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Already in October I promised to write about a rather peculiar course I was undertaking at SSEES (UCL). The course was about vampires and by now I have finished writing my course essay. Without further ado I'll let you read my essay in the hope that you could also give me some feedback. I hope you like it, 'cause I, for my part, enjoyed the course thoroughly!
Your child of the night, :[
-Stefan
Regeneration of Dracula:
How did Vlad the Impaler become a figure of popular culture?
When Jonathan Harker meets Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Gothic classic for the first time his depiction of this villain corresponds greatly with many elements of the famous portrait of Vlad III Dracula at Castle Ambras, Innsbruck, Austria:
‘Within, stood a tall old man, clean-shaven save for a long white moustache [...] His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead [...] The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking [...] the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.’
Elsewhere, the historical Dracula was described by the papal legate to Buda, Niccolò Modrussa, somewhere around the year 1470 as follows:
‘He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong aquiline nose, swollen nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the very long eyelashes made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven, but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull’s neck connected [with] his head from black curly locks hung on his wide-shouldered person.’
This evident difference in appearance of the two infamous and by now indeed very famous Draculas is the cornerstone of a fundamental paradox that has been omnipresent in the field of Dracula studies ever since the publication of In Search of Dracula by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu in 1972. The McNally-Florescu theory, presented in this aforementioned research, will be discussed further on in this essay.
However, the appearance of a new character of Vlad III of Wallachia both in vampire studies and also in the field of popular culture has by now become indisputable. Hence, in this essay we shall examine the nature of historical Dracula in contemporary popular culture and namely in modern vampire literature and cinema. Attention shall be focused on how the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler is blended with that of fictional Count Dracula and to what ends is this blending necessary for the contemporary Dracula myth. Thus the most central question of this essay is: how did Vlad the Impaler become a figure of popular culture?
Much Ado About Nothing
The allegedly ground-breaking research of McNally and Florescu was not the first attempt to unite the two Draculas together. First similar suggestion was made by Bacil Kirtley in 1958 and in 1962 Harry Ludlam, Stoker’s biographer, claimed that Stoker had used a fifteenth-century manuscript, in which Vlad the Impaler was mentioned as ‘wampyr’, while writing his novel. Furthermore, in 1966 Grigore Nandris stated that the portrait of Vlad Țepeș was “adapted by Bram Stoker to suit his literary purposes”. However, these few examples are but inklings of what happened later.
In 1969 the two co-writers of In Search of Dracula, scholars Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, set out to prove the historical basis and prototype of Count Dracula. Their research unearthed many significant details about both historical Vlad the Impaler and fictional Count Dracula. They discovered Stoker’s diaries and journals from the period when he was working on his vampire classic: “This proved that far from being a work of pure fiction, Stoker relied on extensive research both on the historical Vlad and on the vampire lore of Transylvania, giving his plot a definite geographical and historical framework.”
In addition to Stoker’s primary resources McNally and Florescu found some new material about the historical Dracula. Among these was Michael Beheim’s The Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman called Dracula of Wallachia, which allegedly proves Vlad the Impaler’s habit of dipping his bread in the blood of his victims. According to McNally this would justify Stoker’s perseverant idea of Vlad Țepeș as a vampire.
This research of McNally and Florescu was apparently aided to a certain extent by two political facts. Firstly, the visit of the American president Richard Nixon to Bucharest in 1969 brought Romania closer to the West and made her more accessible for foreigners. Secondly, the Communist Party of Romania, under the authoritarian leadership of Nicolae Ceausescu, had started a campaign of portraying Vlad III Dracula as a Romanian national hero. In 1976, the year of the five-hundred-year anniversary of Vlad Țepeș’ death, several commemorations of the Wallachian tyrant took place. They included numerous eulogies, panegyrics and even a postage stamp. After the end of Ceausescu’s reign new ideas on reciprocal relationship between Dracula and the late dictator became popular topics in Romanian anecdotes.
The most essential assumption the co-writers McNally and Florescu made in 1972 was that Stoker had based his fictional vampire villain on the historical Vlad Țepeș of whom he had learned while doing extensive research and, while doing it, had even consulted a famous Hungarian scholar – Professor Arminius Vambéry, who was also a fairly well known lobbyist for the Russophobe cause. It is this rather political sentiment that brought Stoker and Vambéry together: most of Stoker’s known comments on his Hungarian friend have more to do with the British imperial interests and anti-Russian ideas than with Romanian history. In the revised edition of 1995 McNally and Florescu settle for less ambitious claim noting that even though Stoker and Vambéry did know one another no facts actually suggest that the Hungarian acquaintance would have played any part in Stoker’s process of writing Dracula. However, in their original version of In Search of Dracula from 1972 their statement is different:
‘“The two men [Stoker and Vambéry] dined together, and during the course of their conversation, Bram was impressed by the professor’s stories about Dracula ‘the impaler’. After Vambéry returned to Budapest, Bram wrote to him, requesting more details about the notorious 15th century prince and the land he lived in”’
Thus it appears that the crucial flaw in the research of McNally and Florescu is the rather bold assumption on how Stoker used his sources and where he got the information for his novel. Moreover, even in the revised publication of In Search of Dracula the two scholars ground their thesis of the two Draculas being connected on a rather un-academic assumption: “Stoker supplemented his knowledge about Dracula from old books in the British Museum Reading Room.” Stoker did indeed do some amount of research on Romanian history but the only definite source he used for this was William Wilkinson’s An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.
In Wilkinson’s account ‘Dracula’ is mentioned only four times. The first two refer to Vlad II Dracul, the father of Vlad Țepeș. However, the latter two references are of significant importance:
‘Their Voïvode, also named Dracula*, did not remain satisfied with mere prudent measures of defence: with an army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few Turkish troops that were stationed in his neighbourhood; but this attempt, like those of his predecessors, was only attended with momentary success. Mahomet having turned his arms against him, drove him back to Wallachia, whither he pursued and defeated him. The Voïvode escaped into Hungary, and the Sultan caused his brother Bladus to be named in his place’
This idea of Vlad Dracula’s failed offensive on foreign territory followed by destruction on native soil fits well together with Stoker’s story. However, the similarities between Dracula and the biography of Vlad Țepeș will be discussed further on in this essay. The footnote to the name of Dracula in the above citation presents the most crucial point of interest in the search for actual connections between the two Draculas: “Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians were, at that time, as they are at present, used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning”. According to Miller this passage was copied by Stoker and it would be the only reference to ‘Dracula’ in his notes. Hence, we must assume that connections between fictional and historical Dracula are in the light of solid facts feeble if not non-existent. Vlad Țepeș might have donated his other sobriquet to Stoker’s Count but this fact leads us merely to a singular footnote.
Nevertheless, since the publication of In Search of Dracula Stoker’s novel has experienced a spectacular renaissance predominantly because it has gained a new dimension: history. This new feature was added to what used to be a solely Gothic piece of horror literature. The allegedly true historical background has proven to be vital component for the Dracula myth ever since the aforementioned ground-breaking search. Not only has it given rise to new interpretations of Stoker’s old classic and boosted a new kind of tourism in Count Dracula’s native Romania but also provided the field of vampire-related popular culture with new blockbusters and bestsellers.
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From a Prince to a Count
Given that there is no factual basis for connecting the fictional and historical Dracula together we, in order to understand the regeneration of Vlad III Dracula into the vampire count, must yet scrutinize the original text of Bram Stoker for two reasons. Firstly, to prove the conclusions of the previous chapter and secondly to see whether the two Draculas would actually share something in common. The most obvious conclusion, when concentrating on the hints given about Count Dracula’s past, within the frames of Stoker’s text, is that Wilkinson’s account about Romanian history keeps repeating in the novel:
‘In his life, his living life, he [Dracula] got over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance.’
‘“That other of his [Dracula’s] race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey-land who when he was beaten back, came again, and again though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph.” [...] He was beaten and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey-land.’
Here the idea of a perseverant warrior who, rather than facing the enemy on his native ground, goes forth and tries to invade a foreign territory takes shape. What Wilkinson wrote about Dracula is basically parroted by Stoker. Thus it goes to prove that at least one attribute of historical Dracula is shared by the fictional one: both attack their enemy but fail in their campaign and are driven back to their native land where they finally face their destruction. Furthermore, the alleged Stoker-Vambéry link can be detected within the novel:
‘I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; [...] He [Dracula] must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. [...] The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. [...] In the records are such words as “stregoica” – witch, “ordog”, and “pokol” – Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as “wampyr”, which we all understand too well.’
What is particularly interesting in this passage is the fact that in Wordsworth’s edition from the year 2000 there are several footnotes that offer very controversial information to an unsuspecting reader. In these notes Arminius is related as: “Arminius Vambéry (1832-1913), whom Stoker met in 1890, was Professor of Oriental Languages at Budapest.” As was concluded earlier Stoker was familiar with Vambéry but their mutual interests were predominantly political ones. However, there remains a rather strong possibility that the appearance of Vambéry’s first name, Arminius, in Dracula is a sort of an acknowledgment to a friend and colleague.
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Moreover, Stoker is suggesting that the Voivode’s sobriquet, Dracula, was won in fight against the Turks. It is unclear whether Stoker is referring to the invading Turks or their opponents: Romanians and Hungarians. The name given to Vlad III Basarab by the Turks is not Dracula but Țepeș – the Impaler. On the other hand the actual sobriquet Dracula comes not, as usually suggested, from the crusaders of the Order of Dragon and thus from the Germanic Central Europe but it was actually adopted within Wallachia and was consciously used by Vlad the Impaler since his second reign between 1456 and 1462. The reason for Vlad III to use this epithet was mainly to underline his origin as a son of Vlad II Dracul, member of Basarab dynasty and thus as a lawful ruler of his principality.
In the passage above Stoker claims that the Dracula family had dealings with the Devil, which would explain the origin of Dracula as a vampire. This connotation fits well with Wilkinson’s footnote about ‘Dracula’ meaning ‘devil’ in Romanian. This would also make the idea of Stoker’s Count in living life, though vaguely depicted, as a courageous, cruel and cunning man resonate in harmony with Wilkinson’s account. Notable detail in this passage is the appearance of ‘wampyr’ which is an echo from an earlier period when Stoker was only planning on writing a Gothic vampire novel: Stoker’s preliminary idea was to name both his villain and his novel as Count Wampyr. Nevertheless, there remains one final passage in Dracula that seems to question almost everything what has been said about the two Draculas being two completely separate entities:
‘Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground! This was a Dracula indeed. Who was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!’
In the notes of the Wordsworth’s Classic this ‘brother’ is referred to as: “Radu, brother of Vlad the Impaler, who assumed the throne of Wallachia in 1462”. Thus the historical Dracula is brought into Stoker’s Dracula almost forcefully. This ‘brother’ Stoker mentions can still be detected in Wilkinson’s account as Bladus and again any obvious indications towards Vlad the Impaler are missing. Yet this contemporary revised publication of Dracula supports the erroneous idea of Count being the Prince. Thus we have no other alternative but to assume that the mistake of McNally and Florescu from 1972 has grown so deep into Stoker’s Dracula that it cannot be undone and we must face the consequences: Vlad the Impaler has crossed the boundaries of history and entered the realm of popular culture along with his double the Count.
Count Țepeș in Contemporary Cinema
First attempt to produce a film about the historical Dracula, within the frames of vampire-related cinema, was made already in 1972 (the same year In Search of Dracula was first published). In this relatively unknown documentary film Christopher Lee plays the roles of both Vlad Țepeș and the Count. The documentary’s aim was to relate the “true story” of Vlad the Impaler on whom Stoker allegedly had based his vampire novel. The documentary was heavily influenced by the Hammer Film classics and failed to get significant amount of attention.
Next year, in 1973, Dan Curtis directed a television adaption of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The plot of the film follows generally the storyline of the original novel with few significant additions. For the first time the vampire Count is partially based on Vlad the Impaler: the film explicitly refers to him via portrait that hangs on the wall of Castle Dracula. In the picture with Dracula is his first wife who, according to the Romanian folklore, committed suicide by throwing herself into the river (Râul Doamnei) in 1462 in fear of Turkish captivity. In Curtis’ film she is reincarnated as Lucy Westenra and thus attracts Count’s attention immediately when he sees her in a photograph of Jonathan Harker. The film finishes rather traditionally with the Count dying with a stake driven through his heart. Just before the end credits the following text appears:
‘In the 15th Century in the area of Hungary know as Transylvania, there lived a nobleman so fierce in battle that his troops gave him the name Dracula which means ‘devil’. Soldier, statesman, alchemist and warrior, so powerful a man was he that it was claimed he succeeded in overcoming even physical death. To this day it has yet to be disproven.’
It took almost twenty more years for Vlad Țepeș to reappear on the screen with Gary Oldman as the Count. This time it was Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) which reintroduced Vlad in the frames of a vampire film. Again the plot of the film is fairy similar to the Gothic classic but now the film has more substantial changes from Stoker’s script: the film begins with a prologue in the year 1462 relating the fall of Constantinople and Vlad Țepeș’ victory over Turks in a gruesome and bloody battle. Vlad III Dracula is introduced as a Romanian knight from Transylvania, which, after all, is not entirely incorrect. The focal point of the prologue is the suicide of Vlad’s wife Elizabeta. When Vlad learns that the Orthodox Church renounces Elizabeta because of her suicide he, in his fury, renounces God and Church and swears to avenge the injustice with the powers of darkness. The scene ends with Vlad stabbing the cross with his swords and drinking the blood, bleeding from the crucifix, with the words: “The blood is the life and it shall be mine!” All acting in the prologue is done solely in Romanian.
What follows the prologue is roughly the story of Bram Stoker but the emphasis has changed completely: horror tale has evolved into a love story with Mina Murray being the reincarnation of Elizabeta. Many scenes in the film are dedicated to the evolving relationship and by the end Mina has fallen deeply in love with the Count. In the final battle she even confronts the rest of the vampire hunters and helps dying Dracula into the church of Castle Dracula. There, in the same place where the story began, Mina slays the Count absolving him thus from his curse. The film ends with Annie Lennox’s single Love Song for a Vampire with lyrics that can be interpreted as a tribute to the love story of Vlad and Elizabeta. The song contains references to biblical allegories and especially to Song of Songs.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a blending of Gothic horror and romantic love story. This rather unorthodox adaptation in a chain of so far strongly traditional versions of Dracula might partially be explained as an answer to Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, which by 1992 had introduced a completely new generation of vampires with human feelings and human minds. Coppola regenerates Dracula completely with not just by adding in a bit of history but by actually transforming the Count from a beast and a villain into something that is highly identifiable as human: “Both Coppola’s Dracula and Rice’s Lestat are more like fallen angels than the predatory, evil animal-like Dracula of Stoker.”
The most resent adaption of vampire Țepeș is Joe Chappelle’s Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000). This film is a popularized biography of Vlad the Impaler and it relates all the crucial legends and anecdotes connected with the life of historical Dracula. The story is set as a hearing organized by a tribunal of Orthodox priests at Snagov monastery, the assumed burial place of Vlad III, in which Dracula relates the story of his life. Love plays a significant role also in this film: Vlad’s first wife Lydia bears his son but ends her life with a suicide because she cannot comprehend his cruelty and violence. In this film there is no song to demonstrate this love story but Lydia’s answer to Vlad: “I will walk with you” can be traced back to Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Both components of historical Dracula, patriotic messiah and anti-Christ, are presented in Dark Prince. By the end of the film the decision between these two options remains with the viewer, although Vlad faces his death as a martyr to his idea: betrayed by his brother, the boyars, the Orthodox Church and abandoned by his allies. Just before he is murdered the true villain of the story, byzantine priest Stefan of Snagov, is revealed. Stefan, together with the tribunal, excommunicates Vlad from the Orthodox Church making him thus unfit to gain the peace of Christian grave. Consequently Vlad resurrects from his death as a vampire and takes vengeance on Stefan.
Dracula as the Face of Human History
It took considerably more time for Vlad Țepeș to appear in popular literature than on silver screen. Since In Search of Dracula a steadily growing amount of interest has been materializing as a large number of more or less academic research published in the field of Dracula studies. However, there was no notable interest for the historical Dracula in frames of vampire literature before 2005 when Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian appeared.
The Historian takes ‘Dracula’ onto a completely new level for in this novel Stoker’s Count is nothing more but a footnote: the vampire Dracula is, as in the film Dark Prince, a resurrected Vlad the Impaler in eternal un-dead body. Kostova’s way of uniting the factual and fictional Dracula to one another is, quite remarkably, that of a genuine historian: Vlad the Impaler’s body, after being decapitated by the Turks (as suggested by all the essential historical sources), is taken in 1477 by the monks of Snagov monastery first to Istanbul, to be reunited with his severed head, and from there to the Bogomil influenced monastery of Sveti Georgi in Bulgaria, where Dracula, apparently, resurrects as a vampire.
The Historian is a mixture of many different styles of literature: it has the elements of a travelogue, thriller, adventure novel and detective. Most notably The Historian differs greatly from the traditions of Gothic horror and could possibly be better described as an eerie novel relating the history of a family in the turmoil of 20th century Europe. The novel deals also with many different stages of East European history offering a comprehensive insight for a Western foreigner.
‘The thing that most haunted me that day [...] was not my ghostly imagine of Dracula, or the description of impalement, but the fact that these things had – apparently – actually occurred. [...] For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. [...] Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you’ve seen that truth – really seen it – you can’t look away.’
This citation is a highly descriptive example of how Kostova relates different views and relationships with history. In The Historian of all the characters it is Vlad the Impaler whose figure is omnipresent and thus the most clear and definite example of human history. In chapter 73 Dracula states his credo: “History has taught us that the nature of man is evil, sublimely so. Good is not perfectible, but evil is.” On the other hand it is apparent that the modern history and many of its atrocities are, in fact, the handwork of Dracula: in Kostova’s novel Vlad the Impaler by his mere presence causes violence, diseases and turmoil. Dracula is sighted in Romania of 1930’s agitating a meeting of fascists. He is also reported to have been in Paris during the wrath of the French revolution and it is also apparent that the purely fictional terrorist bombings of Philadelphia in 2008 (situated in the future from the perspective of the novel’s first publication) are caused by his presence or assistance.'
Another crucial component of Kostova’s Dracula is his crusaders vengeance on not only the Ottoman Empire but Islam in general. His leading motive for pursuing immortality is his knowledge of the fact that because of his acts of unspeakable cruelty he is forbidden to enter the heavenly paradise. Elsewhere in the novel, where Dracula is presented as an independent figure, which happens only four times, he is depicted as a self-educated bibliophile filled with hatred and thirst not just for blood but also for causing violence and death wherever he goes. However, Dracula’s deepest desire and main ambition is to enable the clash of the civilizations between the Christian West and the Islamic East.
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Dracula’s opposing force in the novel are the historians, who are invited by Dracula himself to investigate his personal history. The main characters, Paul and Helen, who are searching for Dracula’s grave in order to save Helen’s father and Paul’s tutor Professor Rossi, are aided by the contemporary members of the Sultan’s secret Crescent Guard, an organization founded by Mehmed II to fight resurrected Dracula and the Order of the Dragon (a Christian organization waging holy war upon the Ottoman Empire). The Turkish colleagues of Paul and Helen are depicted highly sympathetically thus suggesting that the educated historians are able to see through the shallow conflicts and unite against Dracula – the symbol of violence and intolerance in human history. Interestingly enough Paul is shown in his later life as a diplomat trying to advocate détente between the Capitalist West and the Socialist East. Consequently he dies in Sarajevo in 1995 while working for peace in the middle of the Bosnian War.
In order to continue his existence as a vampire Dracula has to visit the fictional monastery of Saint-Matthieu-des-Pyrénées-Orientales near Perpignan in France once in a decade. It is this monastery from where the means for his regeneration are originally brought to Sveti Georgi in 1477 and it is also here where Dracula meets his destruction by his own descendant – Helen Rossi. However, as it is suggested in chapter 73 by Vlad himself, he has found a way to stay forever incorruptible and is thus impossible to destroy (“The world is changing and I intend to change with it. Perhaps soon I will not need this form [...] in order to accomplish my ambitions.”). In the epilogue the narrator, daughter of Helen and Paul, receives a copy of the same book which is used by Dracula to invite historians to search him. This would indicate that Dracula, the symbol of the evil of history, would still be alive.
Conclusions
As stated by Professor Florescu: “the connection between the two Draculas is a “unique” and “extraordinary accident.”” Nevertheless, the connection has been made and it has profoundly reshaped the legend of Dracula. Ever since In Search of Dracula (1972) Dracula has been evolving along with the rest of vampire-related popular culture. Count Dracula gained a past in the human form of Vlad the Impaler, who is now strongly present in developing Romanian tourism and contemporary image of Romania.
Vlad the Impaler was first sighted in vampire cinema already in Curtis’ film Dracula (1973) but he made a truly grand entrance only in Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). Coppola’s idea was further exploited in Dark Prince (2000) but so far the most noteworthy and prominent unification of these “doubles” gained popularity in Kostova’s bestseller The Historian (2005). Curtis presents us with a rather traditional Count, Coppola with a hybrid of both the historical and the fictional one but the last two are, indeed, examples of Vlad the Impaler as a figure of popular culture.
However, as we have concluded in this essay: the Count and the Prince are two separate entities and have really nothing in common. And yet they have visibly fit very well together. The reason for this, undoubtedly, is that ‘Dracula’, in order to avoid stagnation and thus being forgot by the vast public (e.g. like Varney the Vampire and the other vampire tales of Victorian era), has to keep regenerating with the rest of his genre. Whatever the Romanian patriots or the enthusiasts of classic Gothic literature might say: the Count has now become the Prince and the Prince has regenerated as the Count.
Thus, the regeneration of Dracula has provided the old villain with new forms and faces. Consequently a question arises: what is Dracula? On one hand Dracula is a Gothic novel which has secured its place in the collection of world classic literature but is now often overshadowed by more contemporary bestsellers such as Interview with the Vampire and Twilight. On the other hand it is a story of Romanian national hero who failed to preserve his country (within a generation after Vlad Țepeș’ death the Wallachian principality had become a borderland of the Ottoman Empire).
And yet there is more to Dracula. In February 2010 Kasabian released an album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum with a song called Vlad the Impaler as a tribute to late actor Heath Ledger. In terms of Dracula studies this musical image of Vlad Țepeș is heavily influenced by the German horror stories about Vlad’s atrocities. Vlad the Impaler also appeared in July 2011 in the manifesto of Anders Breivik, a Norwegian political extremist, where he is presented as a military genius and a hero of Christianity. Therefore, these two examples suffice to prove that by now Vlad the Impaler has become more than a mere figure of vampire-related popular culture. His deeds and reputation, whether deserved or not, continue to attract the interest of anyone who is willing to use the image of this Medieval tyrant for their own aims. Thus, Vlad the Impaler has become part of our modern world, its history and most of all: our own concept of evil. We have given him immortality.
Bibliography:
Cain, Jimmie E. Bram Stoker and Russophobia: Evidence of the British Fear of Russia in Dracula and The Lady of the Shroud, Jefferson, North Caroline: McFarland & Company, 2006.
Florescu, R. “What’s in the name: Dracula or Vlad the Impaler?” in Elizabeth Miller, ed., Dracula: The Shade and the Shadow, Essex: Desert Island Books, 1998.
Florescu, Radu R. & Raymond T. McNally Dracula: Prince of Many Faces, Boston: Little Brown, 1989.
Kostova, E. The Historian, London: Sphere, 2010.
McNally, Raymond T. & Radu Florescu In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires, London: Robson Books, 1995.
Miller, E. Dracula: Sense and Nonsense, Westcliff-on-Sea: Desert Island Books, 2000.
Miller, E. “Filing for Divorce: Count Dracula vs Vlad Tepes” in Elizabeth Miller, ed., Dracula: The Shade and the Shadow, Westcliff-on-Sea: Desert Island Books, 1998.
Stoker, B. Dracula, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 2000.
Trow, M. J. Vlad the Impaler: In Search of the Real Dracula, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2003.
Wilkinson, W. An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, London, 1820.
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