The Story OF Dracula

Dracula, the character of the novel of the same name written at the end of the nineteenth century by Irish Bram Stoker, is a Transylvanian count, master of a castle erected somewhere on the top of high rock, from where he guards the valley of the river winding through the Principality of Transylvania.

He is often confused with Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian prince, ruler over the now ruined castle of the Principality of Wallachia. As Bran Castle is the only one in Transylvania that corresponds to Bram Stoker’s description, the whole world refers to it as Dracula’s Castle. In chapter 2 of the novel Dracula, on May 5, the author depicts the count’s castle as being placed on the edge of a terrible chasm, broken by deep cracks – a hound of silver threads, rivers crossing the forests through deep gorillas.”

Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker has never visited Romania. In the description of Dracula's imaginary castle he starts from a presentation of Bran Castle available in late 19th century England. Indeed, the castle, as it appears in the engraving printed in the first edition of the novel “Dracula”, looks strikingly good with Bran Castle, and only with it. In fact, it is suspected that to describe Dracula's castle, Stoker used the illustration of Bran Castle from Charles Boner's work "Transylvania: Its product and its People", (London; Longmans, 1865).

Dracula – as he is perceived today – is a fictional character. His name derives from the nickname given to Vlad Tepes, ruler of the Romanian country between 1456-1462 and 1467, which for political reasons historians of the time describe as a ruthless and bloodthirsty despot.

The character count Dracula appears for the first time in the novel “Dracula” written by Irish writer Bram Stoker and published in 1897 in England. The original name Dracula is not scary at all. It derives from the name given to an order of the Crusaders, the order of the Dragon, with which both Vlad Tepes were associated.

Vlad Dracul (Member of this order). The rest of the Dracula myth is due to the influence of Transylvanian folk legends and beliefs about ghosts and vampires.

Count Dracula imagined by Stoker is a centuries-old vampire, a Transylvanian nobleman, who claims to be a Szekely descendant of the Attila Hun. He lives in the ruins of a castle located somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains. Conversations with the character Jonathan Harker give count Dracula the opportunity to be particularly proud of his noble culture, his predilect interest in his past. It seems that Dracula studied Black Magic at the Scholomance Academy in the Carpathian Mountains, not far from the city of Sibiu (later known as Hermannstadt).

Stoker carefully avoided creating a real historical connection between his character count Dracula and the historical personality of Vlad the Impaler. Although Stoker Van Helsing's character reflects on the possibility that Dracula the count is one and the same as Dracula the voivode, Dracula, the count of Transylvania, is certainly not Prince Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia, Stoker himself being reluctant to any closeness of his hero to a real historical figure.

In the neighboring villages of Bran, and not only, there is a belief in the existence of evil spirits, called ghosts or steergoi (a variant of the word strigoi). It refers to apparently living people, to the undead, those who by day led a normal life. With the coming of night, while they slept, the spirit left their bodies to haunt the villagers' sleep, draining them of their powers from midnight to the first rooster song. “The Immortals (strigoi, vampires) suffer from the curse of immortality,” Stoker writes, “they cross times by multiplying the number of victims, spreading evil in the world.” The character Dracula is born from these myths.

Stoker's personal, count Dracula

The historical character Vlad the Impaler, the ruler of the Walachians, really has a connection with Bran Castle. He ran a few fieldsIt is desirable for visitors of Bran Castle toOf punishing the German merchants in Brasov, who refused to obey him and pay the trade-related taxes to the seat. The road to Valahia passed through Bran, the closest pass to Brasov, which in turn ensured the connection with Targoviste, the seat fortress of Vlad Țepeș. The customs at which the toll was collected on this road was, as nowadays, at the foot of Bran Castle, in its western part. The relations between Vlad Țepeş and the nobility of Brasov, whose representatives were hostile to him, were therefore not exactly cordial. It is not known whether Vlad the Impaler conquered Bran Castle or not. The written documents do not prove this. The archives relating to Bran Castle are generally administrative and relate to the revenues and expenses of the Bran Castle, except for political and military matters.

Vlad the Impaler (Dracul)

It seems, however, that in the autumn of 1462, not far from the fortress of Dâmboviţa Bridge, located in its turn near Rucar, Vlad Țepeș was taken prisoner by the king of Hungary, Matei Corvinul, and imprisoned for two months at Bran Castle, Fact attested recently in the volume of Gheorghe Lazea Postelnicu “Vlad Țepeș – Dracula”, published in 2002 by Mirador Publishing House in Arad. From Bran Vlad Țepeș was taken and imprisoned in Visegrad Fortress.

distinguish between the historical reality of Bran and the character of count Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel. Dracula was and remains an imaginary character.