Long before Bram Stoker’s literary Dracula sparked a century-long, global obsession with vampires – both the torturing and tortured variety – a lavishly mustachioed Wallachian prince by the name of Vlad Dracula (r 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476) was making a name for himself by heroically repelling successive waves of Ottoman invaders.
Vlad earned his reputation
Dracula’s name and accomplishments went viral across the continent, often
accompanied by liberal embellishment. In particular, tales embellished his
array of statement-making prisoner execution methods, which ranged from
decapitation to boiling to burying alive.
However, Dracula famously earned the
post-mortem moniker “Ţepeş” (impaler) from his preferred form of execution:
skewering. A wooden stake was carefully driven through the victim’s buttocks,
emerging just below the shoulders. This diabolical method ingeniously (ie,
cruelly) spared all the vital organs, meaning that the now writhing victim faced
at least 48 hours of unimaginable suffering before death.
To be fair to poor Dracula, skewering
defeated enemies was not unusual in medieval Europe. Vlad’s first cousin,
Ştefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great), is said to have “impaled by the navel,
diagonally, one on top of each other” 2,300 Turkish prisoners in 1473. And they
Dracula’s legend as wily Ottoman scourge
and bloodthirsty combatant was sealed in the spring of 1462 when, after
repeated failed attempts to conquer the rebellious prince, an increasingly
impatient Sultan Mehmed II raised and personally led an army of 90,000 troops
into Wallachia. The momentum and morale of this impressive siege took a serious
hit when they stumbled upon a bit of Dracula’s handiwork: a literal forest of
stakes adorned with 20,000 men from Mehmed’s previous Ottoman army. Ţepeş’
forces, using disguises and guerrilla tactics, picked away at the Sultan’s
demoralized forces, including a daring but unsuccessful assassination attempt
on the Sultan himself, for months before they ultimately retreated.
Dracula’s true home
Ţepeş is still revered as a hero in Romania, though these days you are more
likely to see his face on vampire-themed T-shirts and coffee mugs, cheapening
the prince’s good name in the interest of tourist revenue. This enthusiastic
effort has unfortunately spilled over into popular “Dracula castle tours” that
disingenuously railroad tourists to the undeniably vampiresque Bran
Castle in southern Transylvania. However, Vlad never lived there and – it is
disputed – he may not have ever even set foot on the premises.
In fact, Dracula’s true home, Poienari
Citadel, is a gorgeous but admittedly long trip southwest over the
Carpathian Mountains in Wallachia, so far off the tourist beaten path and
ill-serviced by public transport that only Dracula purists, historians and the
occasional hopelessly lost driver ever visit.
Poienari, built on previous fortress ruins
by miserable, soon-to-be-skewered Turkish prisoners in 1459, was a massive
defensive fortress, strategically positioned to guard the entrance of Wallachia
from Transylvania through the Argeş Valley. Though it was used for centuries
after Dracula was forced to flee yet another Ottoman attack, the structure was
eventually abandoned. A large section collapsed and fell down the mountain in
1888. What remains is a rather small cluster of semi-restored, head-high ruins,
somewhat underwhelming on their own, but enriched by the mountaintop setting
and the heart-quickening 1,480 stairs one needs to endure to access the site.
Leif Pettersen is researching
Romania and Moldova for the upcoming Eastern
Europe Lonely Planet multi-country guidebook.
The article 'In search of the real Dracula' was published in partnership with Lonely Planet.