Since we're in Transylvania, and since most people associate it with Dracula and vampires, we thought it appropriate to present (briefly) some historical details of the "real" Dracula. No, he was not a vampire. No, he likely did not suck anyone's blood. And no, he did not sign a fat contract with Hollywood bigwigs.

Vlad Tepes was born in 1430 (1431) in Sighisoara, where he lived for six years before his father, Vlad the Devil (son of Mircea the Old) and a knight of the Dragon’s Order, became ruler of Wallachia, January 10, 1436.



Tepes childhood was curtailed when, together with his father and younger brother, Radu the Beautiful, he was taken hostage by the Turks. The long periods of detention in the Ottomans prisons (1441-1444, 1446-1448) and the abuses he suffered left their marks on the future soveriegn’s psychological make-up.

In 1447, his father and elder brother, Mircea II were assassinated. Tepes first reign was short lived (October-November 1448). Lacking support, he had to give up the throne. During the following eight years, he travelled the region working to regain his throne.

In August 1456, he defended Vladislav II and punished him cruelly for having assassinated his father and brother. He became the ruling prince of Wallachia.



In 1459, he refused to pay the tribute to the Turks, who consequently attempted to eliminate him. They sent military corps on a punitive mission but all 4,000 janissaries comprising it were impaled. Subsequently, Mehmet II, leading the largest army of the period (150,000), crossed the Danube in May 1462. Tepes initiated a war of attrition culminating in a renowned night attack. The huge Ottoman army reached Targoviste, where they came across the unsightly forest of impaled janissaries. Terrified and famished, exposed to surprise attacks, the Turks retreated. In his turn, Tepes went to Transylvania to ask for help from Matthias Corvinus, who, for varied and complex reason, imprisoned cousin instead of supporting him.

In November 1476, the tables turned again for Tepes and with the help of Corvinus and Stephen the Great, he regained the throne. Two months later, however, he was assassinated.

Tepes (i.e. Dracula) owes his celebrity to the numerous and mostly disparaging anecdotes that have circulated since his own lifetime, which have turned his into one of the best known medieval characters. (Source: Editura Somava)