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>.
I never been interested in Dracula and this entire staff and thanks to your blog I found out for me that Dracula comes from Transylvania, and I know this place, so it became very interesting for me. Also from my childhood I heard only bad stories about this character and that is why all associations with him are negative and black, but you mentioned that he was loved and respected, and became a symbol of justice. I never feel like that,but now I would like to search more information about it and find out for myself, who he really is. Thank you for you blog a lot. Good job.
ReplyDeleteYour post was very clear, concise and to the point. I never really knew the real story of Dracula so thank you for putting it out there. After visiting the website that you cited I see that it was a credible website. Most movies and books depict Dracula as a blood thirsty vampire so it is good to have some back story on him. You did a good job and followed the directions that were given by the professor. Good job :)
ReplyDeleteI understood your post from begining to end. Great Job!!
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