by Carrie Eckles

Created on: June 15, 2009

Count Dracula is arguably the most famous vampire of all time. A fictional character, he was conceived by the mind of Irish novelist Bram Stoker. However, Stoker did base his blood-sucking fiend on a real person: Vlad Tepes; also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, was born into exile in 1431 at Sighisoara, Transylvania. Transylvania was the home of his mother, who is known locally as Cneajna. His father, Vlad Dracul, had recently been ousted from his rule in their home of Wallachia by boyars who supported the Ottomans and was living in Nuremburg at the time of his middle son, and namesake's, birth.

Vlad Dracul received his legendary surname by being inducted into the Order of the Dragon. The order was founded by the Holy Roman Emperor and vowed to wrestle control of Wallachia away from the Ottomans. At the age of five, young Vlad Tepes was inducted into the order.

Things in young Vlad Tepes's life took a turn for the worse when, in 1444, his father signed a treaty with the Turks that promised to give them young Vlad and his little half-brother, Radu, as hostages. Amongst the Turks, they were educated in warfare and the Quran; however, they were also in danger, being exposed to pederastic relationships and the possibility of torture. It was in captivity that Vlad Tepes learned to hate; he acquired a deep animosity for his brother, their Turk captors, and his father, who turned them over in the first place; by doing so, he felt his father betrayed not only him, but the Order of the Dragon.

The latter part of the 1440's saw the assassinations of both Vlad's father and older brother, Mircea, who received a particularly awful death by being buried alive. The Turks capitalized upon these deaths and put young Vlad Tepes as their puppet-ruler on the throne of Wallachia. This rule was brief, however, when Vlad was ousted by the Hungarians and was forced to flee to Moldavia, where his uncle Bogdan II was Prince.

Vlad stayed in Moldavia until his uncle was assassinated. Then, on a leap of faith, he went to Hungary. John Hunyadi was the man who ordered the killing of Vlad's father. Now, through Vlad's determination and shared hatred of the Turks, Hunyadi became his ally and supported him as Hungary's choice for the ruler of Wallachia. It took two simultaneous campaigns to make it happen, but Vlad Tepes eventually took his rightful place on the throne of Wallachia.

As prince of Wallachia, Vlad was very distrustful of the established boyars who are largely responsible for the deaths of many Wallachian princes, notably his elder brother. To secure his power, he had many of the boyars executed and put loyal peasants in their place. It was during this time that Vlad's reign of horror began.

Vlad received his nickname, Impaler, because that was his preferred method of execution. Thousands of Turks and Wallachians alike died by this means; men, women, children, and babies. He took pride in the fact that this form of death was so painful and used it as a successfully tactical show of strength and cruelty. Even the Turkish sultan preparing to attack Wallachia was forced to turn around and flee back to Istanbul at the sight of tens of thousands of rotting corpses, impaled upon pikes outside of the Wallachian capital like a forest of death.

It's for his impaling and cruelty that Vlad Tepes is remembered by history and why Bram stoker gave his surname to one of literature's most frightening characters.

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