Vampires are one of the most popular monsters in pop culture. They fascinate with their dark eroticism and the superpowers attributed to them. To our ancestors, they were more frightening than attractive. They were equated with bloody aristocrats, demons, damned, and sorcerers. What are the sources of vampire stories? Where did they come from and how have they changed over the centuries?
The images and names used to denote vampires have changed over the centuries. However, there are some recurring beliefs that can be traced back to the oldest mythologies. The main characteristics of a vampire are drinking human (or animal) blood and being connected with the world of the dead. Already in the "Odyssey" (written probably in the 8th century BCE), the main character, invoking the spirit of the prophet Tiresias, kills the sheep and drains their blood. Immediately the souls of the dead appear to want a drink. He must chase them away until he talks to Tiresias. This is the best evidence that the ancient Greeks believed in the dead's appetite for fresh blood. In this case, they are ghosts - we are not dealing literally with a deceased body looking for nourishing food.
The erotic plot, later associated with the classic image of a vampire, also appears in ancient Greece. It was believed that Empuza (Roman Lamia) - a demon from Hecate's retinue, was to take the form of a beautiful woman, seduce men, and suck their blood.
Both figures (Greek Empusa and Roman Lamia) adopt the features of a demoness who was believed in the Semitic culture - Lilith. According to Jewish tradition, she was Adam's first wife.
In antiquity, there is also the thread of the ghosts of people who died a violent death (called a larva or lemur). The "ancestors" of the vampire also include Greek mermaids.
The classic image of a vampire appears in Europe in the Middle Ages. This is already a typical specter - that is, the deceased who lived a wicked life and after death, haunts and kills the local inhabitants. The first such tale from England, written by William of Malmesbury in the early 12th century, tells of a wicked man who, after death, scares the inhabitants at night, causes plague, and drinks the blood of the living. We also have a recipe for killing a vampire. Two brothers dig out the corpse, stick a stake into it, and immediately warm blood begins to gush out. Then they drag him out of town and burn him. More similar stories can be found in the English records of this period. However, there are also demonic threads. The first surviving legends about vampires from Moldova and Wallachia come from the same time. They are very extensive in terms of the history of ghosts (also known as strigoi) and how to combat them.
Thus, in the Middle Ages, the image of a vampire known to us as a condemned deceased, a ghost that haunts the living and sucks their blood, becomes more and more evident.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, beliefs about vampires began to be very popular throughout Central Europe - from Moldova to Poland. This coincided with witch hunts (mainly in Western Europe) and at the same time with the growing popularity of occult practices, especially among the nobility and aristocracy. In Wallachia (today's Romania and Moldova) this tradition was much older - as I mentioned earlier. It also appeared from the earliest times in Slavic culture. In the 17th century, however, vampire cases caught the attention of a wider audience and are therefore more visible in written sources from that period. One of the manifestations of this fascination is published in 1749 "The Discourse on the Appearance of Ghosts and Vampires or Resurrected in Hungary, Moravia, etc." by the Benedictine monk Agostino Calmet. We will find here not only chilling stories of the dead rising from their graves and tormenting local residents. Calmet also writes about what rituals can help in the fight against this terrible enemy.
Contrary to Western European legends, in Central Europe, and especially in today's Romania, it was believed that the living could be vampires. One popular belief was that a child born in an amniotic cell would become a vampire. To prevent this, a special ritual had to be performed. Such an "incapacitated" vampire turned out to be of great help to the local community. This is a bit like some beliefs about the so-called changelings, i.e. abandoned children of elves, gnomes, aquarius, etc. in exchange for a human child. Usually, children found to be founders of other creatures were treated very badly, up to and including being killed. Sometimes, however, it was believed that good treatment won the family favor of his countrymen.
In Transylvania and Hungary, it was also believed that a person bitten by a vampire might be inactive while still alive. That is, he lives for the following years as a normal human being, and his ghostly abilities do not appear until after death. According to legend, a hajduk from the Turkish-Hungarian border was bitten by a Turkish vampire. To neutralize the bite, he performed a special ritual - he ate the soil from the vampire's grave and rubbed his own blood. But it only worked as long as he was alive. After his death, he began to visit the locals and suck their blood. It was necessary to apply a "routine" action - a stake through the heart and then cut off and burned the head.
Wallachia for most of its history was not a peaceful area. When Bulgaria fell into the hands of the Turks in 1396, there was no ally and buffer to protect the Wallachians from the Ottoman Empire. It was then that Sigismund of Luxemburg established the Order of the Dragon (1408), modeled on the old knightly orders. It was from this order that Vlad's father was nicknamed Dracul (which could mean a dragon or a devil). Wlada II was called Draculea - "the son of the Devil". Anyway, it corresponded to the symbolism of the order, which referred to the legend of St. George, who was defeating the dragon-devil.
Vlad III became the hospodar of Wallachia for the first time in 1448. Initially detained by the Turks, he had to give way quickly to Hunyade's candidate. Only in 1456 did he returns to the throne, already as an ally of the Hungarian rulers, and begins an act of bloody revenge on his opponents. He first impaled the unfaithful boyars (1457), then he treated the townspeople of Brasov in a similar way for their loyalty to his half-brother, Wład Mnich.
As with many bloodlords, legends have grown up around Dracula. Given his behavior, it is possible that he was believed to have been a vampire during his lifetime. These stories inspired the Irish author, Bram Stoker. In 1897 he published his most famous novel, "Dracula". It was loosely based on the story of a Wallachian hospodar and possibly some other legendary vampires. However, the story became the inspiration for novels and movies throughout the next century to this day. First of all, Stoker's idea was vampire mobility. In folk legends, the specter tormented the surrounding villages, rather than venturing beyond his domain. For an Irish author, Dracula moves to London and most of the story takes place in England. In addition, Stoker has greatly enhanced the erotic threads in his novel. It was a procedure known to other authors of gothic novels. This one, however, created a classic image of a vampire - wanted and coveted.
During the twentieth century, the characters of vampires became more romantic and more human. They ceased to be monsters that had to be destroyed and became the subjects and narrators of the plot. We learn about their internal dilemmas resulting from the suspension between the world of the living and the dead. Often these vampire heroes are interpreted as a metaphor for exclusion and community fear of the unknown. For example, vampires were very evocatively homosexual or bisexual in many novels. Later, vampirism was also equated with autism or with AIDS. This convention allowed for crossing certain boundaries and weaving involved threads into fiction.
No matter how you interpret the characters of vampires, they are fascinating, multi-dimensional creatures that perfectly set more than one plot.
From a political point of view, Vlad III was simply a determined ruler who wanted to limit the influence of the boyars and gain the obedience of his subjects. This was the purpose of changing the name of the office from the prince (domnul) to the voivode - military leader.
However, it did not end there. He tortured his political enemies with particular cruelty, and at times tortured and killed for entertainment. According to some estimates, he led to death in agony between 30,000 and 100,000. people.
He exposed himself to his subjects when, after the Turks' attack on Wallachia (1462), he conducted a ruthless tactic of scorched earth. Eventually, he was betrayed by his own brother and lost power. The boyars, allied with the Turks, attacked his capital. Wlad's wife, fearing a terrible fate in captivity, preferred to rush from the tower into the Danube. She was the only person who could soothe her husband's cruel impulses. Dracula ran away, seeking help from the King of Hungary - Matthias Corvinus, but he was also betrayed by him. He stayed in captivity until 1474. The Hungarian king finally changed his mind and decided to restore him to the Wallachian throne (1476). For the last time, Dracula was betrayed by his rival to the throne - Basarab III. It is unknown who exactly killed him, but his head was cut off and sent to the Sultan in Istanbul.
Bibliography:
- Erberto Petoia, Vampires, and Werewolves. Sources, history, legends from antiquity to the present day, Krakow 2004
- Arie Kaplan, Dracula: the life of Vlad the Impaler, New York 2012
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