Feature: The Love Life of Dracula: For a Change This Valentine
It is Hollywood which popularized “vampirism” as a mystical, thrilling, horror-stricken combination of that organ music plus lightning-thunder-wind-rain sound effects. There are earlier records of vampire movies but in the 60s, perhaps over a hundred episodes of Christopher Lee - Peter Cushing Dracula tandem were shown and the whole world was entertained into a stylized seduction. The “True Blood” and “Twilight” series got away from such genre as these are attempts to make vampires lovable. The main vampire characters in these films are lovers, not blood thirsty seducers, capable of normal sexual relationship without turning their partners into their kind.
The intelligent watchers of films will engage in historical hindsight to make sense of these developments. We realize that this world famous Dracula as a literary character was a creation of an Irish drama writer Bram Stoker (1847-1912) who published his novel “Dracula” in 1897. Apparently, he is not historically keen and created his Hungary-based Dracula who migrated to England. We have no way of finding out if he knew of the 15th century Vlad Tepes, ruler of a Romanian feudal kingdom Wallachia and the son of a governor of Transylvania Vlad Dracul.
Stoker had no idea or plan to be historical because his Dracula was horrid at night while Vlad Tepes and father Vlad Dracul were defenders of Catholicism against the Turks operating secretly under “The Order of the
Dragon.” Ironically, Dracul means Dragon and it was Vlad Tepes who became famous throughout the whole of Europe as an “impaler” of his Turkish enemies. There was no allusions that Vlad Tepes or his father Vlad Dracul practiced the satanic rite of blood drinking but today, Transylvania exploited the Hollywood hype almost all their watering holes are dark and decorated with Dracula blood sucking themes.
There are historical references which attested to Vlad Tepes as the handsomest of all the “Catholic Knight” defenders. It is tempting therefore to ask about his love life or perhaps his sexual prowess. Again, various references have thought of different names having one common stand. Vlad Tepes had two women in his life, the first one was Jusztina Szilagyi of Moldavia, with whom he had two sons: Mihnea I “the Bad” and Mihail. Jusztina committed suicide during an encounter with the Turks. Vlad Tepes then took Illina Szilagyi to be his companion during capitivity. Speculation began when a handsome prince was incarcerated with a woman and their sexual relationship is within guarded cells. Artistry exploited this to the full in the making of the Dracula series.
It is public knowledge that Prince Charles claimed their genealogy proves that he is a distant relative of Vlad the Impaler.*
