The Vampire: Central European History and Folklore
Vlad III also known as Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracula (1428/31-1478/77) was Voivode (or military commander) of Wallachia. Many believe that Vlad III was the historical model for Stoker's Dracula. However, the historical Vlad bears little or no resemblance to the title villain of Stoker's novel. In fact, Vlad III is concerned one of best rulers of Wallachia and is still revered as a national hero in Romania to this day. Vlad is seen as the model for the strict by fair ruler who defended Wallachia from both the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Turks as well as centralizing the government and wresting power from the boyars (or local nobility). Vlad's reputation for cruelty comes from his treatment of criminals, Ottoman Turks, disobedient or corrupt boyars, or the Saxons of Transylvania (because of their allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire). The policy of impaling one's enemies was not uncommon in the area at the time and Vlad initially encountered when he was held hostage by the Turks as a boy. The famous woodcuts depicting Vlad dining while watching his victims writhe in pain are from German texts dated 1449 and 1500. Keep in mind that the Germans were Vlad's political enemies and, therefore, have a motive to slander his name by depicting him as a cruel tyrant. His reputation for cruelty and his evocative name (Dracula literally means "Son of the Dragon," the dragon being his father's insignia) may have led Stoker to name his title villain after this historical figure.
Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) was a Hungarian noblewoman who was reputed to also have been one of the most prolific serial killers of all time. Bathory was accused at her trial of killing at least 650 people. One rumor that circulated was that she primarily targeted young girls from nearby villages and invited them to work for her as servants. She is accused of then torturing and murdering them, ostensibly for the reason of bathing in their blood in order to keep young. These rumors only occurred after her death. There are some scholars who believe that the charges against the Bathory were fabricated in order to acquire her wealth and territory after her husband's death. There is a lot of conjecture and rumor, but little proof has survived. Moreover, the case of Elizabeth Bathory only strengthened the case for the Central Europe to be a perfect location for a vampire novel
One thing that did occur in the early 18th century is that there were a rash of suspected vampire attacks in Central and Eastern Europe. The most famous cases occurred in the 1720s with the deaths of Peter Blagojevic and Arnold Paole, two Serbian peasants who were accused of becoming vampires after they had died and attacking many individuals. The case gained the attention of the Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, who sent two military physicians. These physicians, Glaser and Fluckinger, commissioned an official investigation and concluded that they were, indeed, vampires and then disposed of their corpses in the traditional Serbian manner of vampire eradication- decapitation and burning. However, modern scientists have concluded what Glaser and Fluckinger had concluded to be signs of vampirism were just based on a poor scientific understanding on what happens to the body when it decomposes. In reaction to "the vampire scare" of the 1720s and 1730s, Antonie Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) a French Benedictine monk wrote his Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des démons et des esprits, et sur les revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Bohême, de Moravie et de Silésie (Dissertations on the apparitions of angels, of demons, and spirits and on Revenants or vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia) (1746) which was later expanded in 1751. This massive tome is an encyclopedic, scholarly treatise on vampires, ghosts, witchcraft, demon possession, and all manner of occult manners. This text is considered the seminal source for most recorded European vampire folklore at the time. Calment himself does not reach a definitive conclusion about the existence of vampires. Voltarie, a contemporary and acquaintance of Calment, mentions this work in his Dictionnaire philosophique ( Philosophical Dictionary) (1764).
Another possible source for much of the supposed "authentic" Central European vampire folklore in Dracula is the work of a Scottish woman, Emily Gerard (1849-1905) who was married to a Polish cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, twenty years her senior. She wrote The Land Beyond the Forest, a book about the people, culture, customs, and beliefs of Transylvania, while her husband was stationed there from 1883-1885. However, it appears that a lot of what Gerard recorded as "authentic" Transylvanian terms and customs was muddled, misheard, misunderstood, or just plain wrong. In addition, it does not appear that Gerard spoke Romanian or Hungarian (the two main languages of the area). One glaring mistake that Stoker utilized in his novel is the term nosferatu as being the Romanian term to designate a vampiric creature. The problem is that there is no such Romanian word, and its first ever appearance is in Gerard's text. Stoker, not checking Gerard's mistake, used the term in his novel, and it has become part of vampire literary culture ever since. (P.S. The correct Romanian term is strigoi; the Hungarian is vámpír).