Photo Credit: A ghoulish Vlad Tepes (the Impaler) lives up to his fearsome image as he feasts amid his victims in this 15th-century German woodcut. The Origins of Dracula: Vlad the Impaler Vlad the Impaler more than lived up to his fearsome surname—Dracula—during his long and tumultuous reign of terror. This article appears in: April 2006 By Mark S. Longo To millions of people, the name Dracula is synonymous with horror. The mere mention of Dracula invokes terrifying images of bats, Gothic castles and, of course, vampires. This was not always the case. Until the late 1800s, the name referred to a real man—Vlad Dracula, a medieval nobleman who ruled the Eastern European province of Wallachia (now part of Romania). In many ways, he was more fearsome than the fictional Dracula could ever hope to be. Vlad Dracula was born in 1431 in the Transylvanian city of Sighisoara, a descendant of a long line of Wallachian rulers. His grandfather, Mircea the Great, fathered a number of illegitimate children, including Dracula’s father Basarab. When Mircea died, Basarab was sent to the court of the Hungarian Emperor Sigismund. While his brothers squabbled over their father’s throne, Basarab was busy learning warfare and diplomacy under Sigismund. As a reward for his diplomatic skills, Basarab was named the military governor of the province of Transylvania. A few months before Dracula was born, Basarab was inducted into the prestigious and secretive Order of the Dragon, a group of European leaders who were sworn to defend the Holy Roman Empire against infidels. Upon his induction, Basarab took the name Dragon, pronounced Dracul in his native Romanian. Ironically, Dracul is also the Romanian word for devil, a term that would later be applied to his murderous son. Although a sworn member of the crusading order, Dracul was not blind to the political and military reality of his time. The Turks were massing an invasion force on his southern border, and Dracul’s small army was not strong enough to repel them. The situation worsened when Emperor Sigismund died in 1437. Without his benefactor, Dracul was left to face the Turks alone. Realizing that he was powerless to stop the impending invasion, Dracul made a hard choice. He agreed to continue the Wallachian custom of paying the Turks a tribute of 10,000 gold ducats every year. As a way of proving his loyalty to the Ottoman Empire, Dracul accompanied Sultan Murad II on a raid into neighboring Transylvania, during which the Turks destroyed a number of villages and captured 70,000 prisoners. Not surprisingly, his overtures to the Turkish sultan strained his ties to the Hungarian empire and, more important, to the powerful Hungarian warlord Janos Hunyadi. As ruler of Wallachia, Dracul was caught between the towering egos and massive war machines of Hunyadi and Murad II. It was an unenviable position. In 1441, Hunyadi began planning a crusade to drive the Turks from their positions in Serbia and Bulgaria. He called on Dracul to honor his sworn oath and join the crusade, but the Wallachian ruler refused. Instead, Dracul remained neutral in the conflict. His attempt to please both parties backfired. Both Murad and Hunyadi were enraged by his refusal to participate on either side. The furious sultan summoned him to a meeting to discuss his loyalty. Foolishly, Dracul took along his two youngest sons, 12-year-old Vlad and eight-year-old Radu. Upon their arrival, the sultan took all three captive. Dracul remained a prisoner for a year, until he swore on both the Koran and the Bible not to participate in any future wars against the sultan. Murad then allowed him return to Wallachia, but he held onto Vlad and Radu as hostages to insure that Dracul kept his word. Vlad’s captivity at the sultan’s court proved to be the formative experience of his life. He endured harsh discipline and strict supervision, but he also gained deep insight into Turkish life and, more important, their military. Vlad and Radu both trained with the Turkish Janissary corps, the sultan’s elite warriors. Consisting primarily of European children who had been stolen from their homes or sent to the sultan as tribute, the Janissaries were converted to Islam and raised as fanatical Muslim warriors. Vlad’s legendary cruelty may have given rise to the Dracula legends. His piercing eyes and long nose give him at least a passing resemblance to the vampire of popular legend. A Penchant for Impaling With his two youngest sons in captivity, Dracul continued trying to play both sides against the middle, but his crusader oath and his pledge of neutrality to the sultan were in direct conflict. When Pope Eugenius IV called for a new crusade against the Turks, Hunyadi demanded that Dracul join the crusade, but again he refused. Instead, he sent his oldest son Mircea and a contingent of Wallachian cavalry. He hoped that this solution would placate both the sultan and Hunyadi. For a short while, it appeared to be working. The early part of ...