The True Story Of Dracula (Interesting read)

Useless-knowledge.com ^ | October 18 , 2004 | Mark Gelbart

[robowombat]

Bram Stoker combined two different legends into one, and wrote a classic novel.

[Feiny]

Great movie despite Keanu Reeves.

[edcoil]

How about reposting this at halloween

[tfecw]

Ahh some back story :) I've caught more than a few shows on the History Channel about Dracula but either they didn't get into the elder Vlad, or i forgot. At any rate interesting post.

[Focault's Pendulum]

I am Vlad......Spartacus!!!

[reagan_fanatic]

The expanding gas could also make the corpses sit straight up, and because they were in shallow graves, they would break through the surface of the soil. This would not be a comforting sight for a feudal age peasant.

LOL - the mental image of that happening is just priceless!

[xsmommy]

i am currently reading the novel The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova , which is a novel about historians researching that time period. it is a fascinating read, i highly recommend it.

[dts32041]

Vlad, the impaler, is considered to be a great patriotic hero by most Romanians, because he helped Transylvania become independent from the Ottoman Empire. The Turks invaded his kingdom, and he defeated them in battle. He took twenty thousand prisoners and impaled them all. In addition, he burned down farms and villages and poisoned wells, so the Turks would be denied supplies. When the Turks saw the impaled prisoners, they became frightened, and they retreated.

Do you suppose this might work in Iran or Syria?

[meowmeow]

[timdel33]

Good point I have seen bodies sitting upright on a battle field unnerving at first sight and I always wondered how...

I bet the peasants totally freaked. Imagine, walking through a field at night with bodies raising up!!!

[robowombat]

Yes the Turks dubbed him 'Kiziklu Bey', 'The Impaler Prince'.

[PeterPrinciple]

As king of Trannsylvania, Vlad declared war on poverty. He invited all the poor people and beggars to a grand feast in a castle. He then locked all of the exits and burned the castle down. He even said, "I did this so there would be no poor in my realm."

Anybody here think we should go this far in our war on poverty? Though It might have better results than the "Great Society".

[ZULU]

Probably, but we are too "civilized" for that.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

ping.

Where you been?

[ZULU]

The Romanians - or more properly the Wallachians - called him Vlad Tepes. Vlad the Impaler.

He and his father both belonged to the Order of the Dragon, a secret society set up by the Pope to fight Muslims and protect Christianity. The Romanian word for Dragon was Dracul. Dracul also meant "devil." As his father was called Dracul, the son, Vlad Tepes, was called Dracula or son of the Dragon, or little Dragon.

Despite the account given here about Dracula's death, all that is know for certain is that he died in a battle with the Turks and was killed by having his head cut off, possibly by a traitor in his own force. His head was apparently sent to Constantinople where the Sultan had it displayed on a pike.

There was a grave uncovered in a Church where Dracula was supposedly buried and the corpse had no head.

Dracula, in addition to his problems with the Turks, also had problems with foreign settlers - German Saxons - in his Country, problems arising from the conflict between Orthodox and Latin Christians, and problems with his aristocrats - the Boyars - as well as with the ruler of Hungary and some German potentates.

The stories about Dracula and his fiendish activities were transmitted to us by his enemies - the Germans and Hungarians.

The fact that his own people had a very different view of him indicates these stories may have been biased.

It was a violent, cruel age, and a Choirboy is not the kind of character needed to deal with the Turks who were a violent and aggressive enemy.

I think westerners should re-appraise Dracula and regard him in the same light as other Christian leaders who fought to keep the Muslim enemy from defiling European soil with their polluted presence. And for a time,e he did succeed. The Turks learned to fear the man called Vlad Tepes.

Modern Europeans could learn a lot from Vlad "Dracula" Tepes.
May God bless you Vlad Tepes, wherever you are. Europe owes you a debt of gratitude.

[edcoil]

"twenty thousand prisoners and impaled them all. "

I don't even want to thing about how bad that smelled or the flies and illness it caused to the survivors.

Must have been horrific and bothered the locals as well.

[DarthVader]

"Do you suppose this might work in Iran or Syria?"

Yep! It would work with all of crazy Islamic Wahabbism. Vlad had the perfect solution to deal with these animals.

[Paul C. Jesup]

As king of Trannsylvania, Vlad declared war on poverty. He invited all the poor people and beggars to a grand feast in a castle. He then locked all of the exits and burned the castle down. He even said, "I did this so there would be no poor in my realm."

(sarcasm) I knew I like this guy for some reason.

How is that for a solution to poverty...

[Itzlzha]

What about the idea for vampirism?
Vampirism is one of many superstitions that were held by the illiterate peasants of Trannsylvania during the middle ages. The human mind needed explanations for the enigmatic occurences of everyday living.

Except for one small problem...

Every culture on Earth...INCLUDING those previously undisturbed Aboriginal tribes...have stories of Vampirism and Lycanthropy.

The stories are world-wide, and span ALL cultures.

[7thson]

This book sucks totally! It should be sub-titled how liberals fight vampires. Most of what this article states was in the book with the exception of Vlad having a brother. What till you get to the ending why Draculas kidnapped the college professor. I will not spoil it for you but you come back after your are finished and let me know if you thought it was scary! Dracula is a scary book and the revised version by Stephen King - 'Salems Lot - is also scary. The Historian is a complete bore!