Was Vlad Dracul really a vampire or insane?

Insane

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by Joseph Whalen

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At no point in time was the actual historic figure of Vlad Dracul, Prince of Wallachia ever perceived or claimed to have been a vampire. As to the question of whether he is insane or not there is insufficient evidence to support such a statement. Of course judging the iconic ruler the Romanian province of Wallachia by today's standards of what is and is not insane is hardly realistic. Judging him by the standards of his day he would have been perceived has a hero by his people and vilified by his enemies, but it is unlikely either side would have questioned his sanity.

Eastern Europe was a violent and dismal place during the 13th century when the prince sat on the throne. Life was a constant struggle against the elements, famine and local land barons vying for control of their little piece of land. This climate was thrown into upheaval by the aggressive practices of the forces of Islam massing in Turkey and pushing ever further into the reaches of Eastern Europe from Asia and the Middle East. As a devout Christian Vlad was sworn to defend his lands from the infidel Islamic armies. Sometimes his treatment of his enemies was harsh, other times it was barbaric and bizarrely cruel. Hence why he wore the moniker of Vlad the Impaler for his penchant for impaling his victims. While some of his habits were grotesque and even ritualistically anti-Christian there were no ties between Vlad Dracul and vampirism.

The renaissance had yet to make it to borders of Romania by the time Vlad's ascension to the throne in or around 1448. Romania was still largely a medieval culture, primitive and paranoid. The age of enlightenment which brought about the rise of scientific discovery and art had yet to lift up this backwater region of Europe. As a result many of the societal beliefs that were held sacred in the dark ages were still pervasive in Vlad's princedom. The views of vampirism at this time were vastly different than the romanticized notions of today's culture. A fear of the living dead was something that each citizen held close to their hearts. Excavations of period tombs show obvious signs of post mortem efforts to ensure the dead remained in their eternal slumber. Vampirism was a serious and widely held belief by the local culture. Bearing this in mind, the fact that there were no claims against Vlad as being a vampire offer evidence that society at the time was not convinced of his undead nature.

It was the novels of the 19th and 20th century that have led to the allusion that Vlad Dracul was a vampire. Specifically the writings of Bram Stoker, who set his story of romantic blood drinking undead monsters of Transylvania, a geographically close neighbor to Vlad's kingdom of Wallachia. Stoker even went so far as to borrow Vlad's surname of Dracula as the name of the book's title character. So was born the notion that a real life history figure was a vampire. In truth though, Bram Stokers fantastically terrifying classical novel was a pure work of fiction with a smattering of facts thrown in for the more educated reader. Prior to the writing of the novel Stoker had never even visited the region, content to feed his limited use of facts from the equivalent of travel brochures commonly available to people of the day.

As to whether Vlad Dracul was insane, it is quite possible he was. However we can't judge his sanity simply from the brutality he exhibited or the bizarre behavior he indulged in. Indeed in these dark times brutality and violence was common place. Crusaders in the name of Christ were responsible for far more slaughter, rampaging and brutality than was ever attributed to the Prince of Wallachia. The church itself commonly practiced brutally physical torture techniques to extract forced confessions from suspected heretics. If we judge Vlad Dracul as insane from the acts of brutality he committed against his enemies than many people from the time of the fall of Rome until the age of enlightenment can be equally accused of madness. But by today's standards they very well might be insane.

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