WHO WAS VLAD THE IMPALER?
In November 1431, in Sighișoara, Mureș County, Wallachia (Romanian Country), Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Draculea (also known as Dracula, especially to foreigners), was born.
Vlad is known for temporarily gaining the independence of Wallachia from the Ottoman Empire, but also for the way he used to punish outlaws and enemies. The culprits were impaled, which led to his being characterised as a prince of demonic cruelty.
FAMILY
Legitimate middle son of Vlad II Dracul and a daughter of Alexander the Good, most likely Anastasia, Vlad, later nicknamed Tepes by the Turks, and externally called simply Dracula, after his father's popular Romanian nickname, which was not yet his surname either, but alternated with his given name (he never appears as Vlad Dracula!).
In 1436, his father, Vlad II Dracul, became ruler of Wallachia and settled at the royal court in Targoviste. Vlad the Impaler followed his father and lived with him for 6 years until 1442.
FIRST REIGN (1448)
Murad II sent Vlad (the future Țepeș), "to the Romanian Country to reign in place of his father (Vlad Dracul, who had died), with the understanding that every year he would come to him, to appear before him and give tribute as his father had given". An account from Constantinople of 7 December 1448 and some Turkish narrative sources confirm the installation of Vlad (Tepes) with Turkish help in Wallachia during his first reign. The old Romanian historiography, and not only, erroneously believed that the mountain lord who participated in the Battle of Kosovo was Dan III.
On 31 October 1448 Vlad (Tepes) was installed as ruler in Targoviste, announcing to the people of Brasov that he would not move from here and that he would make a "good peace" with Iancu of Hunedoara if the latter returned from the anti-Ottoman war. For on 29 October the Turkish dregent, the naipul of Nicopol, whom he calls "brother", came to his court, telling him of the battle of Kosovo, the fate of the loan not being known to him (the editor erroneously attributing the act to Vladislav II, although the issuer was "Vlad the prince of the Romanian Country"). Vlad's first reign ended after 31 October, most probably in the first half of November 1448, when Vladislav II returned to Wallachia from the campaign south of the Danube, whose rightful rule was not interrupted under the circumstances. Another pretender to Vladislav II's throne, apart from Vlad (Țepeș) and, perhaps, Dan III, the one executed by Țepeș in 1460, already mentioned, was "Stanciu" (whom we have identified with Stanciu son of Mânzilă de la Argeș, whom lancu de Hunedoara, his uncle on his mother's side, had intended - according to J. Dlugosz - to make him ruler in December 1447, after which he blinded him).
SECOND REIGN (1456-1462)
Driven out by Vladislav II in November 1448, after a short first reign Vlad (Tepes) took refuge in Moldavia, with Peter III, to whom he was most probably related on the maternal line, remaining there until after the death of Bogdan II (15 October 1451), after which, together with Stephen the Great, he moved to Transylvania, under the protection of Lancu of Hunedoara, preparing before 6 February 1452 the organisation of an expedition against Vladislav II. Lancu stopped these preparations, and as Vlad "did not like us, because of too many jobs", he ordered the Brașovenians to take him back to Moldavia, which did not happen.
After Vladislav II's relations with Lancu of Hunedoara worsened, in 1452 Vlad (Tepes) joined the latter at Buda and Pest, going as far as King Ladislav V Posthumus, after which he returned to Transylvania, passing through Geoagiu in the same year, where the leadership of Sibiu, favourable to Vladislav II, captured him, two Siberians being sent to kill him. Following Vladislav II's expedition to the south of Transylvania, on the masters of Lancu of Hunedoara and some Saxon villages, which took place before 6 April 1456, Vlad became, of course, a claimant supported by Lancu to the throne of Wallachia.
The expedition to remove Vladislav II, in otherwise unknown circumstances, of whom himself Țepeș says that he regained his dominion only with God's help, without the support of others, took place after 15 April, the date of the last document preserved from Vladislav, and before 3 July 1456, when Lancu of Hunedoara announced to the Saxon seats that he had entrusted their defence (Mehmed II had just attacked Belgrade and the consequences of this war, in which Lancu was also engaged, were not yet foreseen) to "Vlad the knight", who had made "while outside his country" many promises to Lancu, his son Ladislaus of Hunedoara and the King of Hungary. According to Leon Șimanschi, the beginning of Vlad Țepeș's reign could be dated between "16 April and about 10 June 1456". On 6 September 1456 Vlad (Țepeș) mentions in an agreement with the Brașovs the recent "acquisition of the reign of this Romanian Country".
Vlad learns that the boiors of Targoviste had tortured and buried alive his elder brother Mircea. The first major act of revenge was directed against the boyars of Targoviste, guilty of the death of his father and brother. On Easter Sunday 1459, Tepes arrested all the families of the boyars who had attended the princely feast. The eldest were impaled and the others were forced to walk the hundred-kilometre journey from the capital to Poenari, where they were made to build a fortress on the ruins of an old outpost overlooking the Argeș River.
Vlad Tepes soon became famous for his brutal methods of punishment. According to Saxon detractors in Transylvania, he often ordered the victims to be skinned, boiled, beheaded, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, etc. He also had their noses, ears, genitals and tongues cut off. But the favourite torture was impaling, from which the nickname Țepeș, the impaler, derives.
The impaling method was also used by Țepeș against Transylvanian merchants who did not respect his trade laws. His raids against the Transylvanian Saxons were at the same time acts of protectionism designed to promote trade in the Romanian Country. Also in 1459, Țepeș refused to pay tribute to the Turks (10,000 galbeni annually).
It seems that at the beginning of 1460, Vlad Țepeș concluded an alliance with Matei Corvin, which the Ottomans wanted to prevent. Moreover, they would try through Hamza Pasha, the Bishop of Nicopole, and the Sultan's deacon, Catavolinos, to trap Vlad by trickery, but without success, both were impaled.
In the winter of 1461-1462, Vlad the Impaler organised a surprise campaign south of the Danube. More than 20,000 Turks perished at the hands of the Wallachians, the number of those killed being indicated by Vlad Țepeș himself in a letter to Matei Corvin.
MEHMED II'S CAMPAIGN
In the spring of 1462, Sultan Mohammed II, at the head of a huge army of about 100-120,000 men (second in size only to that which had conquered Constantinople) plus 175 warships whose aim was to conquer Chilia, set sail for the Danube. The Vlach's forces were estimated at no more than 30,000 troops. Although Vlad tried to stop the Turks at the Danube, near the fortress of Turnu, they managed to cross the river under cover of night, heading straight for Targoviste (4 June 1462).
In these conditions, Țepeș will apply the tactics of harassment: the desolation of the land - especially the road to Târgoviște -, the poisoning of the wells, the attack on the Turkish detachments that had left for food. It was in this oppressive atmosphere, in which the Turkish armies, hungry and frightened, were advancing through the deserted country, that Vlad Țepeș's great blow took place, the night attack of 16-17 June 1462, intended to demoralise the Ottoman army even more, an attack which is mentioned in all the sources relating to the 1462 campaign. The target of the attack was the Sultan himself, but he escaped, his tent being mistaken for that of a vizier. However, the psychological effect of the attack was significant. Many Turks were killed, and the Sultan reportedly 'left the camp in disgrace'; seeing 'the great loss suffered by his own' he ordered a retreat. Near Targoviste a sight awaited him which struck terror into his armies: a forest of spikes in which hung a crowd of Turks killed before or during the battle; at this sight the Turks "were greatly frightened", and the Sultan admitted that he "could not take the country of a man who did such great things" and who "would be worthy of more".
According to the Byzantine chronicler Chalcocondil, the Sultan left his brother, Radu the Handsome, as his lord at Targoviste, with the idea that he would draw to his side all those who opposed him. Pasha of Nicopole was to provide armed support for Radu.
RADU THE HANDSOME
Following Mehmed II's campaign in Wallachia in the second half of May to the end of June 1462, Vlad the Impaler had to fight, before 28 July 1462 (date of Domenico Balbi of Constantinople's report to the Venetian leadership in the Monumenta Hungariae Historica), with the younger brother of the prince, who was like "the Turk as regards his house and family", according to W. Wey's account of 19 August 1462. The struggles for the throne between the two brothers, reigning simultaneously in two parts of Wallachia, lasted until around the beginning of October 1462.
From early October to early November 1462, Vlad Țepeș spent more than five weeks mainly in Sibiu and then in Brașov, talking to King Matthias Corvinus, who had arrived in southern Transylvania in the second half of September 1462, disobeying Venice's request to start the anti-Ottoman campaign in early summer.
Matthias Corvinus used the accusations made by the Saxons against Vlad Țepeș, particularly through the memoirs of Johann Reudel, the parish priest of the (Black) Church of Brașov, in conflict of interest with the Montenegrin lord since 1456, and the false letters of "treason" attributed to Țepeș, apparently composed, by the same parish priest under 7 November 1462, addressed to the Sultan, the Grand Vizier and Stephen the Great, in order to justify to Europe the fact that he had not helped Vlad, portrayed as the traitorous vassal, in the battle with the Sultan, for which the King of Hungary had received the money for the "crusade" from many of the Catholic states of Europe.
The plan to arrest Vlad Tepes was conceived by Matthias Corvinus following his armistice with the Porte, according to the reports of the Venetian envoy Pietro de Thomasiis, before 1 November, and was executed while the king was in Brasov, on 26 November 1462, during which time the Romanian lord was captured on his return journey to the border fortress of Piatra Craiului by the Bohemian commander in the king's service, Ian Jiskra of Brandys. Vlad Țepeș was arrested at the Transylvanian-Montane border so that he could be removed from the land and under the jurisdiction of the Saxons, to whom he would otherwise have had to be handed over, and before entering Wallachia, from where he could receive aid. As such, Vlad Țepeș's second reign ended in November 1462, before the 26th of the month.
From this time until 1474 or 1475, when King Matthias Corvinus began to bring Vlad back into military life, needing him in the anti-Ottoman struggle that had then broken out on the Danube, his exile is fairly unknown until the third reign, A tangle of slander was woven around him, based on information spread in bad faith by Matthias Corvinus or his court, which gave rise to the famous "stories" about Dracula the lord, which today we call "pamphlets", but which at the time were taken as fact.
THIRD REIGN (1476-1477)
After being taken captive at the Piatra Craiului fortress before 26 November 1462, Vlad the Impaler was taken by Matthias Corvinus to Alba lulia, where an inquest was held, then from there to Buda and finally to nearby Visegrad, where he was lodged in the former royal residence for 12 years, from the end of 1462 until 1474 or 1475, when he was given a residence in Pest.
Before 25 June 1475 Vlad the Impaler was invested by Matthias Corvinus as a prince of Wallachia, to the satisfaction of Stephen the Great, who had asked the king for this, and of the Moldavian nobles, who had asked for his help against the Ottoman campaign that was being prepared against Moldavia. The Hungarian king's aim in appointing Vlad Țepeș was to acquire a commander skilled in the fight against the Turks. Finally, on 18 July 1475 in Buda, it was known that Vlad was in Transylvania with material means, having settled first in Arghiș, in the county of Alba, until September, then in the castle of Ia Bălcaciu, near Blaj, under the authority of the Siberian judge Toma Altenberger, where he resided for almost a year, although he wanted to settle in Sibiu. At the beginning of 1476 he took part with Matthias Corvinus' army in the siege and conquest of Sabac in Bosnia (16 January-16 February) and other towns south of the Danube (Srebrenica, Zvornik). He returned to Transylvania, to Mediaș, where towards the end of July 1476 the Transylvanian army gathered to take part in the expedition against the armies of Mehmed II, but they were defeated in Moldova at the beginning of August 1476, apparently also under the threat of the Transylvanian army, which included the corps led by Vlad Țepeș.
On 7 October 1476 Vlad Țepeș was "in the great fortress of Brasov", granting a commercial privilege to the inhabitants of Brasov and Bârsen, "according to the old law". The expedition with Transylvanian help led by Ștefan Bâthory, to acquire the throne, took place after this date and before 8 November <1476>, when Vlad was already installed as ruler in Târgoviște, announcing to the Brașovs that he had overthrown Basarab Laiotă, who had fled to the Turks. On 11 November 1476 Stephen Bathory with the royal army was near Bucharest, whose citadel (royal court) was occupied on 16 November 1476, all the nobles having submitted to Vlad Tepes after heavy fighting with the Turks, who supported Basarab Laiota, especially during the siege of the citadel of Bucharest.
If the siege of this fortress lasted fifteen days, according to an account from Buda, on 4 December 1476, i.e. between 1 and 16 November 1476, and was the last act of Vlad Țepeș's acquisition of the Romanian domination, it follows that his penetration south of the Carpathians and the beginning of his reign took place in the second half of October 1476. The coronation ceremony of Vlad Țepeș took place on 26 November 1476, and on 8 December Matthias Corvinus announced from Buda to Pope Sixtus IV that "Dracula my captain", "by my will and disposition, was exalted as a prince by the inhabitants of the Romanian Country in a solemn ceremony".
Vlad the Impaler's ascension was also made with military support, led by Stephen the Great himself, who left him a guard of 200 courtiers in Wallachia (Stephen's account to the Venetians, through his soldier, loan Țamblac, on 8 May 1477, in Războieni. Cinci sute de ani de la campania din 1476, București, 1977, p. 229-231), both rulers swearing "love and alliance" against the Turks.
Basarab the Elder Laiota soon returned with Turkish aid, surprising Vlad Țepeș, deprived of the help of the nobles, after the retreat of the Hungarian and Moldavian armies, killing 4 000 men and the Moldavian guard, except for ten soldiers, who returned to Ștefan cel Mare on 10 January 1477, informing him of the tragic fate of "his brother" in Wallachia.
DEATH OF VLAD ȚEPEȘ
In the midst of a battle with the Turks, Vlad the Impaler was killed by a plot by the partisan landlords of Basarab III Laiota the Elder (whom a Serbian leptocise states died by his own hand), apparently in connection with the Ottomans. His severed head was sent to the Porte. The news of Vlad the Impaler's death reached Stephen the Great, as we have seen, on 10 January, and Venice on 27 January 1477, so his death must have occurred at the end of December 1476, or rather at the beginning of January 1477.
It is not known where Vlad Țepeș is buried by his victorious rival Basarab Laiota. Archaeologist Dinu V. Rosetti, based on the erroneous belief that Vlad Țepeș was a founder of the Snagov monastery, believes that his tomb was discovered there. In reality, the archaeologist mentioned refers to the church that can still be seen today, founded by Basarab V Neagoe, followed by Mircea Ciobanul, dating from the 16th century, which could not belong to a 15th century tomb, and in addition, no inscription or inscription attests to the burial at Snagov of Vlad Țepeș. Moreover, it is highly probable that he founded the first monastery at Comana, to which the village of Călugăreni donated in 1461. Remaining in the realm of hypotheses, it is much more likely that Vlad Țepeș's battle with the Turks took place in its vicinity, near the road from Giurgiu to Bucharest, where the Turks came with Basarab Laiotă, and where the "hill" on which the lord would have climbed when he was killed, as shown in one of the stories about him (Life of Vlad Țepeș. ., in Cronicile slavo-române, p. 206, 213), than in the forest near the Snagov monastery, north of Bucharest, far from the southern access routes of the Turks.
Thus, the tomb of Țepeș could have been found, with much more reason, in the church of the first monastery of Comana, the one that preceded the foundation of Radu Șerban, whose traces were discovered under the southern side of the 17th century enclosure. However, the head was sent to Constantinople to the Sultan. Sebastian Miinster records in his Cosmography the news that "This <Dracula> was afterwards restored to his former dignity by Matthias <Corvin>, but he was killed in the battle with the Turks and his head sent to Mahomed" (Foreign Travellers, I. p. 506). In addition to other accounts mentioned above, Matthias Corvin's historian Antonius Bonfinius testifies to this (Rerum hungaricarum decades quator et dimidia, Leipzig, 1771, p. 544).
THEPES VS DRACULA
Bram Stoker's book Dracula is not directly based on Vlad Dracula's reign, but is a fiction set in Transylvania and 19th century England. As a result of the Romanian's success, Transylvania is associated with the fictional character Dracula.
The British writer Bram Stoker could easily consult some of those 15th-century Saxon engravings in the Royal Library in London, also in the British Museum collections, in which Vlad the Impaler is depicted as a monster, a vampire who drinks human blood and a great lover of cruelty. He probably also had access to Johann Christian Engel's History of Moldavia and Wallachia, which describes Vlad the Impaler as a bloody tyrant, which probably gave him the idea to take the Wallachian prince as a model for his fictional character, Dracula.
Some historians have suggested that Stoker had a friendly relationship with a Hungarian professor at the University of Budapest, Arminius Vambery (Hermann Vamberger), who may have given him information about Vlad Țepeș. Furthermore, the fact that Dr Abraham Van Helsing mentions his friend Arminius in the 1897 novel as a source of his knowledge about Vlad III called Dracula seems to support this hypothesis. It should also be noted that this seems to be the only cause, as there is no real connection between the Vlad Dracula of history (1431-1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire that is Bram Stoker's book. He used folkloric sources, historical references and personal experiences to create a complex character.
