NOT A MYTH

Dracula is a story written by Bram Stocker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) which talks about an English lawyer called Jonathan Harker, who is traveling to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to finalize a deal with Count Dracula. After a few weeks in the castle, Harker discovers the Count's secret, The Count is a demonic creature that survives by drinking human blood and, now he wants to eat him.  What would you do if I told you this story was true? Dracula, as crazy and terrorific as it sound´s was actually inspired in real events, in the life of a true sadistic monster, called Vlad the Impaler. The intention of this article is to present the relationship between Dracula and Vlad the Impaler.

In the late 1431, a barbarous and cruel human being was born. Prince Vlad III son of Vlad II or Dracul (synonym for dragon) arose in Romania, Transylvania for this date. In early 1400´s Transylvania was caught in a constant chaos between the influences of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The prince Vlad was known to be a very brave strategic man who fought the Muslim invaders in his country using very particular and unique punishments. They called him Dracula, as son of a Dragon, and Vlad the Impaler due to one specific penalty he used on his victims, this was impaling…

Impaling is a particularly gruesome form of torture and death in which a metal or usually wooden stick is inserted through the body from the back, neck or through the mouth finishing at the anus or vagina. They used more frequently a wooden, round point stick, because this wouldn’t damage any internal organs, letting the victim alive for longer an in bigger suffering. The pole was then raised vertically to display the victim's torment; it could take hours or days for the impaled person to die.

As Dracula in the story did, Vlad the Impaler had a particularly gross taste in human blood, an example of this behavior is “When diplomatic envoys had an audience with Vlad in 1459, the diplomats declined to remove their hats, citing a religious custom. Commending them on their religious devotion, Vlad ensured that their hats would forever remain on their heads by having the hats nailed to the diplomats' skulls.” (Lalliana, 2013). Vlad principally punished those who had a different point of view than he did, mostly in religious and political terms.

Prince Dracula’s lasted more than six years in which more than two million people were brutally killed; no one was really safe form the Impaler. By today’s standards he would be consider one of the most terrible mass murderess in history. Even if most of his killings were politically targeted, against religious and foreign enemies, sometimes he killed merely because he was bored.