Dracula, Prince of Many Faces

by Radu R Florescu

  This new set of circumstances freed Dracula to move into an imposing house in Pest, across from Buda, where he lived in a princely manner and where at least one of his two sons was born, one brought up at the Hungarian court and the other raised by the bishop of Oradea. Dracula's eldest surviving son, named Mihnea, the product of an illegitimate liaison, was also living at the Hungarian court.

  Anecdotes, however, continued to circulate concerning Dracula's unusual traits — in this case his fanatical concern for protocol — even in his new palatial surroundings. According to the account of Kuritsyn, a criminal had sought refuge in Dracula's courtyard. Officials of the king, chasing him, came into Dracula's courtyard in search of the escapee. But Dracula reacted to this intrusion into his private domain with sword in hand. He cut off the head of the chief officer who was holding the criminal and let the criminal go free. His men fled in terror and complained to a judge, informing him about what had happened. This judge and his men went to the Hungarian king to lodge a complaint against Dracula. The king then sent a messenger to Dracula, who was told to ask the Wallachian, “Why have you committed such a crime?” And Dracula replied, “I did not commit any crime. It is the police official who committed suicide. Anyone will perish in this way, should he, like a thief, invade the house of a great ruler such as myself. If this man had come to me first and had explained the situation to me, and if the criminal had then been found in my own home, I myself would have delivered the criminal over to him and would have pardoned him.” When the king was told about this, he began to laugh and marvel at the candor of his new relative.

  Florio de Reverella, the representative of the duke of Ferrara, an Italian republic always threatened by Venice, reported that he was very satisfied to learn that “the so-called Dracula, in whom so much hope had been vested, [was] finally a free agent” by July 18, 1475. Similar positive reactions came from the representatives of Milan, Venice, and the papal legate, the bishop of Erlau. There was a generally jubilant reaction to the good news, for none of the diplomats assigned to Buda who were really familiar with the events of 1462 had ever placed much faith in the Hungarian king's attempts to revile the reputation of the Wallachian prince. Matthias, through his action, had finally rehabilitated Dracula's reputation completely. He implicitly admitted that the earlier charges leveled by the Germans were false and that he now shared others' belief in Dracula's innocence.

  Though Dracula did not assume the Wallachian throne at once, the stage was definitely set for that move. The king's nod toward Dracula was aided by news of aggressive actions by Sultan Mehmed against Bosnia, a state torn by pacifism and pro-Turkish sentiments displayed by Bogomil heretics. Matthias Corvinus saw this as a direct threat to Hungary. The Ottomans had also attacked the remaining valuable Genoese-dominated colonies in the Crimea, at Caffa, and bordering the Azov Sea. In addition, the sultan had extended his direct authority over the Crimean Tatars — a threat to Poland and even to the distant Moscovite state.

  Given these fresh dangers, the newly elected pope, Sixtus IV, called for a renewal of the European Christian coalition of states against Ottoman expansionism. Special emphasis was placed on the roles of Hungary, Poland, Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bohemia. Since the Venetian settlements in the Balkan area were also being directly menaced, the senate in Venice was ready this time to respond with ships and troops, not merely words and money.

  Stephen of Moldavia, former foe of the Hungarian king and vassal of Poland's Casimir IV, responded warmly to the call with the words “We are ready to resume the struggle for the defense of Christendom with all the power and heart which Almighty God had chosen to invest in us.” Since Stephen's protégé on the Wallachian throne, Basarab Laiot, had veered too much toward the Turks, the Moldavian ruler was ready to make overtures to Dracula. Thus, during the summer of 1475, Stephen was ready to make amends for his betrayal and end the feud with his cousin Dracula, which had done so much harm and divided the two Romanian principalities. Stephen sent his personal envoy, Ion amblac, to King Matthias with the formal request that Dracula be once again established on the throne. “I asked,” wrote Stephen on June 5, 1475, “that Basarab Laiot be replaced by another prince, Dracula, with whom we can reach an agreement. I made this request of the Hungarian king, that he might give his support to that prince with whom we have good intelligence.”

  The Hungarian king, a master of procrastination, followed his usual cautious ways. At first he summoned a meeting of the Hungarian nobles in order to secure their support. Then he appealed for money and arms to the German townships of Braov, Sibiu, and Bistria to fight the Turks. Finally he levied a special crusading tax of a gold florin per household from each family in the Hungarian kingdom. Only after these moves did he appoint Dracula in January of 1476 as his “captain” to be able to lead the campaign he was planning in Bosnia, which was now in the hands of the Turks. However, he was not yet prepared to consider Dracula as the official candidate for the Wallachian throne.

  Dracula, who had previously been treated so often as persona non grata in Transylvania, was able to set up his headquarters at Arghi and to ask for 200 florins from the mayor of Sibiu, Thomas Altenberger, for the upkeep of his court. At this point in time his nickname “Dracula” was evidently not only accepted by most foreign rulers and diplomats but also used by the Wallachian ruler himself in official correspondence. For example, in a letter to Braov, dated August 4, 1475, written from Arghi, Dracula, in sending one of his boyars, one Cîrstian, to the Hungarian king with a request that a castle be readied for him at Braov, signs the letter “Wladislaus Dragwlya.” The request was never acted upon — presumably because Matthias Corvinus was well aware that anti-Dracula sentiment still ran high in that city. Instead, Dracula proceeded southward in October 1475 to Merghindel, to help plan the campaign with Matthias to recover Bosnia during the winter of 1475–1476. Thus, at the head of an army of about 5,000 soldiers, Matthias led the crusade to liberate Bosnia, with Dracula and the exiled Serbian despot Gregorevi under his command.

  The bishop of Erlau, Gabriele Rangoni, duly reported to Pope Sixtus IV this first military exploit of Dracula since his confinement; the pope was understandably interested in the progress of the new crusade. These forces met with initial success, liberating the Bosnian city of Šabac on February 8, 1476. Flushed with victory, the Hungarian king returned in triumph to Buda, leaving the army under the command of Dracula and Gregorevi. Their next military objective was the Bosnian city of Srebrenia, a well-known silver-mining center. Givern the absence of the king, Dracula reverted to the kinds of tactics that had earned him his fearful reputation during previous encounters with the Turks. He reconnoitered the area by sending out 150 Hungarian cavalrymen, disguised as Turks. They succeeded in entering Srebreniča the evening before the monthly market day. Their task for the next morning was to create confusion among the vendors and the populace at large, so that the defenses would be paralyzed when the main attack took place. The tactics were successful. After seizing control of the town, Dracula had the surviving Turkish garrison members impaled and the place burned to the ground. He and his officers pillaged the homes of the wealthy merchants, seizing silver, gold, carpets, and other precious objects as booty of war.

  After the victory at Srebreniča, Dracula's army proceeded to loot and kill the garrisons of the neighboring towns of Kuslat and Zwornik. The enormity of Dracula's crimes came to the attention of the papal legate, Gabriele Rangoni, who reported on these cruelties with obvious relish and bias. “He tore the limbs off the Turkish prisoners and placed their parts on stakes … and displayed the private parts of his victims so that when the Turks see these, they will run away in fear!” The bishop of Erlau had apparently been informed of Dracula's earlier crimes against the Turks, particularly the infamous forest of the impaled that had so impressed Mehmed II. In this context, the pope's representative added the amazing statistic that “while he was Prince of Wallachia, he killed about 100,000 human beings by means of the stak
e or by other frightful punishments” (a figure evidently exaggerated).

  When Dracula returned to Transylvania in March 1476, his chief task was to try to persuade the Hungarian king to give official sanction to his candidature to the Wallachian throne, and to help him overthrow his rival, Basarab Laiot, who had sold himself to the Turks. His impressive victories in Bosnia helped his cause, as did the diplomatic support of his cousin, Stephen of Moldavia. As early as January 1476, the Hungarian parliament had thrown its weight behind him, as had the governor of Transylvania, Johann Pongrác, and the German cities of Transylvania. Basarab Laiot evidently got the message and no longer considered himself, in terms of the citizens of Sibiu and Braov, their friend.

  Matthias finally gave Dracula his support. He was ready to give him a Hungarian army to help reconquer the throne. The planning for this last campaign took place during the summer of 1476 at Turda in Transylvania, where Dracula had set camp. The Hungarian king had entrusted supreme command of this expedition to Stephen Báthory, a member of the Ecsed branch of that powerful Hungarian family. Dracula's army of 8,000 infantry and 13,000 cavalry had come from Hungary and Transylvania. Even though Báthory's military expertise was somewhat shaky — in fact, he could not even read a war map — the Hungarian king saw fit later to reward him by making Stephen governor of Transylvania from 1479 until his death, a position then held by many of his successors. (This Stephen Báthory was the great-uncle of the notorious “Blood Countess,” Elizabeth Báthory [1560–1614], a genuine living vampire, who reputedly butchered some 650 girls, in order to bathe and shower in their blood, because she thought such cosmetics kept her skin looking young and healthy. Later writers would draw upon this connection and attribute to Dracula vampire practices that came from the legends surrounding this “Countess Dracula.”)

  Though Stephen Báthory was technically commander-in-chief of the army aimed at restoring Dracula to the Wallachian throne, actual leadership was shared by Dracula and the Serbian despot Vuk Brankovi, the heir to that particular family's claim to the throne of Serbia. The entire operation was planned as a joint effort involving Hungarian, Transylvanian, Moldavian, and Wallachian troops, as well as a small Serbian contingent. Dracula and Vuk Brankovi warned Prince Stephen of Moldavia not to begin his struggle against the Turks until additional forces had arrived from Transylvania. The idea was to effect a juncture with the Moldavian forces before engaging the enemy. Unfortunately, before the Moldavians had time to reach Wallachia Turks caught and defeated them at Valea Alba on July 26, 1476. This forced the crusaders to march toward Moldavia and cross the Siret River, the old border with Wallachia, in order to aid Stephen of Moldavia in liberating his territory from the Turks. By August 18, Dracula was able to unite his forces with those of Stephen at the Oituz Pass at the Transylvanian border. They then pursued and defeated the Turks at the Siret River.

  The National Gallery, London

  One of the more famous portraits of Sultan Mehmed II by the Venetian Renaissance artist Gentile Bellini (1429–1507).

  Photograph by Baroness Ileana Franchetti

  Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio de' Piccolomini) (1458–1464), opening the Congress in the Cathedral of Mantua on September 26, 1459, to launch the crusade against the Turks. From a fifteenth-century fresco at the Cathedral of Siena.

  Library of the Academy of the Romanian Socialist Republic, Bucharest

  King Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi, king of Hungary, 1458–1490. Print from Mausoleum Regi Apostolici, Nuremberg, 1660, p. 316.

  By kind permission of the Hungarian Tourist Office at Visegrád

  An artist's impression of King Matthias's summer palace at Visegrád on the Danube bend, where Dracula was under house arrest from 1462 to 1474. The castle walls extend to the Danube, where Solomon's Tower is located. The palace of the king lies on the summit of the hill. Even if Dracula was detained at the tower he would often have been present at the palace when important delegations (particularly Turkish diplomats) visited.

  Photograph by co-authors

  Solomon's Tower at the palace of Visegrád, where high security prisoners were held by King Matthias of Hungary. Dracula was probably detained at the main palace of the Hungarian king, which is now largely in ruins.

  Photograph by George Florescu

  Chapel of Snagov, where according to tradition Dracula lies buried, as it looked in 1931 shortly after the Rosetti-Florescu excavations, before repairs and restoration.

  With permission of Mr. Dinu Rosetti, Archeological Excavations at Snagov, Bucharest, 1935

  The 1931 excavations at the tomb at the Snagov altar footsteps, where Dracula was said to be buried. No casket was found, only a large empty hole containing the bones of various animals.

  Library of the Academy of the Romanian Socialist Republic, Bucharest

  Frontispiece of Dracula pamphlet printed by Ambrosius Huber in Nuremberg, 1499. The text above the woodcut translates: “Here begins a very cruel frightening story about a wild bloodthirsty man Prince Dracula. How he impaled people and roasted them and boiled their heads in a kettle and skinned people and hacked them to pieces like cabbage. He also roasted the children of mothers and they had to eat the children themselves. And many other horrible things are written in this tract and in the land he ruled.”

  Library of the Academy of the Romanian Socialist Republic, Bucharest

  “Here occurred a frightening and shocking history about the wild berserker Prince Dracula.” Impalement scene and text page from a Strasbourg pamphlet dated 1500.

  Saltykov-Shchedrin Library, Leningrad

  “An Extraordinary and Shocking History of a Great Berserker called Prince Dracula.” Leipzig, 1493.

  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  Petrus Gonsalvus of Tenerive, born in 1556 and popularly referred to as the “wolfman of the Canary Islands.” Both he and his two children (a boy and a girl) were covered with hair and thus made medical history. Their portraits are located in the Monster Gallery, close to Dracula's portrait, at Castle Ambras.

  I. Danckaert, Beschryvinge von Moscovien, Amsterdam, 1615, p. 21.

  Ivan the Terrible orders the cap nailed to the ambassador's head. Dutch gravure of the seventeenth century.

  Photograph by co-authors

  Dracula the Hero: statue of Dracula built by the National Tourist Office of Romania to attract attention to the gateway to the famous castle on the Arge. The walls of the castle have been shored up and steps leading all the way to the castle built. The statue is located in the village of Copîîneni.

  The German actor Max Schreck playing Dracula (Count Orlock) in the film Nosferatu — eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, a master of the expressionist genre. This was the first vampire film based on Bram Stoker's novel and the characterization of the vampire most closely corresponds to the Romanian folkloric image of the strigoi.

  Once having secured the liberation of Moldavia from Turkish hands, the commanders were able to concentrate their efforts upon their main objectives — the elimination of Basarab Laiot from the Wallachian throne and the restoration of Dracula to power. Consultations took place at Braov. Though each of the chief officers was in charge of his own contingent, since Dracula, in fact, knew the terrain best, he took over command from this point onward.

  Stephen the Great of Moldavia was to launch his attack on eastern Wallachia with about 15,000 soldiers. Dracula, Báthory, and Vuk Brankovi were to attack from southern Transylvania with an army of roughly 35,000 troops. Using the good offices of János Vitéz, the famous humanist and diplomat from the court of King Matthias, Dracula was able finally to assuage the ruffled feelings of the authorities at Braov. By October 7, the Braovians, in whose district Dracula had once committed so many atrocities, were wooed to his side by the promise of extensive commercial concessions and a renewal of trade relations favorable to them. Oxen, horses, and grain were to be sent from Wallachia in return for weapons and manufactured goods. None of the usual limita
tions were to be placed on the Braovians with regard to the places where they were allowed to trade, as had been the case before. In return, Dracula, using two of his envoys, Ion Polivar and Mihai Log, was able to extract a promise from the citizens of that town not to protect any of Dracula's many political enemies who had sought refuge in Braov. Another of Dracula's envoys, named Ladislas, was active in Buda; from there he sent regular reports to Dracula about the current state of Hungarian politics. Both Ladislas and János Vitéz were instructed to keep the Hungarian king, Matthias, well informed about the progress of the anti-Basarab Laiot campaign.

  The Dracula offensive from Transylvania into Wallachia began in early November 1476. A dispatch dated December 4, 1476, and addressed to the duke of Ferrara by his representative at the court of Buda, Florio de Reverella, reported that Basarab Laiot, with an army of 18,000 made up largely of Turks and some of his boyars and their men, advancing along

  the valley of the Prahova, faced the combined forces of Báthory and Dracula. A battle was fought near the town of Rucr at the Wallachian-Transylvanian border, and Basarab's army was defeated. It was a pyrrhic victory, since both armies lost about 10,000 soldiers, but nonetheless, Dracula and Báthory continued their progress. Coincident with this attack, Stephen of Moldavia launched his supportive campaign from Moldavia and succeeded in taking northeastern Wallachia away from the Turks. On November 8, Dracula himself had reported to the citizens of Braov that his forces had captured the capital city of Tîrgovite — a fact confirmed by the Austrian chronicler Jacob Unrest. Stephen of Moldavia met Dracula in his capital city, and the two sovereigns swore eternal allegiance to one another; they pledged as well, with Báthory present, to pursue the great crusade against the Turks.