Further exploration in various parts of the church revealed an unexcavated tombstone, on the right side of the entrance near the door, a most unusual place of burial in an Orthodox church. What struck the researcher team immediately was the identical size of the tombstone with the one that faces the altar, and the solidity of the crypt, built of heavy brick and mortar. Within this tomb was a casket still partially covered by a purple pall embroidered in gold. Much of the casket, as well as the remains of the cloth cover enclosing it, had rotted away. Within the coffin lay the bones of a headless skeleton still clothed in tattered fragments of a thick, yellowish-brown garment of silk brocade. The sleeves, originally crimson, the color of the dragon cloak, were clearly discernible, with large round silver buttons linked to filament cord. Judging by the position of the sleeves, what was left of the fingers of the skeleton were resting on the right of the pelvis. Not far away were the remains of a crown worked in cloisonné, with terracotta-colored claws, each holding a turquoise. Adding to the mystery, hidden in the fold of the cloak was a woman's ring, bereft of its adorning gem. A small cup and a buckle decorated with golden threads were also found in the coffin. All of these items could be dated back to the middle of the fifteenth century. The late archaeologist Dinu Rosetti was convinced that this tomb represented the last resting place of Dracula. The coffin, he said, had simply been transferred by some abbot who felt that Dracula, too evil to be close to God at the altar footsteps, should suffer the humiliation of having the faithful walk over his unworthy remains.
Some years after these discoveries, during a visit at a museum in Nuremberg, Rosetti discovered a ring and a buckle identical to the ones he had found in Dracula's tomb. They were typical of the kind of gift a noble woman of high standing would make to her favorite knight, victorious in a tourney. Indeed, this precious trophy from an unidentified lady was undoubtedly the one acquired by Dracula's father on the night of his successful tournament following his investiture in the Dragon Order at Nuremberg on November 8, 1431. Dracul later bequeathed the trophies, together with his cherished Toledo sword, to his oldest surviving son, Dracula, at the time an exile in Turkey. The precious relics in the tomb represented the sole surviving legacy from the murdered father to his son.
The irony lies in the sequel to this story. During World War II, these relics, housed in the City of Bucharest History Museum, were removed by convicts for safekeeping to the mountains at Vleni de Munte, where they were to be left in custody of one of Romania's greatest historians, Nicolae Iorga. The famous ring, as well as Rosetti's other finds, simply disappeared during the transfer. It seems that the vagabonds of another generation had finally avenged their earlier peers, who had been burned alive by Dracula in the fifteenth century.
Were these the last earthly remains of Dracula? Those responsible for the find, notably Dinu Rosetti and George Florescu, believe they were; so does Father Dumitriu, an Orthodox clergyman from the neighboring village of Turbai, who has done a good deal of research on the problem of the tomb. He is equally convinced that Dracula's Hungarian-born wife was also eventually interred at Snagov, which is highly unlikely. Doubts concerning Snagov will continue to haunt historians and archaeologists, as well as local peasants. In 1975, a monk at the monastery, who happened to be a tour guide, gave a lengthy interview to an Associated Press correspondent; he held the theory that the Florescu-Rosetti team had not dug deep enough in the original location. He implied that Dracula's remains lay underneath the empty hole, deep burial being a precaution not entirely unusual in the case of important personalities; they were often entombed very deep in the soil, with a suitable camouflage added to mislead and discourage the usual grave robbers. This story was picked up by the international press and led to a flurry of excitement and repeated requests for reopening the Snagov excavations. The co-authors informally approached the Romanian government with the thought of leading an American team of archaeologists in collaboration with the Romanians in reopening the grave, but the offer was never taken up seriously, mostly on the grounds that the monastery's foundations had been weakened by the earthquakes of 1940 and 1977.
Speculations will continue, but there is no need for learned scholarship to find plausible explanations for the desecration of Dracula's grave. Given both the terror that Dracula's name inspired and the vandalism that was permitted on the island during the latter part of the nineteenth century, when the monastery lay virtually abandoned, it would have been little short of a miracle for Dracula's tomb to have survived intact. Dracula's remains could have been removed from the more exalted position near the altar and reinterred at the rear of the church because the celebrants felt disturbed in their daily liturgy, standing so close to the body of a man who had performed so many cruel deeds. It could also be argued that because Dracula was a convert to Catholicism — thus, in the eyes of the Orthodox church, “a schismatic,” it was against the Romanian church law to have his tomb at the altar footsteps. Those monks responsible for what can only be described as an act of “desecration” may have taken the precaution of carefully removing all inscriptions from the original gravestone and substituted for it a plain unmarked slab of identical size. As an additional symbolic gesture of contempt, the bones of various animals and other ancient remains present on the island were thrown into the empty grave. At the back of the church near the portico, unknown to all, they finally may have laid the earthly remains of the tyrant, where any visitor could trample him under his feet. (It is also symptomatic of such probable sentiment that there exists no mural or portrait of Dracula in Snagov, the church traditionally linked to his name. If such a portrait existed at one time, as is the custom when a ruling prince is buried, it was either washed away or painted over.)
No one knows for certain when the opening of the original grave first took place, and it would be unprofitable to go into the great variety of theories that have been advanced on the question of who was actually responsible for it. Some have suggested that it occurred when Snagov was under the control of the Greek monks during the eighteenth century. The Greek clergy were not interested, as were their Romanian colleagues, in praying for Dracula's soul near the altar. Others think that the desecration took place on the orders of Metropolitan Filaret, who became the head of the Romanian church in 1792, on the pretext of making some repairs to the monastery. A similar action could have been taken by Ilarion, bishop of Arge, another who spoke ill of the prince, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In fact, any bishop, archbishop, or abbot, Romanian or Greek, might have given the necessary orders. It could also have been the result of vandalism by the peasants themselves from villages in the vicinity of the lake, who looted many invaluable relics, including priceless illuminated Gospels, during the early nineteenth century when the monastery was partially abandoned. The enigma of Snagov remains unresolved and awaits the historian brave enough to pick up the slender clues that archaeologists have thus far provided.
Quite apart from the problem of the grave, there are other mysteries that remain unresolved, and perhaps defy a rational solution, thus giving rise to innumerable legends related by the peasants living in villages surrounding the lake. Stories of murders and assassinations of boyars and abbots at the monastery persist to our times. During the nineteenth century, the abbey was eventually converted into a prison. A bridge was constructed linking the island to the mainland to facilitate the transportation of convicts. Shortly after it was built, the bridge collapsed, dragging the line of chain-linked prisoners to their doom at the bottom of the lake. In the late nineteenth century the monastery was totally disestablished — as noted, looting and grave desecration followed on an increasingly more devastating scale. This lasted until the monastery was formally reclaimed by the Patriarchy of Bucharest at the beginning of the century. Untoward events, however, continued to occur. In 1940, during an earthquake, the main tower of the surviving chapel toppled and the monastery was badly damaged. Its foundations were also badly undermined during the earthquake of 1977. Given the
se circumstances, it is difficult to shake the peasants' belief that Dracula's curse clings to the place.
The Institute of Folklore in Bucharest has begun conducting surveys in the various villages on the lake's shores to collect the oral traditions of the elderly folk (the young are increasingly moving to Bucharest). The ethnologists hope to compile a complete record of the Snagov saga. One fascinating ballad recently collected suggests that it was at the bottom of Snagov Lake, rather than on the sands of the Dîmbovia, that Dracula hid his gold treasure enclosed in barrels — the last surviving popular tale connected with him shortly before his assassination. Stories such as these provide a superb incentive for professional treasure hunters and scuba divers to fathom the murky, reed- and algae-infested waters of one of the deepest lakes in Europe. In spite of such commendable efforts, for the time being, the riddles of Snagov remain unresolved, to the delight of the vampirologists.
CHAPTER 9
Dracula's Descendants
SINCE the rediscovery of the real Dracula, many so-called descendants have emerged from the penumbra of relative obscurity and made headlines on popular tabloids and magazines, both in the United States and Europe, vaunting their so-called Dracula ancestry either for publicity's sake or monetary gain. They have ranged from notorious charlatans such as a Turkish bloodbank promoter who typically titled himself “Vlad Tsepeshi,” with obvious reference to the Romanian word for the Impaler (pe); his claim: “Blood is in the family business.” Others, mostly Romanian families of boyar descent, and a few Hungarian aristocrats, have chosen to advertise their Dracula lineage to gain access to gossip columns, or to become members of jet-set “Dracula Societies,” such as the one organized by the socialite Günther Sachs at Saint Moritz in Switzerland. Publicity stunts such as these have aroused the interest of serious-minded students of the very precise science of genealogy. Invariably they ask: “Are there in fact Dracula descendants alive today?”
The fate of Dracula's immediate descendants is a matter of record. Some were, in fact, the chief informants of the Russian ambassador Kuritsyn who met them at Buda.
Ambassador Kuritsyn wrote of them: “The king [meaning Matthias Corvinus] took his sister [that is, his cousin, Dracula's wife, Ilona Szilágy] with her two sons to Buda in Hungary. One of these sons is still in the retinue of the king, the other, who was residing with the Bishop of Oradea [Transylvania], died in our presence [presumably he was brought back to Buda mortally ill]. I saw the third son, named Michael [in Romanian Mihnea, sometimes Mihail], here in Buda. He had fled from the sultan to the Hungarian king [he had temporarily been captured by the Turks shortly after Dracula's death]. Dracula begot him on a young lady when he was not yet married.” (Possibly this was the Transylvanian noblewoman who committed suicide in 1462.) This description, undoubtedly accurate, describes the events which followed Dracula's death, in February 1477. Ilona Szilágy, Dracula's Hungarian wife, had two children, the elder and only surviving of whom was called Vlad. During his brief third reign, the whole family stayed at Sibiu, where Dracula owned a mansion, thence for added security moved to Buda, where they became distinguished refugees at the Hungarian court. It was logical for the ambitious Ilona and her cousin King Matthias to consider her elder boy, Vlad, as the official pretender to the Wallachian throne. They could hardly accept the legitimacy of Basarab Laiot, who belonged to the rival Dneti family. Yet the first member of the Dracula line to attempt to assert his rights as the legitimate successor was Vlad the Monk, Dracula's half-brother, who in 1468, in his early manhood, had attempted a coup against him.
Though some detractors have labeled him an imbecile, Vlad, the former monk and abbot, had a comparatively long and successful reign, which lasted thirteen years, from 1482 to 1495, twice as long as that of his half-brother Dracula, quite an achievement for these troubled times. He was buried in the monastery of Glavacioc, now largely in ruins, not very distant from Bucharest.
The eldest of Dracula's sons, Mihnea, made a serious attempt to succeed his father, notwithstanding his illegitimacy. In accordance with Wallachian custom, “with a rib from the royal bone” he was a legitimate claimant to the throne. Ambitious and eager to rule, Mihnea probed his chances by organizing several raids across the border with the support of dissident boyars. He finally succeeded in gaining the throne in 1508, but reigned only a scant two years, from April 1508 to October 1509. A strong, impulsive personality like his father, he soon fell into conflict with boyars — particularly the powerful Craiovescu faction, who avenged themselves by coining the epithet Mihnea the Bad or the Evil One. Among Mihnea's most vocal enemies was the monk Gavril Protul, an abbot and chronicler of the period, who spoke of Dracula's son in the following manner: “As soon as Mihnea began to rule he at once abandoned his sheep's clothing and plugged up his ears like an asp.… He took all the greater boyars captive, worked them hard, cruelly confiscated their property, and even slept with their wives in their presence. He cut off the noses and lips of some, others he hanged, and still others drowned.” Mihnea evidently fought back as best he could, resorting to the terror tactics he had learned from his father. If Mihnea's crimes never assumed the proportions of Dracula's it was simply because of lack of time and opportunity. Shortly after he fled Wallachia in 1510, Mihnea, pursued by his Craiovescu opponents, who had their own pretender to the Wallachian throne, was cornered in the Roman Catholic church of Sibiu where he was attending Mass. As he was emerging from the service he was stabbed by a hired Serbian assassin, Dimitrije Iaxici, a partisan of the Craiovescu boyars. Mihnea the Bad is buried in a crypt of this church (now the city's Evangelical church), and his effigy and an ornate inscription can be admired there to this day. He was over sixty years old at the time of his death, quite an advanced age for one of the Dracula line.
Romanian Branch
Descendants
Hungarian Branch
Descendants
History records the names of two women whom Mihnea married: the first was Smaranda, who died before 1485, and the second Voica, who was left a widow by her husband's assassination. She raised two sons, Miloš and Mircea, as well as a daughter, Ruxandra. The entire family continued to live in Sibiu. Mihnea showed preference for his younger son, called Mircea (in honor of Dracula's grandfather), briefly selected to be co-ruler and destined to succeed him in October 1509. He took the title Mircea II, but was otherwise undistinguished by any adjective describing his characteristics. We know that he was physically a strong and brutal man, since he caught some of the boyars involved in his father's assassination and killed them with his own bare hands. After being expelled by his boyar enemies, Mircea once again sought refuge in Transylvania; he twice unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the throne.
Of Dracula's numerous great-grandchildren, only two became princes of the land: Alexandru II (Alexandru Mircea), the fifth child of Mircea II, and Peter the Lame, the tenth. Both were raised in Istanbul by the Turks and hardly knew their country of origin before ascending the throne. During their long stays in the Turkish capital, both married into powerful Greco-Italian families, members of an increasingly influential community who lived in the wealthy lighthouse section of that city — the Phanar (hence the line's future name, Phanariots).
Alexandru II and his wife, Catherine Salvarezi, were greeted as the first lord and lady of the land in Bucharest in June 1574. Having inherited or acquired many of his great-grandfather's traits, Alexandru II can be considered one of the crudest of all Wallachian princes, if anything, more sadistic than Dracula himself. He began his rule with the wholesale slaughter of dissident boyars, many of whom were then buried at Snagov monastery. Atrocities of this kind convinced even the sultan to try to depose him in 1577, though Alexandru II was in the end poisoned by his boyars. Like Dracula, he thought he could redeem himself in the eyes of God by founding churches and monasteries — a distinctive trait of misguided religious fervor characteristic of many members of that family. Among his best known edifices are the Church of Saint Troia in Buchares
t (now called the Church of Prince Radu), where the visitor can still admire his portrait and that of his wife.
The second ruling son of Mircea II was Peter, who had a physical deformity, hence his nickname, “The Lame.” He was so proud of his Hungarian ancestry that he styled himself “of the royal Corvinus family,” a clear reference to Dracula's wife. Since he was ambitious and anxious to rule, and given the fact that his brother Alexandru occupied the Wallachian throne, Peter got himself elected prince of Moldavia in 1574. Unlike most of the Draculas, Peter was a weak prince, a tool in the hands of the boyars. In the end he gave up the throne, preferring a comfortable exile in the west to the struggle for power. He was known largely for his amorous pursuits. Prearranged in early youth, his marriage to his first wife, Maria Amirali, was not a success. Subsequently Peter fell in love with a beautiful gypsy woman named Irina, who became his mistress. Marriage to a gypsy slave was inconceivable. Peter nevertheless had Irina freed and baptized, hence she was nicknamed Botezata (the Baptized).
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