The webpage I cited from was the most accurate from a historical point of view. As the title suggests,"The Historical Dracula" is an essay about the life and history of Vlad Dracula. It was a valid source for me because the references and works cited for that essay are provided at the bottom of the page.
All the plays, movies,stories , comic books and video games about vampires and Dracula derive from one single source, Bram Stoker’s 1897 great novel, Dracula. But the writer had an inspiration for the main character of his book, the life of the real Dracula.
Yes, there was a real Dracula and he was a true prince of darkness. He was Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler. He was born in Transylvania, raised inTargoviste (my home town) and became the prince of Walachia.
Historically, he is best known for standing up against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion and for the cruel ways he punished his enemies. Many of the stories about his cruelty may have been exaggerated, but it is estimated that he had killed, by the end of his reign, between 40, 000 and 100,000 people.
Despite all of these terrible crimes, he was very loved and respected by regular, hard working people and he is still a symbol of justice. He created a very severe moral code for the people of Walachia. The thieves were impaled, the liars were impaled and certain religious visitors had their hats nailed to their heads. Certainly, the crime rate was very low during his reign. To prove how well his method was working, he had a gold cup placed in a public square. Anyone who wanted to could drink from the cup, but no one was allowed to take it. Of course no one did. On the day he died the cup disappeared.
And this is the story of the real of the real Prince Dracula.
Works Cited:
Porter, Ray. "The Historical Dracula.", 18 12 2007. Web. 28 Sep 2010. <http://www.eskimo.com/~mwirkk/castle/vlad/vladhist.html>.
