Vampires from Eastern Europe

The Son of the Dragon(1431 - ?)
His real name was Vladislaus V Tepes. His title "Dracula" comes fro his father. In 1432 the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire - Sigismund of Luxembourg, honoured Vlad II with the medallion of the Dragon. He became a member of the knightly "Order of the Dragon". It was dedicated to driving off the Turks from Europe. Its symbol was the Dragon. "Drac" - means Dragon or later Devil from Romanian and "Dracula" means - "The Son of the Dragon". In mediaeval Balkans, the Dragon was a very evil creature. The Dargon was the keeper of the gates to Hell. I personally find it quite bizarre to hire a Dragon to keep the gates to Hell. I mean who would ever want to break into Hell and steal something from there ?! Tepes from Romanian means "Impaler". Impalement was his favourite method of torture and execution. During his lifetime, Dracula impaled more than 140 000 people, most of them Turks. Even Sultan Mehmed II - the Conqueror of Byzantium turned back his army frightened of the sight of thousands of impaled rotting corpses just outside Dracula's capital - Turgoviste. Vladislaus Tepes was a fifteenth century voivoda and Prince of Wallachia. Wallachia is a Romanian province bordered to the north by Transylvania and Moldavia, to the east by the Black Sea and to the south by Bulgaria. Wallachia first emerged as a political entity during the late thirteenth century from the weltering confusion left behind in the Balkans as the East Roman Empire - Byzantium, slowly crumbled. Dracula was the last Prince of Wallachia to retain any real measure of independence. Wallachia had very powerful neighbours. First the powerful Bulgarian Kingdom and Hungary and then the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. In 1453 Constantinople and the last vestiges of the Bzantine or East Roman Empire, which had blocked the Islam's access to Europe for nearly one thousand years, succumbed to the armed might of the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. Fifty years before the fall of the Imperial City the Ottomans had penetrated deep into the Balkans. The mighty Bulgarian Kingdom also fall under Ottoman rule. The Turks feared the Bulgarians more than they feared the Byzantines. The Bulgarians were powerful warriors and excellent tacticians. After the Latin Crusaders conquered Byzantium, the Bulgarian capital Turnovo became the center of Orthodox Christianity and was called by many - "The New Constantinople". By 1398 Bulgaria was conquered too. Dracula's grandfather, Mircea the Old, was forced to pay tribute to the Sultan early in the fifteenth century. The Hungarian Kingdom to the north and west of Wallachia reached the zenith of its powers during the fifteenth century and and assumed Constantinople's ancient mantle as defender of Christendom. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Princes of Wallachia attempted to maintain a precarious independence by constantly shifting allegiances between these powerful neighbours. In 1456, Dracula officially became the ruler of Wallachia. From 1456 to 1462 Vladislaus defeated the Turkish armies six times. He stuck the stakes with the impaled Turks deep into the ground near the battlefield. Even the cruel Turkish barbarians were horrified by his heartlessness. Some of the Turks were saying that he was the Arabic Dark Angel Radin himself. In 1462 the Turks carried out a huge army against the Wallachian ruler. They had more than 7 000 camel riders and horsemen cavalry and 22 thousand soldiers infantry. The Romanians found themselves outnumbered and lost the battle. The Turks invaded Wallachia and Vlad had to seek help from the Hungarian King - Matthius Corvinus. Hungary was one of the most powerful 15th century Kingdoms. For bad luck, Matthius Corvinus refused to give Dracula the soldiers he needed to take back Wallachia and even imprisoned him for four years. Eventually, Dracula regained the favour and support of the Hungarian King. In 1476 he invaded Wallachia with a small army. Most of his soldiers were loyal Wallachians but there was also a contingent of Transylvanians under Prince, Stephen Bathory and many Moldavian soldiers given to him by his dear cousin Stephen the Great of Moldavia. The allies succeeded in driving the Turks out of the country. Vlad once again became the Prince of Wallachia in 1476. But to his surprise, shortly after he was placed on the Wallachian thorne once again, Stephen Bathory took most of Dracula's army with him when he returned to Transylvania. On another day, the Turks counterattacked. The brave Romanians met the bloodthirsty Turks near modern Bucharest. It was a bloody battle. The Romanians though outnumbered fought bravely and almost won it. They destroyed more than 40 percent of the Turkish life force in Romania. I think that the Wallachians would have won the battle only if a poisonous arrow did not shoot Dracula. He was "killed" on December of 1476. His head was delivered to the Sultan in Stambuli(Constantinople/modern Istanbul). His people showed it to the crowds in order to prove that the fearful Impaler was actually dead. However, many people claimed that the head that was shown to them was not of the Impaler. Knowing that Count Vladislaus was hit by a poisonous arrow and was probably dead, the Turks perhaps showed the head of someone else to the people. The history says that Dracula was indeed dead. Four days after his body was buried in Sigishuara, his tomb was found empty ...