please give alot of details.
2006-12-20 11:10:14 · 4 answers · asked by Zenas paul 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Dracula (the vampire) is a fictional character created by the Irish writer Abraham "Bram" Stoker (November 8, 1847–April 20, 1912), but was based on the historical person Vlad Ţepeş, or Vlad the Impaler, Prince (Volvode) of Wallachia, now part of Rumania.
Stoker locates his character in Transylvania, which was still part of Hungary when Stoker was writing, but was handed over to Rumania after WW1 and the general trimming back of Austro-Hungary's territory,
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Ţepeş in common Romanian reference); also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad Drăculea was born in November or December, 1431 and lived to December 1476.
He was Prince (Voivode) of Wallachia, a former polity which is now part of Romania. His three reigns were in 1448, 1456-1462, and 1476. In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of the exceedingly cruel punishments he imposed during his reigns, and consequently serving as the inspiration for the vampire main character in Bram Stoker's popular Dracula novel published in 1897.
Vlad III was the son of Vlad II. His father, Vlad II Dracul, born around 1395, was an illegitimate son of Mircea the Elder, an important early Wallachian ruler. As a young man, he had joined the court of Sigismund of Luxemburg, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, whose support for claiming the throne of Wallachia he eventually acquired.
A sign of this support was the fact that in 1431 Vlad II was inducted into the Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconis in Latin), along with the rulers of Poland and Serbia. The purpose of the Order was to protect Eastern Europe and the Holy Roman Empire from Islamic expansion as embodied in the campaigns of the Ottoman Empire.
Wishing to assert his status, Vlad II displayed the symbol of the Order, (a dragon), in all public appearances, (on flags, clothing, etc.). The old Romanian word for serpent (Cf. drac) is nowadays the most common and casual reference to the devil - while the people of Wallachia did give Vlad II the surname Dracu (Dracul being the more grammatically correct form), any connection with a dark power was most likely coincidental.
His son Vlad III would later use in several documents the surname Drăculea. Through various translations (Draculea, Drakulya) Vlad III eventually came to be known as Dracula (note that this ultimate version is a neologism in Romanian).
Vlad II finally became prince of Wallachia in 1436. During his reign he tried to maneuver between his powerful neighbors, opposing various initiatives of war against the Ottoman, which finally attracted the irritation of the Hungarian side, who accused him of disloyalty and removed him in 1442.
With the help of the Turks (where he also had connections) he regained the throne in 1443 and until December 1447 when he was assassinated by means of scalping ("scalping", for the Turks, meant cutting the edges of the face and pulling the face's skin off, while the person was still alive and conscious on the orders of John Hunyadi, regent of Hungary.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The crown of Wallachia was not passed automatically from father to son; instead, the leader was elected by the boyars, with the requirement that the Prince-elect be of nominally Basarab princely lineage (os de domn - "of voivode bones", "of voivode marrow"), including out of wedlock births.
This elective monarchy often resulted in instability, family disputes and assassinations. Eventually, the princely house split between two factions: the descendants of Mircea the Elder, Vlad's grandfather; and those of another prince, Dan II (Dăneşti faction). In addition to that, like in all feudal states, there was another struggle between the central administration (the prince) and the high nobility for control over the country.
To top it off, the two powerful neighbors of Wallachia, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, were at the peak of their rivalry for control of southeastern Europe, turning Wallachia into a battle ground.
2006-12-20 12:06:45 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Vlad II (also known as Dracul or The Dragon; ca. 1390 - December 1447) was a voivode, or prince, of Wallachia. He reigned from 1436 to 1442, and again from 1443 to 1447.
Historically, the name "Dracula" is derived from a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon, founded by Sigismund of Luxembourg (king of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor) to uphold Christianity and defend the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Vlad II Dracul, father of Vlad III, was admitted to the order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks. From 1431 onward, Vlad II wore the emblem of the order and later, as ruler of Wallachia, his coinage bore the dragon symbol. Either because the people believed the dragon to represent the devil, or of the fact that the Romanian archaic word for dragon was "drac" (see Dacian Draco), his subjects called him Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil). In archaic Romanian the ending -ulea meant "the son of". Vlad III thus became Vlad Draculea, "The Son of the Devil" (or "of the Dragon") .
2006-12-20 11:57:50 · answer #2 · answered by Elise K 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lot of info to paste, so u can read:
http://www.mydracula.com/
www.romaniatourism.com/dracula.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Dracula
altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa102203a.htm
2006-12-20 11:48:53 · answer #3 · answered by Cister 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes but im not going to tell you
2006-12-20 11:14:53 · answer #4 · answered by ShazBof 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋