Dracula, Prince of Many Faces

by Radu R Florescu

  There were of course abundant pragmatic reasons for Dracula's pro-peasant stance. He was conscious of the fact that the peasantry constituted over 90 percent of the total inhabitants of the country. He needed their brawn to cut down the century-old Vlasia forest and open up arable land on the Danubian plain, where the black soil was as rich as that of the Ukraine. Turkish documents often referred to the Wallachian plain as the granary of Constantinople. Dracula firmly believed that the strength of the country lay in its agricultural wealth, and the grain had to be sown and cultivated and the crop harvested by manual labor. To encourage these efforts, Dracula granted villages on the plain exemptions from feudal dues. In other instances, he founded new villages. We know their names from local folklore in which Dracula is reverently remembered to this day. Such were the villages of Troianeti in the Olt district, and Vldaia and Albutele, closer to the Danube, in the Ilfov district. It was largely with the aim of defending these villages, often located perilously close to the Danube frontier, that Dracula built fortresses, including Bucharest, knowing that the population could find shelter behind the walls in times of danger.

  In case of noncompliance with his high standards of work, he was quite prepared to mete out punishment. To see for himself how things were going, Dracula roamed across the countryside in disguise, as a self-styled inquisitor, particularly at night. He discerned how the peasants lived, how well they worked, and what they were thinking about. For those who did not respect his rigid code, he instituted people's courts in individual villages. Sometimes he would take upon himself the role of judge, in the manner of a Saint Louis under his famous oak tree at Vincennes — a clear violation of the jurisdictions of boyar tribunals, which were the bastions of feudal law. In other instances he would stop at individual peasant homes and ask specific questions concerning their lives. Honesty was invariably the best policy, since hypocrisy was a vice Dracula could not tolerate. Hard work, though, was particularly emphasized and laziness abhorred. Whenever he encountered a libertine or rake, Dracula lost his temper and imposed punishment, as witnessed in the following paraphrased Romanian peasant ballad:

  One day Dracula met a peasant who was wearing too short a shirt. One could also notice his homespun peasant trousers, which were glued to his legs, and one could make out the sides of his thighs. When he saw him [dressed] in this manner, Dracula immediately ordered him to be brought to court. “Are you married?” he inquired. “Yes, I am, Your Highness.” “Your wife is assuredly of the kind who remains idle. How is it possible that your shirt does not cover the calf of your leg? She is not worthy of living in my realm. May she perish!” “Beg forgiveness, my lord, but I am satisfied with her. She never leaves home and she is honest.” “You will be more satisfied with another since you are a decent and hardworking man.” Two of Dracula's men had in the meantime brought the wretched woman to him, and she was immediately impaled. Then bringing another woman, he gave her away to be married to the peasant widower. Dracula, however, was careful to show the new wife what had happened to her predecessor and explain to her the reasons why she had incurred the princely wrath. Consequently, the new wife worked so hard she had no time to eat. She placed the bread on one shoulder, the salt on another, and worked in this fashion. She tried hard to give greater satisfaction to her new husband than the first wife and not to incur the curse of Dracula.

  The image of Dracula as a friend of the poor has had to overcome examples of even sterner retributions in the oral traditions of the Romanian people. Perhaps the most tragic incident involving mass punishment of the have-nots, one that is referred to in all the narratives — German, Russian and Romanian — was Dracula's ridding the country of the beggars, the sick, and the poor. The Romanian version of that particular incident is as follows:

  Having asked the old, the ill, the lame, the poor, the blind, and the vagabonds to a large dining hall in Tîrgovite, Dracula ordered that a feast be prepared for them. On the appointed day, Tîrgovite groaned under the weight of the large number of beggars who had come. The prince's servants passed out a batch of clothes to each one, then they led the beggars to a large mansion where tables had been set. The beggars marveled at the prince's generosity, and they spoke among themselves: “Truly it is a prince's kind of grace.” Then they started eating. And what do you think they saw before them: a meal such as one would find on the prince's own table, wines and all the best things to eat which weigh you down. The beggars had a feast that became legendary. They ate and drank greedily. Most of them became dead drunk. As they became unable to communicate with one another, and became incoherent, they were suddenly faced with fire and smoke on all sides. The prince had ordered his servants to set the house on fire. They rushed to the doors to get out, but the doors were locked. The fire progressed. The blaze rose high like inflamed dragons. Shouts, shrieks, and moans arose from the lips of all the poor enclosed there. But why should a fire be moved by the entreaties of men? They fell upon each other. They embraced each other. They sought help, but there was no human ear left to listen to them. They began to twist in the torments of the fire that was destroying them. The fire stifled some, the embers reduced others to ashes, the flames grilled most of them. When the fire finally abated, there was no trace of any living soul.

  The main justification for this crime was that it was an attempt to rid the country of useless vagabonds. Dracula's own words have survived in the collective memory of the Romanian people: “These men live off the sweat of others, so they are useless to humanity. It is a form of thievery. In fact, the masked robber in the forest demands your purse, but if you are quicker with your hand and more vigorous than he you can escape from him. However, these vagabonds take your belongings gradually by begging — but they still take it. They are worse than robbers. May such men be eradicated from my land!”

  In Dracula's defense one might allege that these vagabonds, infirm and destitute people who roamed the countryside, occasionally invading cities and preying upon the rich instead of working, constituted a social plague. These people were a threat to the prosperity of the land and gave his country a poor reputation. One specialist in the history of Romanian medicine has suggested also that Dracula, through this action, was attempting to rid the country of the plague, a constant scourge on the lower Danube. In addition he may have been trying to liquidate the problem of the gypsies, the vagabond people, notorious for their thievery and wrongdoing. When on one occasion a condemned gypsy leader protested to the prince that death by impalement or fire was contrary to their law, Dracula ordered him to be boiled alive in a huge cauldron — and then, as an added refinement, compelled the members of his tribe to eat the flesh of the culprit, an act of forced cannibalism. In most instances, however, gypsies, if caught in a crime or misdemeanor, were given the option of enrolling in Dracula's army, where they were distinguished by the motley-colored cattle hides that they wore, a fact noted by one of Romania's first great eighteenth-century epic poets, Ion Budai-Deleanu. His poem, iganiada, the first written in the Romanian language, focused on Dracula's role as the leader of a gypsy army against the Turks.

  Though primarily interested in promoting the farming efforts of the peasant class, who in return remember their prince reverently, Dracula did not neglect the interests of the merchants and artisans; on their behalf he took on the German Saxon merchants of Transylvania. Indeed, Wallachia's geographical position placed it on the important crossroad linking western Europe to Hungary and Transylvania to Constantinople and the Near East. Traffic had been temporarily disrupted by the Turkish conquest, but was bound to continue with Turkish encouragement after 1453. One classic anecdote involves an important merchant from Florence, who spent some time in Tîrgovite on his way to Constantinople with a carriage laden with both money and goods. As he reached the capital, the merchant immediately went to the princely palace and asked Dracula for servants who might watch over him, his merchandise, and his money. Dracula ordered him to leave the merchandise and the money in the public square and to
come to sleep in the palace. The merchant, having no alternative, submitted to the princely command. However, during the night, someone passing by his carriage stole 160 gold ducats. On the next day, early in the morning, the merchant went to his carriage, found his merchandise intact, but 160 gold ducats missing. He immediately went to Dracula and told him about the missing money. Dracula told him not to worry and promised that both the thief and the gold would be found. He ordered his servants to replace the gold ducats from his own treasury, but to add an extra ducat. He commanded the citizens of Tîrgovite immediately to seek out the thief, saying that if the thief were not found, he would destroy the capital. In the meantime, the merchant went back to his carriage, counted the money once, counted it a second time and yet again a third, and was amazed to find all his money there with an extra ducat. He then returned to Dracula and told him: “Lord, I have found all my money, only with an extra ducat.” The thief was brought to the palace at that very moment. Dracula told the merchant: “Go in peace. Had you not admitted to the extra ducat, I would have ordered you to be impaled together with this thief.”

  It is relevant to note that Dracula in this instance made all the citizens of Tîrgovite collectively responsible for finding the culprit, under threat of destroying their city, an extremely harsh stance. Another narrative confirms the fact that because of such severe measures thievery became virtually unknown in Wallachia by the end of Dracula's reign. The most poignant story is that of a golden cup purposely left by Dracula near a certain fountain located near the source of a river. Travelers from many lands came to drink at this fountain, because the water was cool and sweet. Dracula had intentionally put this fountain in a deserted place to test dishonest wayfarers. So great was the fear of impalement, however, that so long as he lived no one dared to steal the cup, and it was left at its place.

  Dracula's objectives in using terror at home thus included ending feudal anarchy through the subjugation of the boyar class; preventing disorders wrought by thieves, gypsies, and vagabonds; and ensuring the security of merchants and their goods at a time when roads were hazardous, to say the least. “There must be security for all and sundry in my land” was a popular watchword attributed by the peasants to Dracula. Almost to the end of his career, the peasants accepted the fact that intrinsic values such as these could be enforced through the harshest means if necessary. Indeed, Dracula is remembered most reverently by the Romanian people, as we shall see.

  In addition, there was a strong puritanical strain in him, which accounts for both his good works and some of his worst acts of terror. Most narratives seem to agree that he wished to introduce a new system of ethics in his country, laying emphasis on personal morality. “Dracula so hated evil in his land,” states the Russian narrative, “that if someone lied or committed some injustice, he was not likely to stay alive, whether he was a nobleman or a priest or a monk or a common man.” One example taken from Romanian folklore will serve to demonstrate this puritanical strain:

  If any wife had an affair outside of marriage, Dracula ordered her sexual organs cut. She was then skinned alive and exposed in her skinless flesh in a public square, her skin hanging separately from a pole or placed on a table in the middle of the marketplace. The same punishment was applied to maidens who did not keep their virginity, and also to unchaste widows. For lesser offenses, Dracula was known to have the nipple of a woman's breast cut off. He also once had a red-hot iron stake shoved into a woman's vagina, making the instrument penetrate her entrails and emerge from her mouth. He then had the woman tied to a pole naked and left her exposed there until the flesh fell from the body, and the bones detached themselves from their sockets.

  Regardless of motivation, savage acts of this nature, the hallmarks of Dracula's reign, serve to emphasize a cruel and perhaps irrational streak in his personality. At such moments, he emerges as a murky character from The Thousand Nights and One Night, an Oriental tyrant, a monster who may well vie with Ivan the Terrible for the title of the most gruesome psychopath of history. Apart from the methods of imposing death, what shocks one is the number of victims Dracula amassed within the short span of a six-year rule. Estimates range from a minimum of 40,000 victims to a maximum of 100,000, a calculation made by the papal nuncio, the bishop of Erlau, near the end of Dracula's career in 1475, clearly an exaggerated number even if one includes his Turkish war victims as well. These victims included people of all nationalities (Romanians — from Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania — plus Bulgarians, Germans, Hungarians, and Gypsies), all classes (boyars as well as peasants), all religions (Catholic, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish) and men, women, and children. By our insensitive twentieth-century standards these numbers may appear insignificant. However, the figures far exceed those of the so-called massacres of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and even eighteenth centuries. The wholesale massacre of Protestants during the night of Saint Bartholomew in Paris (August 24, 1572), which made even Ivan the Terrible indignant, accounted for only 5,000 to 10,000 victims, while during Robespierre's reign of terror (1793-1794), no more than 20,000 to 25,000 victims perished on the guillotine. The number of Dracula victims, even if exaggerated, is all the more telling, when it is recalled that France's total population in 1715 was 18,000,000 inhabitants, whereas the total population of Wallachia in Dracula's time did not exceed half a million.

  It was, however, and as noted, not only the matter of killing on a massive scale that shocked contemporaries, but the manner and refinements used in imposing death. Dracula's favorite method of execution, which has immortalized him among artists of crime, was impalement. According to the various narratives — German, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish, Romanian — stakes stood permanently prepared in the courtyard of the palace of Tîrgovite, in various strategic places, in public squares, and in the vicinity of the capital. Dracula was often present at the time of punishment. Usually, it is said, the stakes were carefully rounded at the end and bathed in oil so that the entrails of the victims should not be pierced by a wound too quickly fatal when the victim's legs were stretched wide apart and two horses (one attached to each leg) were sent cantering in different directions, while attendants held the stake and body firmly in place. Not all of Dracula's impalement victims were, however, pierced from the buttocks up. Judging from several prints, men, women, and children were also impaled through the heart, the navel, the stomach, and the chest.

  Nor was impalement the only form of punishment. Dracula decapitated, cut off noses, ears, sexual organs, and limbs. He blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, boiled, skinned, roasted, hacked (“like cabbage,” specifies a German narrative), nailed, buried alive, and had his victims stabbed. He also exposed them to the elements and to wild animals, and built secret trapdoors to drop the wretches on cunningly located stakes below. If he did not practice cannibalism, the German storyteller mentions that he compelled others to eat human flesh, as was the case with the gypsies. He also made use of the wheel, hot irons, and other forms of medieval torture. Turkish sources state that on one occasion he smeared salt and honey on the soles of the captives' feet and allowed animals to lick them for indefinite periods of suffering. The papal legate Modrussa recapitulated some of the stories related to him by King Matthias about the refinements of Dracula's cruelties. Modrussa reported to Pope Pius II, for example, how, in his years of reign before 1462, Dracula had killed 40,000 of his political foes:

  He killed some of them by breaking them under the wheels of carts; others, stripped of their clothes, were skinned alive up to their entrails; others placed on stakes, or roasted on red-hot coals placed under them; others punctured with stakes piercing their head, their navel, breast, and, what is even unworthy of relating, their buttocks and the middle of their entrails, and, emerging from their mouths; in order that no form of cruelty be missing, he stuck stakes in both breasts of mothers and thrust their babies onto them; he killed others in other ferocious ways, torturing them with varied instruments such as the atrocious cruelties of the most frightful tyrant
s could devise.

  Tursun Bey, a Turkish chronicler who wrote at the end of the fifteenth century, depicts the following macabre scene:

  In front of the wooden fortress where he had his residence, he set up at a distance of six leagues two rows of fence with impaled Hungarians, Moldavians and Wallachians. In addition, since the neighboring area was forested, innumerable people were hanging from each tree branch, and he ordered that if anyone should take one of the hanging victims down, he would hang in his place.

  From descriptions such as these the term “the forest of the impaled” was coined.

  In addition to physical torture, Dracula had a predilection for various forms of moral torture: he liked to obtain confessions prior to punishment, to put a man in the wrong before he was executed. Dracula placed inordinate importance upon the use of words, and greatly prized dialectical talents: a clever answer to a twisted question could occasionally save a man's life. Those who failed to pass the ordeal, however, faced certain death.

  Such physical and moral suffering must of course be viewed in the light of the standards and morality of his time. Mass killings, and the execution and torture of political opponents together with their families, were hardly Dracula's inventions. Dracula's mentality was not very different from that of Louis XI, the Spider King, who had a predilection for hanging young boys on the branches of trees and placed his enemies in cages. Dracula's cruelty was no worse than that of Ferrante (Ferdinand) of Naples, who, having killed most of his political opponents, had his victims mummified and placed in the royal museum, where they were shown to his guests. The massacres carried out by the Italian “signori,” whether the blood feuds between the Odi and the Baglioni at Perugia or the Orsini and Colonna in Rome, or those of Ludovico Sforza, the Moor, at Milan, Pope Alexander VI and his illegitimate son Cesare Borgia, or the notoriously evil Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini, reflect equally the low ethical standards of the period.