What is vlad the impaler

Even if he did not reign for many years, his actions and his powerful personality have left a strong mark in the minds of the entire population. Undoubtedly, he was remembered as cruel, violent, and sadistic and this fame of his lasts even today.

But was Vlad indeed a despot? According to many historians, he surely was. Apart from all his measures taken in order to protect his country and punish the criminals, he used many dreadful means of torture. He often ordered people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, or stabbed.

These methods were clearly used to impress, to gain the respect of both his people and his enemy and no doubt, there were usual for that time. But Vlad was also paranoiac and revengeful. He never forgot that his father and his elder brother were killed with the help of certain noble families, so he took care to revenge their death and also, he took drastic measures to assure its own safety.

The elimination of the mistrustful nobles was done successively during his reigns. He managed to kill through impaling over noblemen along with their entire families.

Also, he selected the bravest soldiers for his personal army and maintained their loyalty by offering them not only money but lands and houses and gold. But his cruelty was also seen as a weakness. The vengeful Saxon merchants and later, their descendants, took care to portray Vlad in horrifying postures that disgusted entire Europe. Vlad was described as a sadist who used to drink the blood of his enemies, which amused torturing people or enjoyed serving the meals watching dead bodies hanged in spires.

He was also accused of eating human flesh, which was a huge insult for an Orthodox Christian ruler like him. Even if all those writings meant to discredit Vlad, no one could tell for sure if they are completely false or not.

Vampires and werewolves, immortal counts, and mysterious places are, apparently, some of the most long-lasting themes of Hollywood, and the recent huge success of movies Twilight or Blade is just the top of the iceberg. There is a constant fascination about vampires that seems to defy time easily.

And we must confess that life without Dracula would be pretty dull. So, thank you, Mr. And it also changed the status of Romania, which rapidly came out of the crowd becoming the more or less official country of all vampires. Labeling Vlad as a human flesh-eater, sadist, merciless, and Devil worshiper, especially by the Saxons and the Ottomans chroniclers of XV-XVII centuries, can be considered one of the first, best, vast and long-lasting campaigns of negative branding ever.

These papers are, in fact, the birth certificates of future Dracula and other vampires like Lestat or Armand from The Vampire Chronicles series of Anne Rice. Michael Beheim, a German writer contemporary with Vlad, wrote in his Dracula poem, which framed the leader in very dark colors. More than one hundred years later, the German poet Fischaret wrote Flohhatz, describing Dracula walking among dead peoples enjoying his meal.

In , Johann Christian Engel, in his book The History of Moldavia and Wallachia, described Vlad as a merciless despot, and many claim that this paper was one of the main sources of inspiration for Bram Stoker and his famous character Count Dracula. The Historian, the debut novel of American Elizabeth Johnson Kostova, has finally brought a balance between fiction and real history, and the novel had great success.

Vlad the Impaler seems to be an endless source of inspiration, and even if almost all the writings depict him in unfavorable contexts, he still succeeds somehow to fascinate us through his unique and versatile personality. The Ottoman war started when Vlad refused to pay tribute to the Sultan. The Ottoman Empire was furious because a prince raised by them grew rebellious, so Sultan Mehmed II decided to put an end to it. And thus, the fierce reputation of Vlad the Impaler as a ruthless ruler began.

Vlad's court chroniclers noted the ruler's personal records very precisely. In Oblucitia and Nevoselo, 1. Vlad harassed the Ottomans with many unexpected night attacks and constantly destroyed their possible food sources and poisoned the water wells, thus leading to a demoralized Ottoman army.

On the night of June 16, Vlad the Impaler, together with a handful of men, organized a night attack on the Ottoman army. They entered the enemy camp disguised as Turks and attempted to capture or assassinate the Sultan. Even though they didn't succeed, the Turks started killing each other because of the confusion created by the disguise of Vlad's force.

Painting by Theodor Aman. According to legends that circulated after his death, Vlad invited hundreds of these boyars to a banquet and — knowing they would challenge his authority — had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled on spikes. 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.

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 , by a monk who presented Vlad III as a fierce, but just ruler. 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.

And in front of the capital he found the bodies of the Ottoman prisoners of war that Vlad had taken — all impaled," Curta said. Vlad's victories over the invading Ottomans were celebrated throughout Wallachia, Transylvania and the rest of Europe — even Pope Pius II was impressed. Not long after the impalement of Ottoman prisoners of war, in August , 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 , local boyars, as well as the rulers of several nearby principalities, favored Vlad's return to power. In , with the support of the voivode of Moldavia, Stephen III the Great , 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. 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.

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 he invited 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.

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. 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. 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. After initially placing trade restrictions on Saxon goods in Walachia, he had 30, 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. 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 When the diplomats declined to remove their turbans, citing religious custom, Vlad III saluted their devotion— by nailing their hats to their heads. In the Turks offered to meet Vlad for a peace parley; in reality they intended to ambush him.

In the spring of , Mehmed II assembled an army of 90, men and advanced on Walachia. We killed 23, Turks, without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers. Radu guaranteed the aristocracy that by siding with the Ottomans, they would regain the privileges that Vlad III had stripped from them. Vlad was imprisoned in Hungary for 12 years, while power changed hands several times in Walachia.