More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. Wallachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania
south of the southern Carpathian mountain range. Vlad III wrote his name as Wladislaus Dragwyla, but his Romanian patronymic is also written variously as Dragkwlya, Dagulea, Dragolea, and Drăculea. He was the son of Vlad II Dracul.
The word “drac” originally meant dragon, but in modern Romanian, it means devil.
His main reign as Prince of Wallachia lasted from 1456 to 1462, a period which coincided with the Ottoman wars in Europe, and more specifically, with the conquest of the Balkans. He had ruled in 1448 after his Turkish allies attempted to install him as Prince,
soldiers came across what they described as “forests” of impaled victims.
Impaling was his preferred method of execution. He is estimated to have killed somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 people. He burned villages and fortresses to the ground and is said to have taken pleasure in torturing and killing his victims, even feasting amidst their remains. One German pamphlet written in 1521 describes how, among other grisly acts, he roasted children and fed them to their mothers. Such was his reputation in Western Europe. In eastern Europe,
his military efforts were all directed against the Ottoman Empire, which at the time was attempting to conquer Wallachia.
unsuccessful in repelling the Turkish invaders. The exact date and location of his death are not known, but he died at the age of 44-45 years old. He was buried by his rival, Basarab Laiota, without ceremony.
mysterious circumstances that surround his death, along with his “taste” for blood, could give rise to such a tale.
Vlad III never owned anything in Transylvania, including the Bran Castle, which is often referred to as Dracula’s castle and has been depicted in the fictional accounts as such.
Vlad III Dracula would marry twice in his life and have at least three sons, one by his first wife whose name is unknown and who died in 1462, and two by his second wife, Ilona Szilágyi, a cousin of the King of Hungary. Some historians believe he also had a daughter named Maria with his second wife.
The role of the Order of the Dragon was to protect Eastern Europe from the Ottoman invaders. It was established in 1408 by Sigismund, then King of Hungary, but who would later become Holy Roman Emperor (1433-1437). The order required its initiates to defend Christianity, particularly from the Ottoman
In 1436, Vlad II ascended to the throne of Wallachia and became Prince. He ruled until 1442 when he was ousted by rivals who were in league with Hungary. He negotiated Ottoman support to reinstate him
spent some of this time in Constantinople in the court of Constantine XI Paleologus, the final emperor of the Byzantine Empire, which fell in 1453 to the Ottomans.
Unlike his brother Radu, Vlad resisted his captivity. Radu, on the other hand, acquiesced, and in fact, eventually converted to Islam and entered Ottoman service.
Vlad, however, remained defiant, despite constantly being punished for his misbehavior. Some (Akeroyd 2008) have even suggested that the traumatic experiences he endured during his captivity may have shaped his sadistic nature ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
subsequently blinded with a red-hot poker and buried alive. Vlad Dracul was also captured and killed a short time later. While Vlad the Monk was a contender
On August 20, 1456, Vlad III Dracula killed Vladislav II in hand-to-hand combat. Dracula was then once again installed as the ruler of Wallachia, thus beginning his second and main reign.
he supposedly continued to practice his ritualistic killing on animals, such as mice and rats, when he was later imprisoned by the Ottomans.
female chastity was of particular concern to him, and for women who had lost their virginity before marriage, those who strayed during their marriage, or who were unchaste as a widow, he doled out a particularly harsh penalty.
Hamza Pasha himself was impaled on the highest stake, in deference to his rank.
Vlad Dracula crossed the Danube River to attack regions in Bulgaria between Serbia and the Black Sea. Because he had become fluent in Turkish during his years of captivity in the Ottoman court, Vlad was able to disguise himself and infiltrate Ottoman fortresses.
The Sultan Mehmed was, at the time, occupied in Corinth, and thus unable to attend to this himself. He sent his grand vizier, Mahmud, to destroy a port in Wallachia known as Brăila.
Among the Sultan’s forces was Radu the Handsome, Vlad’s younger brother. He commanded some 4,000 horsemen.
He made so-called hit and run attacks against Mehmed’s forces, and he waged a form of germ warfare by sending in people infected with deadly diseases, most notably bubonic plague, to
They had been unsuccessful in capturing the fortress at Bucharest or the island of Snagov, but nonetheless, they pressed on. According to an eyewitness account recorded by papal legate Niccolò Modrussa, who reportedly received the information from a Wallachian veteran, Vlad Dracula and his force of some 24,000 men had taken shelter in a mountain refuge near the capital city when the Ottomans arrived.
Corvinus, however, turned against the Impaler Lord and plotted an ambush for him at Castle King’s Rock, located just inside the Wallachian state. Vlad was captured by Corvinus’ own men and taken to Hungary, where he was imprisoned.
Vlad also had an illegitimate son during this time, whom he named Radu. Three of his sons would have children of their own, at least one of whom, Alexandru II, would rule Wallachia (1574-1577). By all accounts, Alexandru, like Vlad, was also an extremely cruel ruler.
“Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster.” —Dracula Untold, Universal Pictures
His legacy, like his life, is a mixture of tales from Romanian, German, and Russian sources. Many of these tales remain part of the modern Romanian folklore, though through time, they have become somewhat garbled and confused.
The German stories are by far the darkest, in one case describing him as “…far worse than the most depraved emperors of Rome…”.
Europe has its origins in southern Slavic and Greek folklore.
During the 18 century, there was a flurry of reported vampire sightings in eastern Europe.
He was particularly concerned with female chastity and would severely punish any woman found to be unchaste or adulterous. He was also particularly harsh on criminals, and he considered beggars to be committing a form of thievery. His punishments included impaling men and women
