Today, Vlad Dracula is a figure of terror and of legend to most readers. But oftentimes, people forget that the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s bloodthirsty Count Dracula was a real-life 15th century prince, who ruled over the Principality of Wallachia between 1448 and 1476.
Born around 1429 in the Transylvanian heartland of what is now modern-day Romania, Prince Vlad III or Vlad Tepes (the Impaler) became notorious among his contemporaries for both, his unparalleled cruelty and his valour and skill as a general.
Thanks to the rise of the printing press in the 15th century, the tales about the bloodthirsty tyrant or valiant knight quickly flooded Europe. Known as Skazanie o Drakule Voivode, the Slavonic stories about Vlad III paint the image of a valiant knight, a warrior for Christ and just ruler of Wallachia. The Geschichte Dracole Waide, the Saxon version of the same tales however, paints a much grimmer image of the man who rules Wallachia, depicting him as a cruel, capricious tyrant who killed at a whim and delighted in the suffering of his subjects.
The aim of this book is to shed light on the man behind the myth.