Dracula, Prince of Many Faces Quotes

“The overall impression derived from both views is that of a sensitive man with a keen and lively intelligence. His looks also suggest an overpowering, haughty, authoritarian personality with cruel instincts.”
― Radu Florescu, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times

“Eminescu represented an isolated voice crying in the wilderness, protesting the amorality of politics, the perfidy of politicians, the faithlessness of diplomats, the crass materialism and iconoclasm of the literary men who took in vain the name of heroes of the past. Like Hamlet, he felt that times were out of joint. In despair, in a great historic ballad called The Third Letter, he appealed to the giants of old to rise from the dust under which they had been laid to rest in order to regenerate Romanian society and political life. They alone, he said, understood the true meaning of patriotism and had shown genuine love of the fatherland. The poem opens by recalling the manly virtues and military valor of Wallachia's early medieval princes, notably Prince Mircea the Old, Dracula's grandfather, who, when summoned to surrender his country to the great Sultan Bayezid, then at the height of his power, defied him at the Battle of Rovine (1394) with the following proud words: “Oh, But the man you see here stand Is no common mortal; he is Prince of the Romanian land.” Eminescu immortalized Vlad with an often quoted stanza. He recalls the great Dracula from the grave to save the Romanian nation and asks him to do away with the Philistines in the land: You must come, O dread Impaler, confound them to your care. Split them in two partitions, here the fools, the rascals there; Shove them into two enclosures from the broad daylight enisle 'em, Then set fire to the prison and the lunatic asylum.”
― Radu R. Florescu, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times

“When he eventually returned to his native country, Vlad was called “Dracul” by the boyars, who knew of his honor, because he was a Draconist, a member of the Order of the Dragon (draco in Latin), dedicated to fighting Turks and heretics. On the other hand, the people at large, unfamiliar with the details of Vlad's investiture in the order, seeing a dragon on his shield, and later on his coins, called him “Dracul” with the meaning of the “devil,” because in Orthodox iconography, particularly those ikons that depicted St. George slaying a dragon, the dragon symbolized the devil. The word drac (-ul is simply the definite article “the”) can mean both “devil” and “dragon” in the Romanian language. It is important also to underscore the fact that, at the time, the use of this particular nickname in no way implied that Dracul was an evil figure, in some way connected with the forces of darkness, as some have suggested. The name Dracula, immortalized by Bram Stoker, was later adopted, or rather inherited, by Dracul's son. Dracula, with the a, is simply a diminutive, meaning “son of the dragon.” (The son inherited the title Dracul by virtue of the statutes of the order.) Evil implications were attached to the name only much later by Dracula's political detractors, who exploited its double meaning.”
― Radu R. Florescu, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times

“In essence, Dracula had become a living legend at the court of the Hungarian king.”
― Radu Florescu, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times

“awesome “Impaler Prince,” even as a captive, had the power of sending shivers down the spines of the Turkish delegates.”
― Radu Florescu, Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times