Dracula 's grandfather - Mircea Old Governor (1386-1418) - thanks to the wisdom of his government and military fortunes earned fame Romanian Charlemagne, but eventually found himself the vassal of the Ottoman Empire. But here he simply did not exit. In the XV century Orthodox Wallachia was a bone of contention for the two superpowers - the Hungarian and the Ottoman Porte. For Hungary stood then all Catholics, made another attack on the orthodoxy, the Port is, fighting for leadership in the Islamic world, and aspired to lead the global. Preserve the independence, fighting on two fronts, it was not possible, but a concession to Catholicism in Hungary led the country, and the Port of religious politics were more tolerant. Mircea old chose the lesser evil, to him, of course, look. The struggle between the two superpowers has been implemented in the change of owners Wallachian throne. As a rule, the prince of the House of Basarab, who claimed the throne already occupied by one of the puppet states, received support ( financial, military, etc. n. ) From its rivals. After that, the applicant, relying on a group of discontented boyars, undertaken more confusion and, if luck accompanied him, became the ruler.
The father of Vlad III - Vlad II - took the throne in 1436 after overthrowing his cousin, with the support of the Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxembourg. But later, yielding to Turkish pressure Vlad II is forced to resume the vassal obligations of Wallachian rulers and send hostages to the court of the Sultan 's two sons - Vlad and Radu. Hungary, of course, also increased the pressure, and Vlad II had to constantly maneuver, seeking a compromise. Nevertheless, in 1447 he was assassinated on the orders of the regent of the kingdom of the legendary Hungarian Janos Hunyadi, a Wallachian throne, took the new Hungarian protégé. In 1448 seventeen, Vlad made the first attempt to seize the throne. Using the fact that the troops of Hunyadi were defeated by the Turks, Vlad with the help of the Turkish reign under the name of Vlad III. But - briefly: Hungarian protégé, having met with the forces returned to the throne. He, however, showed excessive independence, and in 1456, Vlad III - now with the support of Janos Hunyadi - once again took over his father's legacy. At this time, Vlad III rules, faithful old Hunyadi, and even helped to establish the Hungarian throne, son of Janos - Matthias. Provengerskaya policy was not to their liking in Turkey, which led to a war that began in 1461. Vlad III himself invaded the enemy, and the enraged Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror personally led troops against the rebellious vassal. 
Vlad III hoped to help his cousin Stephen the Great Ruler of the Moldovan and King Matthias, but hopes were dashed. A relative, not only did not come to the rescue, but also tried to capture the Wallachian frontier fort Kiliyu and Hungarian Matyas did not bother to get involved in the war, although it has received from the Pope's money on a new crusade against the Turks. Left without allies, Vlad III, however, continued the war, and even the Turks were amazed at his bravery, cruelty and talent of the commander. But the forces were not equal: Wallachian ruler was defeated and fled into the domain of the Hungarian king, leaving the wrecked army. The new ruler in 1462 was his brother, Radu, nicknamed Handsome, Vlad III and Matthias Hunyadi imprisoned in a dungeon, to incriminate former ally deal with the Turks. Historians disagree about how much of the prosecution was justified, but in any case, Matthias was able to keep the pope's money under the pretext of avoiding undesirable if the war with Turkey. In prison, Vlad III remained for over ten years and received a free, just going to Catholicism. Then he married a relative of the king and, enlisting the help of Hunyadi, in 1476 the third time invaded Wallachia. Vlad III managed to capture the capital, but soon he was killed in battle, and the circumstances of his death are still not really been clarified. ' World famous ' Vlad III acquired during the life of. Mainly - due to fierce courage and equally fierce bloodlust that even in dark days of the Late Renaissance seemed pathological. It was unthinkable and cruel to enemies, and allies, and to his subjects: he chopped their heads off, burned, flayed, forced to cannibalism, boiled alive, stabbed, impaled, and m. Dr.. and m. n. In impalement Dracula especially excelled.
One day, without provocation, he attacked her as harmless the city and killed under torture 10 000 subjects. Many of them were put on a stake - so he earned another nickname - ... During the most savage battles of the arranged them in 1460 at St. Bartholomew's Day in one of the towns of Transylvania have been planted on the number of 30 000 people. Dracula was not just a sadist. His cruel punishments had a political meaning. For example, when the envoys of the Turkish court dared not remove the hats in his presence, he ordered the turbans nailed to a pin head, which was certainly a bold demonstration of defiant independence. Depending on the social status of those sentenced cola differed in length, diameter, color of them were fanciful geometric shapes - a sort of ' Torture Garden ', where Vlad III loved to revel in his spare time, and the putrid stench and agonizing groans did not spoil his appetite. That is why the story of Vlad III of Romania went by the nickname ' Tepes ' (lit.. ' Nasazhivatel -to- count '). Even in a Hungarian jail Vlad III, according to the ancient Russian ' with Kazan about Dracula Voivode ', remained true to his passion: to buy or catch mice and birds, which had tortured, impaled, and decapitated. Boisterousness of Vlad III (in German sources call it 'wutrich' - ' violent ', ' Monster ', ' bitter ') seems to be pretty fed up with not only enemies, but also subjects, and in 1974 they killed Tepes at age 45. 45 years. His severed head pickled in honey and taken as a trophy to the Sultan. According to the version of the XV century, Vlad III in the battle was over and the Turk and surrounded, pierced with spears, as noticing a mistake, very sorry. For example, when John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, probably having heard about the effect vnyh ' drakulicheskih ' practices during the diplomatic service at the papal court, was put on the number of rebels in Lincolnshire in 1470, was executed for his own actions - like read the sentence - ' nasty laws . Historians have variously examined the role of Vlad III. Some saw him as a national hero of Romania, a defender of the Muslim expansion, a fighter with the boyars abuse (R. Dzhuresku ), others considered unprincipled tyrant Vlad III, is no different from that of other sovereigns, ' makiavellistov ' Late Renaissance, the governor called him, ' terrorist ', the forerunner of Stalin and Hitler (P. McNally and P. Florescu ).
However, according to general opinion, the reputation of Dracula vampire warlock gained only at the end f the XIX century - thanks to the imagination and talent of Bram Stoker (1847-1912), author of the famous novel ' Dracula ' ( 1897). Indeed, in the written sources do not mention chernoknizhnichestve and Ruler of Wallachia vampirism. But if we take into account the specifics of these sources, it appears that the English novelist of fantasy were not unfounded. In the XV century, as, indeed, before, in Wallachia were not conducted Chronicles - either formal ( the prince ), nor the monastic. Survived only ten letters of the Dracula ( in Latin and Old Church Slavonic ), but recent records of folk tales about the cruel, ironic, cunning, but wise and brave the Impaler. With regard to foreign sources, there is the most significant German, Hungarian, Russian, and later Byzantine.
Among the dozens of German should be made of printed pamphlets of the XV century, tells of ' sadistic ' acts of the king - monster, as well as a similar theme verses Vienna minnesingers M. Behayma. The view presented by the Italian humanist Hungarians A. Bonfinio, the author of a Latin chronicle, to strive together in the court of Matthias Corvinus. It differed little from the German word - of an Orthodox emperor, burn Catholic monasteries, wrote Catholics. With more sympathy for Dracula Byzantine historians of the XV century Duca, Kritovul, Halkondil, but they are mainly retell the story of ferocious jokes Tepes. In Russia, it was popular ...
All the stories about Dracula jokes remind. That's Dracula, met a peasant shirt and a worn-out after learning that his wife is lazy, ordered to cut off her hands and impaled: lazy hands are not needed - and so it is armless, and therefore there is no need to live it. ' Anecdotal ' brings together written sources from the folk traditions of the Impaler, which is not surprising. Nerumynskie authors, as a rule, too, were based on eyewitness (or given out for any) t. e. on plots that had existence of the folk, as if the story about the ' foreign land ' and seen as a legend. Consequently, the whole body ' drakulicheskih ' texts - essentially folkloric and folklore have their own laws. An authoritative scholar with. H. Azbelev therefore pointed out that folklore ' very rarely keeps the accuracy of the factual details, but it has another advantage: the epic can be stored for centuries without radical changes that a generalized assessment of the essence of the event, which was deposited in the minds of the general social environment '. For information about Dracula be interpreted not only in historical and pragmatic terms, but - above all - the mythological. This is true of the name, or rather nickname Vlad III Dracula. Fedor Kuritsyn, the alleged author of ' The Legend of Dracula Voivode ', describing Vlad III, expressly says that ' the name of Dracula vlasheskim language, and our - the devil. Shreds zlomudr, for theirs is the name of his, tacos, and his life '. Here the scribe of the XV century Russian makes a mistake, though not in principle. In Romanian ' devil ' - it's ' Dracula ' and ' Dracula ' - ' son of the devil '. The nickname ' Dracul ' was the father of Vlad III, but historians have traditionally been explained that the relationship with the evil spirit has nothing to do with it.
Dracula 's father, not yet occupied the throne, joined the court of Sigismund of Luxembourg in the elite Order of the Dragon, founded by the Hungarian king (' -time ' - the head of the Holy Roman ismperii ) to fight the infidels, mainly - the Turks. Order it, its elitist nature and the emblem described in E. Vindeke, contemporary and biographer of Sigismund of Luxembourg. Becoming a ruler, Vlad II still belonged to chivalrous duties so seriously that he commanded to portray a dragon - an element of the Order's symbolism - even on the coins, although the image on the coins was considered sacred, why, incidentally, counterfeiters and punished so severely. Accordingly, the irrepressible knight and earned the nickname gloomy: ... And yet, stating ' emblematic ' version, even its proponents P. Florescu and P. McNally negotiated: possibly a nickname rulers contemporaries understood literally. The meaning of the Order's symbols are not explained to the emperor and all, but the image of a dragon resulted in many well-defined association. Again, the Order of the Dragon as an instrument of struggle against the infidels looks pretty strange, but when you consider that he created in an era of unprecedented proliferation of all kinds of heresies and human rnoknizhnichestva, the natural question arises: Do not worship the devil - dragon knights?.
Direct evidence that Vlad II was considered a magician, not, however, if the nickname of ' The Devil ', the unthinkable for a Christian emperor, still stuck (regardless of the reasons for its occurrence ), then in the popular mind had the corresponding representation. The same can be said about Vlad III. Whatever may have been caused by the nickname of the king, it has been preserved in folklore, t. e. information implicit in it, remain relevant. The name ' Dracula ' can be understood as 'son of man, nicknamed the Devil ' ( Halkokondil name ' Dracula ' and Tepes and Radu the Fair - another son of Vlad II), and as a ' follower of the Devil, following the ways of darkness '. This kind of guidance does not necessarily relate to the field of morality, often refers to the relationship with no net force. It is no accident Dracula's castle, local farmers, the Stoker novel, never heard, even in the twentieth century was considered an unclean place. It is also noteworthy that many of the ' drakulicheskie ' legends tell of the treasures hidden Wallachian ruler, who will certainly kill any innocent witnesses, but such episodes are characteristic of the legends of witches and robbers. The treasure is not the equivalent of the bank, and the value of gold coins and jewelry opredlyaetsya not only its real value. This, as pointed out in. I. Propp, ... In Russian, ' Legend of Dracula Voivode ' all right called by their proper names: a cruel ruler ordered the masters to make a special barrel, fold back the gold and drop to the bottom of the river, whereupon Dracula ' masterov commanded those attending, but no lead sdelannogo Well im okaanstva, tokmo tezoimenity . The author would like deciphers the myth, stressing that the Wallachian ruler is not just the namesake of the devil, but also acts like a wizard, by definition, associated with the devil. In the context of ' witchcraft ' Dracula's worth remembering about the already -mentioned attack Moldavian Ruler Stefan the Great in the castle of his cousin Vlad III. At the siege of Stephen was wounded by an arrow, fell ill and withdrew. The wound did not heal for forty years, and doctors ordered from Italy and Germany, for mysterious reasons, the court of the king could not be reached, resulting in the death of Stephen was the reason for this boom Wallachian. History, in the apt remark of researchers ' drakulesknaya ', m. e. anecdotally, a mysterious, magical. Direct evidence of vampirism, Dracula either, but there are many indirect. Thus, in the poem TH. Budai - Deleanu ' Tsyganiada ' (published posthumously in 1875-1876. ) Dracula, leading the army of the Roma, struggling with the Turks, the boyars and malevolent - vampires. It is known that Budai - Deleanu used in the poem folk stories, because references to Dracula's relationship with Gypsies and vampires are particularly important. The Roma people of ancient times were regarded as mystical, people, fortunetellers and sorcerers, and that the Buda- delyanovsky Dracula is not a vampire, but the enemy of vampires is not surprising: the usual story of the mythological consciousness, ' Changeling ' - the hero fights with his own alter ego. Relevant hints it is easy to find and to describe the death of Dracula. Of course, there is reason to believe that soldiers Vlad III drew the spear against the Ruler of soobrzheniyam fear and revenge, or for the sake of Turkey's awards, and his head cut off, in order to send the sultan, and thus gain favor or visually confirm that the ' order ' - the head Tepes was exhibited in Istanbul . But for all that the soldiers acted Dracula exactly as custom ordered to do with vampires: the body of bloodsuckers were to pierce with a sharp weapon, and head - definitely separated from the trunk. From this point of view is also characteristic of the history of the tomb of Dracula. Vlad III was buried near the scene of death - in an Orthodox monastery Snagovom who patronized his family. By the way, according to local legend, the monastery was located tortures prisoners Tepes. In the 1930s,. Archaeologists conducted the official opening of the tomb, but found there only traces of desecration - rubbish and donkey bones. But far revealed identical in size nameless grave, which lay a skeleton without the skull and the remains of clothing, befitting of Master Wallachian. Interestingly, the first time, Dracula was buried in front of the altar, and the second - under the stone floor slabs, it seems, with a view to entering trampled ashes Tepes. According to researchers, desecrated the grave, and ' reburied ' Dracula Snagova monks of the monastery, and did so at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries - a time when J. Budai - Deleanu and wrote ' Tsyganiadu '. It is possible that by honoring Tepes - the national hero, fellow countrymen do not forget about another of his face - Dracula, the vampire and magician. However, if it were not mythological - folkloric references to vampirism Tepes, would still be legitimate to relate the name with the legends about Dracula vampire. Romanians have a belief: the Orthodox, renounced his faith (often converted to Catholicism ) certainly becomes a vampire, the transition to Catholicism as Vlad III, once robbed Catholic monasteries, of course, was very impressive event for his fellow - citizens. It is likely, the emergence of this belief is due to a peculiar mechanism of ' compensation ': conversion to Catholicism, the Orthodox, although it retained the right to the communion of the Body of Christ, refused communion blood, as the Catholics double sacrament - a privilege of the clergy. Accordingly, the apostate should endeavor to compensate for the ' damage ', and the betrayal of the faith as long as is not without diabolical intervention, and the method of ' compensation ' is selected by the devil tip. By the way, the logic of ' compensation ' provoking and now the emergence of ' horrornyh ' stories about the vegetarians - killers, executioners, the activists ' Humane Society ' and m. n. In XV century the issue of apostasy is particularly relevant: the era of the most intense of Catholic expansion, as noted above. That's when the Hussites fought with all the Catholic chivalry, defending the ' right to Bowls ' (t. e. the right to partake of the Blood of Christ, as Catholics, laity ), for which they have nicknamed ' Chashniki '. The fight against ' Chashniki ' headed Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, and as the time when his father became Dracula ' Dragon Knight ', the main opponent of the Order were not round ki, and the rebels, the Hussites.
His contemporaries may well have seen in the vampire Dracula, but keep in mind that their idea of the vampire was significantly different from the present, the existing literature by ' horror ' and the cinema and going back to the neo-romantic and romantichskoy literature, as well as the legends of XVII-XVIII centuries. In the XV century, the vampire is not considered a peddler vampire ' epidemic ' (which, in turn, has previously been infected by another vampire ), but a witch, warlock, be sure to have concluded an alliance with the devil for the sake of worldly goods. Such witch - vampire blood is necessary also to carry magical rites. For example, a contemporary of the famous Dracula Gilles de Rais, Marshal of France, entered the history of savage killings and torture, was suspected of witchcraft: it was assumed that he, being a magician, using the blood and entrails of victims. It is possible that the ' bloody hecatombs ' Vlad III were perceived similarly - sorcerer, an apostate was supposed to be the more subtly cruel, voluptuous experiment with the human body and the blood. An interesting parallel exists in Russian literature: a sorcerer, a werewolf novel of H. In. Gogol's ... So, based stokerovskoy version of Dracula, a vampire - a support for the reconstruction of the myth and the real historical documents. Virtually every feature, attributed to Dracula, you can find something or other justification, motivation. For example, Stoker calls his hero ' berserk ', explaining that - not entirely convincing from a historical point of view - Dracula's kinship with the Scandinavian knights, known bezzavetnoy courage.
But on the other hand, it is easy to see a rethinking of the epithet 'wutrich', tory to the German sources, is used both in relation to Dracula, and for the characteristics of ' fierce ' valor berserkers. Images of Dracula, as the leader of the squad gypsies, Dracula in charge of the mysteries of ancient treasures, Dracula, the vampire and magician - not just fiction, but the result of a synthesis of intuition and imagination of the scientist writer.
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