Dracula
 |
| Vlad Tepes |
Voievod (King) Mircea the Old (grandfather
of Vlad Tepes, also known as Dracula) was famous in the Romanian history for his
fight for freedom against invaders of his country. He was the sire of this noble
and illustrious family. His son, Vlad Dracul (father of Vlad Tepes), was a
courageous soldier and a commander of the Dragon unit (heavy cavalry). He
received The Order of the Dragon in Nuremberg from the Emperor Sigismond of
Luxembourg on February 8, year 1431. The German word "Drachen" which means
dragon sounds like the Romanian word "dracul" meaning "devil", and this is the
name which his father left to his son. The suffix "ea", edd to the father's name
(Vlad Dracul + ea) gave the son his nickname Draculea - later shortened to
Dracula. Vlad Dracul and his family left Germany and went to Sighisoara,
an old town in Transylvania. This is where Vlad Tepes (tepes means the impaler)
spent part of his youth. Vlad Dracul had three sons: Mircea, Vlad Tepes and Radu
the Beautiful. Vlad The Impaler, later to become Count Vlad Dracula, did inherit
some good qualities from his father.
Vlad III was born in November or December
of 1431 in the Transylvanian city of Sighisoara. At the time his father, Vlad II
(Vlad Dracul), was living in exile in Transylvania. The house where Vlad the
Impaler (Dracula) was born still exists today in the medieval citadel of
Sighisoara, which has been inhabited continually since his time. In 1431 the
house was called the "nest of spying from Sighisoara" and is located near the
clock tower which many people still visit every year. Inside the house on a wall
of a second floor room are a couple of original pictures dated of the years of
Vlad the Impaler.
In 1442 Vlad attempted to remain neutral
when the Turks invaded Transylvania. The Turks were defeated and the vengeful
Hungarians under John Hunyadi forced Dracul and his family to flee Wallachia.
Hunyadi placed a Danesti , Basarab II, on the Wallachian throne. In 1443 Vlad II
regained the Wallachian throne with Turkish support, on the condition that he
sign an new treaty with the sultan that included not only the customary annual
tribute but the promise to yearly send contingents of Wallachian boys to join
the sultan's Janissaries. In 1444, to further assure the sultan of his good
faith, Vlad sent his two younger sons to Adrianople as hostages. Dracula
remained a hostage in Adrianople until 1448. Little is known about the early
years of Vlad III’s life. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger
brother, Radu the Handsome. His early education was left in the hands of his
mother, a Transylvanian noblewoman, and her family. His real education began in
1436 after his father succeeded in claiming the Wallachian throne by killing his
Danesti rival. His training was typical to that of the sons of nobility
throughout Europe. His first tutor in his apprenticeship to knighthood was an
elderly boyar who had fought against the Turks at the battle of Nicolopolis.
Vlad learned all the skills of war and peace that were deemed necessary for a
Christian knight.
In 1447 Vlad Dracul was assasinated along with his son
Mircea. Mircea was apparently buried alive by the boyars and merchants of
Tirgoviste. Hunyadi placed his own candidate, a member of the Danesti clan, on
the throne of Wallachia.After his father was killed, Vlad’s younger brother
apparently chose to remain in Turkey, where he had grown up. (Radu is later
supported by the Turks as a candidate for the Wallachian throne, in opposition
to his own brother, Vlad.)
Vlad Tepes served three times as Voievod
of the Romanian people in Valachia over a period of 30 years : his first term
lasted for two months in the fall of 1448. The second, and longest reign, was
between 1456 and 1462. Vlad the Impaler was elected Voievod (King) again in 1476
and served for only two months (November and December) before his death. Dracula
spent a number of years in various prisons, totaling 26 of his 46 years of life.
Between 1448 and 1456, he was in exile in
Moldavia and Transylvania. He regained power over Wallachia in 1456, which was
being held by Iancu of Hunedoara, Voievod of Transylvania. Vlad the Impaler
wanted to make the internal political position of the Voievod very powerful.
Many years of fighting for power had created instability within the country. At
that time, some of the Boyars (wealthy landowners) abused and tortured the poor.
That abuse hindered the country's resistance to invasion. He understood that the
principal cause of instability for the state was the struggle for power among
the nobility.
Vlad Tepes understood that it was very
important for Valachia to protect its trade, so he made some special rules to
protect his country against the German and Saxon importers who were unhappy with
that. When the Saxons, (living in Transylvania), traded with Germany and Western
Europe, they demonstrated negative feelings about Vlad Tepes.
Vlad Tepes was in captivity from early
1462 to 1474. In the year 1474, his cousin Sthephan the Great Voievod of
Moldavia won the battle against Matthias Corvinus at Baia and forced him to set
Vlad the Impaler free. Reason for freeing Vlad Tepes was to use him as Voievod
of Wallachia to fight against the Ottoman invasion. Finally, Matthias Corvinus
was more interested in getting him back into fighting against the Turks as he
had before.In 1476 with the help of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary and
Transylvania and Voievod Sthephan the Great of Moldavia, Vlad the Impaler
(Dracula) become Voievod of Wallachia for the third time. This term lasted only
two months ending in his death.
There are many versions about how his
death occurred, but they all have the same foundation. The most popular version
was that Vlad the Impaler died in a forest called Coltul Bolesti close to
Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania. In this forest exists a small lake
called Witches Lake. Here it is always foggy and thunder and lightning hits the
forest frequently. Animals never touch the water and people talk about a lot of
strange things, that happened in past times.
He was killed by Laiota Basarab and the
Ottomans who wanted Laiota Basarab to become their new Voievod of Wallachia. The
nobility betrayed him because they were afraid of him. It stated the Ottomans
cut Dracula's body into pieces and killed another 4000 people who supported him.
Other sources say his close followers who confused him for an Ottoman killed
him. Because Dracula was wearing Turkish clothes the killer could have been one
of his own people. Another source stated his head was sent to the Ottoman Sultan
as a present, and his body was put into a crypt at the Snagov monastery, rebuilt
by him after the year 1456, in his second term as Voievod. He also ordered the
building of a prison, with a bridge and a refuge tunnel, between the island and
the lake for robbers and those accused of high treason, to keep them away from
society. This is the end of the life of the great Voievod of Valachia. In those
hard times he was a leader for his people, and especially for poor people, whom
he tried to protect from invaders in his fight for justice.
Vlad Dracula is remembered as a prince who
defended his people from foreigners, whether those foreigners were Turkish
invaders or German merchants. He is also remembered as a champion of the common
man against the oppression of the boyars.
