler penetrates the myths surrounding the real Dracula to uncover the true story of this legendary historical figure. Edited by Dr. Kurt W. Treptow, author of Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula , it includes works by leading American, British, and Romanian scholars on Vlad the Impaler, including Constantin C. Giurescu, Veniamin Ciobanu, Matei Cazacu, Kurt W, Treptow, Radu R. Florescu, Raymond T. McNally, and others.

• Print length 496 pages
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Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler Paperback – 1 Dec. 2019

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Dracula – the fifteenth-century Romanian prince, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. This book includes a wide range of studies on the life and times of Vlad III Dracula by leading historians and scholars from around the world. It presents a diversity of viewpoints, allowing the reader to understand the different historical perspectives with which Vlad is viewed in modern historiography. It also includes a wealth of supplementary materials, essential for anyone interested in learning about the life of Vlad the Impaler. Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler penetrates the myths surrounding the real Dracula to uncover the true story of this legendary historical figure. Edited by Dr. Kurt W. Treptow, author of Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula , it includes works by leading American, British, and Romanian scholars on Vlad the Impaler, including Constantin C. Giurescu, Veniamin Ciobanu, Matei Cazacu, Kurt W, Treptow, Radu R. Florescu, Raymond T. McNally, and others.

• Print length 442 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Center for Romanian Studies
• Publication date 1 Dec. 2019
• Dimensions 13.97 x 2.79 x 21.59 cm
• ISBN-10 159211010X
• ISBN-13 978-1592110100
• See all details

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Edited by Dr. Kurt W. Treptow , author of Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Center for Romanian Studies; Expanded edition (1 Dec. 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 442 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 159211010X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1592110100
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.79 x 21.59 cm
• 4,123 in Royal Historical Biographies
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• 9,449 in General History of the Middle Ages

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Dracula: Essays of the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler Kindle Edition

Dracula – the fifteenth-century Romanian prince, also known as Vlad the Impaler, is one of the most fascinating personalities of medieval history. This book includes a wide range of studies on the life and times of Vlad III Dracula by leading historians and scholars from around the world. It presents a diversity of viewpoints, allowing the reader to understand the different historical perspectives with which Vlad is viewed in modern historiography. It also includes a wealth of supplementary materials, essential for anyone interested in learning about the life of Vlad the Impaler. Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler penetrates the myths surrounding the real Dracula to uncover the true story of this legendary historical figure. Edited by Dr. Kurt W. Treptow, author of Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula , it includes works by leading American, British, and Romanian scholars on Vlad the Impaler, including Constantin C. Giurescu, Veniamin Ciobanu, Matei Cazacu, Kurt W, Treptow, Radu R. Florescu, Raymond T. McNally, and others.

• Print length 496 pages
• Language English
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• Publisher Center for Romanian Studies
• Publication date May 6, 2020
• File size 3847 KB
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Center for Romanian Studies; 2nd Revised edition (May 6, 2020)
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• ISBN 10  1592110096
• ISBN 13  9781592110094
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• Number of pages 444
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Vlad the Impaler's thirst for blood was an inspiration for Count Dracula

The ruthless brutality of vlad iii of walachia, forged by the 15th-century clash between the kingdom of hungary and the ottoman empire, would partly inspire bram stoker's classic vampire novel centuries later..

Dracula, prince of darkness, lord of the undead! This mythical character leaped onto the page from the fevered imagination of Irish writer Bram Stoker in 1897. But the historical figure who shares a name with the literary icon was no less fearsome. Vlad III Draculea was the voivode (a prince-like military leader) of Walachia—a principality that joined with Moldavia in 1859 to form Romania—on and off between 1448 and 1476. Also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracula (son of the Dragon), and—most famously—Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes in Romanian), he was a brutal, sadistic leader famous for torturing his foes. By some estimates he is responsible for the deaths of more than 80,000 people in his lifetime—a large percentage of them by impalement.

Vlad III’s cruelty was real, but his reputation as a villain spread through 15th-century Europe thanks to the printing press, whose rise coincided with his reign. Propagandist pamphlets written by his enemies became best sellers. Centuries later, the sinister reputation of Vlad the Impaler took on new life when Stoker came across the name Dracula in an old history book, learned that it could also mean “devil” in Walachia, and gave the name to his fictional vampire. Yet today Vlad III is something of a national hero in Romania, where he is remembered for defending his people from foreign invasion, whether Turkish soldiers or German merchants.

( How did 18th-century vampire hunters identify the undead? Blood and fingernails .)

Family history

Vlad III, the second of four brothers, was likely born in 1431 in Transylvania, a craggy, verdant part of present-day Romania (it officially became part of that country in 1947). His mother was Princess Cneajna of Moldavia. His father, Vlad II, was an illegitimate son of a Walachian noble who spent his youth at the court of Sigismund of Luxembourg, king of Hungary and future Holy Roman emperor.

The same year that Vlad III was born, his father was admitted to the Order of the Dragon. Like other chivalric orders, this Christian military society, founded in 1408 by Sigismund, was modelled broadly on the medieval crusaders; its members were 24 high-ranking knights pledged to fight heresy and stop Ottoman expansion. Upon joining the order, Vlad II was granted the surname Dracul (Dragon). His son Vlad III was known as Vlad Draculea, or Dracula, “son of the Dragon.” In 1436 Sigismund made Vlad II voivode of Walachia, but Vlad II did not stay loyal. He soon switched sides and allied himself with Ottoman leader Sultan Murad II. To guarantee loyalty, Murad required Vlad II to hand over two of his sons, Vlad III and Radu the Fair.

In 1447 Vlad II was ousted as ruler of Walachia by local boyars, or aristocrats, and subsequently captured and killed. That same year, Vlad III’s older brother, Mircea II, was blinded and buried alive. Janos Hunyadi, regent of Hungary, who had instigated Vlad II’s assassination, appointed Vladislav II, another Walachian nobleman, to be the new voivode. Historians cannot say for sure if these events motivated Vlad III’s thirst for revenge, but one thing is clear: Soon after he was released from Ottoman captivity, around 1447, Vlad III began his fight for power.

( Why the Ottoman empire rose and fell .)

In 1448, with Ottoman help, Vlad III, then 16 years old, expelled Vladislav II from Walachia and ascended the throne. He lasted only two months as voivode before the Hungarians reinstated Vladislav. Vlad III went into exile; little is known about his next eight years, as he moved around the Ottoman Empire and Moldavia.

Sometime during this period he seems to have switched sides in the Ottoman-Hungarian conflict, gaining the military support of Hungary. Vladislav II changed allegiances, too, and joined the Turks—a move that set up a clash between the two claimants to the throne of Walachia. Vlad III met Vladislav on the outskirts of Targoviste on July 22, 1456, and beheaded him during hand-to-hand combat. Vlad III’s rule had begun.

Rule of terror

Walachia had been ravaged by the ceaseless Ottoman-Hungarian conflict and the internecine strife among feuding boyars. Trade had ceased, fields lay fallow, and the land was overrun by lawlessness. Vlad III began his reign with a strict crackdown on crime, employing a zero-tolerance policy for even minor offences, such as lying. He handpicked commoners, even foreigners, for public positions, a move to cement power by creating officials who were completely dependent on him. As voivode, he could appoint, dismiss, and even execute his new officials at will.

As for the boyars—the high-ranking figures who had killed his father and older brother— Vlad III had a retributive plan. In 1459 he invited 200 of them to a great Easter banquet, together with their families. There, he had the women and the elderly stabbed to death and impaled; the men he forced into slave labour. Many of these workers would die of exhaustion while building Poenari Castle, one of Vlad III’s favourite residences.

To replace the boyars, Vlad III created new elites: the viteji, a military division made up of farmers who had distinguished themselves on the battlefield, and the sluji, a kind of national guard. He also liberated Walachia’s peasants and artisans, freeing them from the tributes that they used to pay to the Ottoman Empire.

Which is not to say that Vlad III’s domestic policies were benevolent. The brutal justice meted out to his enemies was sometimes applied to his own people as well. To get rid of homeless people and beggars, whom he viewed as thieves, he invited a large number to a feast, locked the doors, and burned them all alive. He exterminated Romanies or had them forcibly enlisted into the army. He imposed heavy tax burdens on the German population and blocked their trade when they refused to pay.

Many of the Germans under Vlad III’s aegis were Saxons. Not to be confused with the Anglo-Saxons of England, these were German migrants who had settled in Transylvania in the 12th century after the region was conquered by Hungary. They were mostly well-to-do merchants, but to Vlad III, they were allies of his enemies.

Over the next few years, Vlad III razed entire Saxon villages and impaled thousands of people. In 1459, when the Transylvanian Saxon city of Kronstadt (today Brasov) supported a rival of Vlad III’s, the voivode’s response was savage. After initially placing trade restrictions on Saxon goods in Walachia, he had 30,000 people impaled—and reportedly dined among them so he could witness their suffering personally. He also had Kronstadt burned to the ground. Back in Walachia, he impaled Saxon merchants who violated his trade laws.

Although Vlad continued to identify himself with the prestigious Order of the Dragon, signing his name Wladislaus Dragwlya (“son of the Dragon”), his enemies at this time gave him the less noble sobriquet Tepes—“the Impaler.”

Vlad III mounted several bloody attacks against Catholic communities, too, and had the support of many of his people who, as Orthodox Chris- tians, felt discriminated against by Hungarians and Saxon Catholics in Transylvania. Cities including Sibiu, Tara Barsei, Amlas, and Fagara were targeted and suffered many losses before surrendering in 1460. These reprisals came to the attention of Pope Pius II, who produced a report in 1462 claiming that Vlad III had killed some 40,000 people.

Drastic measures

Vlad III’s foreign policy differed from that of his father, and from many other leaders of the time. He never stopped opposing the Turks—in this he had the support of Matthias Corvinus, aka Matthias I, son of Janos Hunyadi, and king of Hungary.

Vlad III’s tactics, both on and off the battlefield, against the Turks were extraordinarily brutal. In 1459 Mehmed II sent an embassy to Vlad III, claiming a tribute of 10,000 ducats and 300 young boys. When the diplomats declined to remove their turbans, citing religious custom, Vlad III saluted their devotion— by nailing their hats to their heads. In 1461 the Turks offered to meet Vlad for a peace parley; in reality they intended to ambush him. Vlad III responded with a foray into the Turkish dominions south of the Danube.

In the spring of 1462, Mehmed II assembled an army of 90,000 men and advanced on Walachia. After conducting a series of night raids and guerrilla warfare, Vlad III employed his trademark tactic, impaling more than 23,000 prisoners with their families and putting them on display along the enemy’s route, outside the city of Targoviste.“There were infants affixed to their mothers on the stakes,” writes the French historian Matei Cazacu, “and birds had made their nests in their entrails.”The sight was so horrifying that Mehmed II, after seeing the “forest” of the dead, turned around and marched back to Constantinople . Vlad III wrote to Matthias I explaining that he had “killed peasants, men and women, old and young . . . We killed 23,884 Turks, without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers.” To prove the truth of his words, he produced sacks full of severed noses and ears. As Vlad III himself recognised, most of the victims were simple peasants—Serbian Christians and Bulgarians who had been subjugated by the Turks.

The Turks ultimately prevailed because the Walachian boyars had defected to Radu, Vlad III’s brother. Radu guaranteed the aristocracy that by siding with the Ottomans, they would regain the privileges that Vlad III had stripped from them. Radu attracted support from the Romanian population, who were tired of Vlad III’s bloodlust.

Vlad III’s power, money, and troops had ebbed away so much that Matthias I was able to take him prisoner in 1462. Vlad was imprisoned in Hungary for 12 years, while power changed hands several times in Walachia. Around 1475 Matthias I sent Vlad III to recover Walachia for Hungary. In November 1476 Vlad III scored an initial victory, but one month later suffered a brutal defeat. His rival, backed by Ottoman troops, ambushed, killed, and beheaded him. By most accounts his severed head was sent to Mehmed II in Constantinople to be put on display above the city’s gates.

Despite all that, Vlad III might have been a mere footnote of the Middle Ages if it were not for a book published in 1820. Written by William Wilkinson, the British consul to Walachia, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them delves into the region’s history and mentions the notorious warlord Vlad the Impaler.

Bram Stoker never visited Vlad’s homeland but was known to have come across Wilkinson’s book in 1890. Afterward, he wrote the following: “Voivode (Dracula): Dracula in Wallachian language means DEVIL. Wallachians were accustomed to give it as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning.” While the life of Vlad the Impaler had long since ended, the enduring legend of Dracula was just beginning.

A monstrous reputation

Was Vlad Dracula the only inspiration for Bram Stoker’s best-selling vampire?

Irish writer Bram Stoker published a novel in 1897, set in Transylvania, with a mysterious vampire as its hypnotic villain. Dracula thrilled readers who began to speculate on the source of Stoker’s inspiration. Many theorised that the bloody life of Vlad the Impaler, the medieval Walachian ruler also known as Dracula, was Stoker’s sole basis for the character, but Stoker drew on many sources for his most infamous creation.

Vampires were in vogue in the late Victorian period, and Stoker would have likely been familiar with earlier Gothic works such as Goethe’s poem The Bride of Corinth (1797); “The Vampyre” (1819), a short story by John W. Polidori; and the novella Carmilla (1872), by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. The notable connections between Dracula and Captain Vampire (1879)—a novel written 18 years before Stoker’s book, by 19-year-old Marie Nizet, a Belgian woman related to Romanian exiles—have also been pointed out.

Stoker had certainly read about vampirism in the Carpathians, and in 1890 was writing a novel called The Un-Dead , about a fictional character he called Count Wampyr. While on vacation that year in Whitby, England, Stoker found a rare book in the local library titled An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), written by British diplomat William Wilkinson. It mentioned the voivode Dracula, explaining in a footnote that in the Walachian language, dracul means “devil,” while in Hungarian it means “dragon.”

Stoker soon transformed his Wampyr into Dracula. In the course of the novel, when the titular character sketches a historical panorama to his guest Jonathan Harker, it is surely Wilkinson’s account that lies behind it. Given all these connections, it seems highly likely that Vlad III’s life must have provided some material for Stoker’s novel.

More recently, however, some scholars and historians have advanced an intriguing alternative theory for the primary source for Dracula: a 19th-century cholera epidemic that killed up to 1,000 people in the town of Sligo, in western Ireland. Stoker’s mother, Charlotte Thornley, survived it as a 14-year-old girl and later described it for her son in grisly detail.

In 2018 Irish researchers, led by Marion McGarry of the Sligo Stoker Society, studied Thornley’s writing. “Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him,” wrote McGarry, “and he supplemented with his own research of Sligo’s epidemic.”

The outbreak caused pandemonium. To stop people from fleeing Sligo and spreading the plague, officials dug trenches around the town and blocked off the roads. Corpses lay in the street. Doctors and nurses took cholera patients, stupefied by opium or laudanum, and prematurely placed them in mass graves.

Stoker was fascinated by his mother’s description of cholera victims who were buried alive—a link, perhaps, to Dracula’s undead state. In a rare interview about Dracula, the famously private Stoker acknowledged that his story was “inspired by the idea of someone being buried before they were fully dead.”

Stoker’s horror novel inflamed imaginations, and decades later, Bela Lugosi’s iconic 1931 portrayal of Count Dracula on the silver screen made the word Dracula synonymous with vampire. The Hungarian actor’s accent and dark good looks brought the Transylvanian count to life and inspired countless imitations.

Places associated with the Dracula legend are popular destinations. Some, like Poenari Castle in Romania, which was an important fortress for the voivode, are associated with Vlad III. Other locations, like Bran Castle ( popularly known as Castle Dracula ) in Romania have no connection with Vlad III. Some argue that Bran Castle was Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula’s home in the novel, but Stoker never visited Romania, so he could not have seen it in person.

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Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Tepes

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Well-known collection of essays by the leading scholars on Vlad the Impaler. Includes an extensive chronology and bibliography.

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Vlad the Impaler: The real Dracula

Vlad the Impaler was a medieval prince whose bloodthirsty acts inspired the world's most famous Vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula

• The real Dracula
• Origins of the Dracula name

Years of captivity

Vlad the prince.

• Nickname "The Impaler"
• Death of the real Dracula

Legends of vampires go back centuries, but few names have cast more terror into the human heart than Dracula. However the fictional character, created by author Bram Stoker, was in fact based on a real historical figure called Vlad the Impaler. 

Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, was a 15th-century warlord, in what today is Romania, in south-eastern Europe. Stoker used elements of Vlad's real story for the title character of his 1897 novel " Dracula ." The book has since inspired countless horror movies, television shows and other bloodcurdling tales. However, according to historians and literary scholars, such as Elizabeth Miller who has studied the link between Stoker's character and Vlad III, the two Draculas don't really have much in common.

Who was the real Dracula?

Vlad the Impaler is believed to have been born in 1431 in what is now Transylvania, the central region of modern-day Romania. However, the link between Vlad the Impaler and Transylvania is a matter of some debate, according to Florin Curta, a professor of medieval history and archaeology at the University of Florida.

"Dracula is linked to Transylvania, but the real, historic Dracula — Vlad III — never owned anything in Transylvania," Curta told Live Science. Bran Castle, a modern-day tourist attraction in Transylvania that is often referred to as Dracula's castle, was never the residence of the Wallachian prince, he added.

"Because the castle is in the mountains in this foggy area and it looks spooky, it's what one would expect of Dracula's castle," Curta said. "But he [Vlad III] never lived there. He never even stepped foot there."

Related: Bram Stoker's Vampire victim shows 'textbook' Leukemia symptoms

Vlad III's father, Vlad II, did own a residence in Sighişoara, Transylvania, but it is not certain that Vlad III was born there, according to Curta. It's also possible, he said, that Vlad the Impaler was born in Târgovişte, which was at that time the royal seat of the principality of Wallachia, where his father was a "voivode," or ruler. There is also Castelul Corvinilor, also known as Castle Corvin , where Vlad may have been imprisoned by Hungarian Governor John Hunyadi.

It is possible for tourists to visit one castle where Vlad III certainly spent time. At about age 12, Vlad III and his brother were imprisoned in Turkey. In 2014, archaeologists found the likely location of the dungeon, according to Smithsonian Magazine . Tokat Castle is located in northern Turkey. It is an eerie place with secret tunnels and dungeons that is currently under restoration and open to the public.

Where does the name Dracula come from?

In 1431, King Sigismund of Hungary, who would later become the Holy Roman Emperor, according to the British Museum , inducted the elder Vlad into a knightly order, the Order of the Dragon. This designation earned Vlad II a new surname: Dracul. The name came from the old Romanian word for dragon, "drac." 

His son, Vlad III, would later be known as the "son of Dracul" or, in old Romanian, Drăculea, hence Dracula, according to Historian Constantin Rezachevici (" From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula " Journal of Dracula Studies, Vol 1, 1999). In modern Romanian, the word "drac" refers to the Devil , Curta said. 

According to " Dracula: Sense and Nonsense " (Desert Island Books, 2020) by Elizabeth Miller, in 1890 Stoker read a book about Wallachia. Although it did not mention Vlad III, Stoker was struck by the word "Dracula." He wrote in his notes, "in Wallachian language means DEVIL." It is therefore likely that Stoker chose to name his character Dracula for the word's devilish associations. 

The theory that Vlad III and Dracula were the same person was developed and popularized by historians Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally in their book " In Search of Dracula ” (The New York Graphic Society, 1972). Though far from accepted by all historians, the thesis took hold of the public imagination, according to The New York Times . 

According to Constantin Rezachevici, the Order of the Dragon was devoted to a singular task: the defeat of the Turkish, or Ottoman Empire. Situated between Christian Europe and the Muslim lands of the Ottoman Empire, Vlad II's (and later Vlad III's) home principality of Wallachia was frequently the scene of bloody battles as Ottoman forces pushed westward into Europe, and Christian forces repulsed the invaders.

When Vlad II was called to a diplomatic meeting in 1442 with Ottoman Sultan Murad II, he brought his young sons Vlad III and Radu along. But the meeting was actually a trap: All three were arrested and held hostage. The elder Vlad was released under the condition that he leave his sons behind. James S. Kessler (" Echoes of Empire ," Lulu Publishing, 2016) argues that Vlad II "sent Vlad Junior and his brother Radu cel Frumos as 'royal hostages' to the Ottoman court."

"The sultan held Vlad and his brother as hostages to ensure that their father, Vlad II, behaved himself in the ongoing war between Turkey and Hungary," said Miller, a research historian and professor emeritus at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada.

Under the Ottomans, Vlad and his younger brother were tutored in science, philosophy and the arts. According to Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, Vlad also became a skilled horseman and warrior. 

"They were treated reasonably well by the current standards of the time," Miller said. "Still, [captivity] irked Vlad, whereas his brother sort of acquiesced and went over to the Turkish side. But Vlad held enmity, and I think it was one of his motivating factors for fighting the Turks: to get even with them for having held him captive."

While Vlad and Radu were in Ottoman hands, Vlad's father was fighting to keep his place as voivode of Wallachia, a fight he would eventually lose. In 1447, Vlad II was ousted as ruler of Wallachia by local noblemen ( boyars ) and was killed in the swamps near Bălteni, halfway between Târgovişte and Bucharest in present-day Romania, according to John Akeroyd (" The Historical Dracula ", History Ireland, Vol 17 No.2, 2009). Vlad's older half-brother, Mircea, was killed alongside his father. 

Not long after these harrowing events, in 1448, Vlad embarked on a campaign to regain his father's seat from the new ruler, Vladislav II. His first attempt at the throne relied on the military support of the Ottoman governors of the cities along the Danube River in northern Bulgaria, according to Curta. Vlad also took advantage of the fact that Vladislav was absent at the time, having gone to the Balkans to fight the Ottomans for the governor of Hungary at the time, John Hunyadi.

Vlad won back his father's seat, but his time as ruler of Wallachia was short-lived. He was deposed after only two months, when Vladislav II returned and took back the throne of Wallachia with the assistance of Hunyadi, according to Curta.

Little is known about Vlad III's whereabouts between 1448 and 1456. But it is known that he switched sides in the Ottoman-Hungarian conflict, giving up his ties with the Ottoman governors of the Danube cities and obtaining military support from King Ladislaus V of Hungary, who happened to dislike Vlad's rival — Vladislav II of Wallachia — according to Curta. Meanwhile, Vladislav II sought aid from Ottoman ruler Mehmed II.

Vlad III's political and military tack truly came to the forefront amid the fall of Constantinople in 1453. After the fall, the Ottomans were in a position to invade all of Europe. In July 1456, as the Ottomans and Hunyadi’s forces were locked in battle, Vlad led a small force of exiled boyars, Hungarians and Romanian mercenaries against his old enemy Vladislav II at Târgoviște, according to McNally and Florescu in "Dracula, Prince of Many Face" (Little, Brown and Company, 1990). "He had the satisfaction of killing his mortal enemy and his father’s assassin in hand-to-hand combat," they wrote.

Vlad, who had already solidified his anti-Ottoman position, was proclaimed voivode of Wallachia in 1456, according to Elizabeth Miller (" A Dracula Handbook ," Xlibris, 2005). One of his first orders of business in his new role was to stop paying an annual tribute to the Ottoman sultan — a measure that had formerly ensured peace between Wallachia and the Ottomans.

Why is Vlad called "The Impaler"?

To consolidate his power as voivode, Vlad needed to quell the incessant conflicts that had historically taken place between Wallachia's boyars. According to Constantin Rezachevici (" Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad the Impaler " Center for Romanian Studies, 2019) "during a banquet given by him at the palace in Târgoviște, Vlad the Impaler ordered the impaling of some 500 Boyars (perhaps only really 50) with the accusation that their ‘shameless disunity’ was the cause of the frequent changing of the princes in Wallachia". 

This is just one of many gruesome events that earned Vlad his posthumous nickname, Vlad the Impaler. This story, and others like it, is documented in printed material from around the time of Vlad III's rule, according to Miller.

"In the 1460s and 1470s, just after the invention of the printing press , a lot of these stories about Vlad were circulating orally, and then they were put together by different individuals in pamphlets and printed," Miller said.

Whether or not these stories are wholly true or significantly embellished is debatable, Miller added. After all, many of those printing the pamphlets were hostile to Vlad III. But some of the pamphlets from this time tell almost the exact same gruesome stories about Vlad, leading Miller to believe that the tales are at least partially historically accurate. Some of these legends were also collected and published in a book, " The Tale of Dracula ," in 1490, by a monk who presented Vlad III as a fierce, but just ruler.

Vlad is credited with impaling dozens of Saxon merchants in Kronstadt (present-day Braşov, Romania), who were once allied with the boyars, in 1456, according to Kristen Wright (" Disgust and Desire: The Paradox of the Monster ," Brill Rodopi, 2018). Around the same time, a group of Ottoman envoys allegedly had an audience with Vlad but declined to remove their turbans, citing a religious custom. 

Commending them on their religious devotion, Vlad ensured that their turbans would forever remain on their heads by reportedly having the head coverings nailed to their skulls, according to McNally and Florescu.

"After Mehmet II — the one who conquered Constantinople — invaded Wallachia in 1462, he actually was able to go all the way to Wallachia's capital city of Târgoviște but found it deserted. And in front of the capital he found the bodies of the Ottoman prisoners of war that Vlad had taken — all impaled," Curta said.

In one battle on June 17th, 1462, known as the Night Attack at Târgoviște, Vlad III and Mehmed II’s forces fought from three hours after sunset until about four in the morning, at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, according to McNally and Florescu. The attack was an attempt to assassinate Mehmed II, but using only torches and flares, the Wallachian forces were unable to locate his tent and the alarm was raised. McNally and Florescu estimate 5,000 of Vlad men were lost to 15,000 Ottomans, but point out that it was, "an act of extraordinary temerity, which is celebrated in Romanian literature and popular folklore."

Vlad's victories over the invading Ottomans were celebrated throughout Wallachia, Transylvania and the rest of Europe — even Pope Pius II was impressed.

"The reason he's a positive character in Romania is because he is reputed to have been a just, though a very harsh, ruler," Curta said. 

How did Vlad the Impaler die?

Not long after the impalement of Ottoman prisoners of war, in August 1462, Vlad was forced into exile in Hungary, unable to defeat his much more powerful adversary, Mehmet II. Vlad was imprisoned for a number of years during his exile, though during that same time he married and had two children.

Vlad's younger brother, Radu, who had sided with the Ottomans during the ongoing military campaigns, took over governance of Wallachia after his brother's imprisonment. But after Radu's death in 1475, local boyars, as well as the rulers of several nearby principalities, favored Vlad's return to power, according to John M Shea (" Vlad the Impaler: Bloodthirsty Medieval Prince ," (Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2015).

In 1476, with the support of the voivode of Moldavia, Stephen III the Great (1457-1504), Vlad made one last effort to reclaim his seat as ruler of Wallachia. He successfully stole back the throne, but his triumph was short-lived. Later that year, while marching to yet another battle with the Ottomans, Vlad and a small vanguard of soldiers were ambushed, and Vlad was killed.

There is much controversy over the location of Vlad III's tomb, according to Constantin Rezachevici in a study published in 2002 in the Journal of Dracula Studies. It is said he was buried in the monastery church in Snagov, on the northern edge of the modern city of Bucharest, in accordance with the traditions of his time. But recently, historians have questioned whether Vlad might actually be buried at the Monastery of Comana, between Bucharest and the Danube, which is close to the presumed location of the battle in which Vlad was killed, according to Curta.

One thing is for certain, however: unlike Stoker's Count Dracula, Vlad III most definitely did die. Only the harrowing tales of his years as ruler of Wallachia remain to haunt the modern world. 

Additional reporting by Jessie Szalay and Callum McKelvie Live Science Contributors.

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Callum McKelvie is features editor for All About History Magazine . He has a both a Bachelor and Master's degree in History and Media History from Aberystwyth University . He was previously employed as an Editorial Assistant publishing digital versions of historical documents, working alongside museums and archives such as the British Library . He has also previously volunteered for The Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum , Gloucester Archives and Gloucester Cathedral . 

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