Vlad the Impaler: Vlad III Dracula, Prince of Wallachia

Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler and as Dracula, was Prince of Wallachia, in what is now southern Romania, for three periods: briefly in 1448, from 1456 to 1462, and again in 1476. He fought the Ottoman Empire and rival nobles with extraordinary brutality, becoming infamous for impaling his enemies. Centuries later his nickname, Dracula, was borrowed by Bram Stoker for the most famous vampire in fiction, but the historical prince was a real ruler caught between the Ottoman and Hungarian powers.

Background

Wallachia was a principality between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. In the fifteenth century it lay on the frontier between the expanding Ottoman Empire to the south and the Kingdom of Hungary to the north. Its princes, chosen from the Basarab dynasty, were often installed or removed by one of these powers, and rival branches of the family fought constantly for the throne.

Vlad was born around 1428–1431, probably in Sighișoara in Transylvania. His father, Vlad II, had been admitted in 1431 to the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order founded by King Sigismund of Hungary to fight the Ottomans, and was therefore known as Dracul, from the Latin draco, “dragon”. The son’s name Dracula simply meant “son of Dracul”. In modern Romanian drac also means “devil”, which later encouraged sinister interpretations.

In 1442, to guarantee his loyalty to the Ottomans, Vlad II sent two of his sons, Vlad and his younger brother Radu, as hostages to the court of Sultan Murad II. They stayed there for several years. Radu became close to the Ottoman court and was later known as Radu the Handsome. Vlad’s experience of Ottoman politics and warfare shaped his later career.

The struggle for the throne

In 1447 Vlad II was overthrown and killed by supporters of John Hunyadi, the Hungarian regent, and Vlad’s elder brother Mircea was killed by boyars, the Wallachian nobility, at Târgoviște. In 1448, after Hunyadi’s defeat at the Second Battle of Kosovo, Vlad seized the throne with Ottoman support. His first reign lasted only about two months before he was driven out by Vladislav II, a prince backed by Hungary.

Vlad spent the following years in exile, in Moldavia and Transylvania, and eventually came to terms with Hunyadi. In 1456, while Hunyadi was defending Belgrade against Mehmed II, Vlad invaded Wallachia and killed Vladislav II. His second and most famous reign began.

The second reign, 1456–1462

Vlad set out to strengthen his authority over the boyars, many of whom he held responsible for the deaths of his father and brother. According to later accounts, he had large numbers of them executed and replaced them with men who owed their position to him. He punished theft and disorder ferociously, and stories circulated that Wallachia became so safe that a golden cup could be left at a public fountain without being stolen.

He also clashed with the Saxon towns of Transylvania, such as Brașov and Sibiu, which sheltered rival claimants to his throne and competed with Wallachian merchants. Between 1457 and 1460 he led raids into their territory, burning villages and impaling captives. These raids are the main source of the horror stories later printed in German pamphlets.

Impalement, in which the victim was fixed on a sharpened stake, was used elsewhere in Europe and in the Ottoman Empire, but Vlad used it on an exceptional scale and as a deliberate means of terror. Contemporaries recorded that he left large numbers of impaled bodies on display to intimidate enemies.

War with the Ottomans

Like his father, Vlad was expected to pay tribute to the sultan. By around 1459 he had stopped paying, and he looked for support from Hungary, now ruled by Hunyadi’s son, Matthias Corvinus. In the winter of 1461–1462 Vlad struck first, crossing the Danube and attacking Ottoman fortresses and settlements along the river. In a letter to Matthias dated 11 February 1462, he listed the people killed in the campaign, claiming a total of more than 23,000.

Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, answered with a large army in the summer of 1462. Its size is uncertain; estimates range widely, with figures of 60,000 or more often cited, while Vlad’s forces were much smaller. Vlad retreated before the invaders, burning crops and poisoning wells, and harassed them with raids.

On the night of 17 June 1462 he launched a surprise attack on the Ottoman camp near Târgoviște, the Wallachian capital, apparently hoping to kill the sultan. The attack, known as the Night Attack, caused confusion and losses but failed in its main aim. Soon afterwards, according to the Byzantine historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles, the Ottoman army came upon a field of thousands of impaled prisoners outside Târgoviște, a sight said to have shaken even the sultan.

Mehmed did not capture Vlad, but he did not need to. The sultan installed Vlad’s brother Radu as prince, and many boyars, tired of Vlad’s rule, went over to him. Vlad fled to Transylvania to seek help from Matthias Corvinus.

Imprisonment and final reign

Instead of helping him, Matthias had Vlad arrested in late 1462. Letters were produced in which Vlad supposedly offered to submit to the sultan; many historians consider them forgeries that allowed Matthias to avoid an expensive war and keep money sent by the pope for a crusade. Vlad was held in Hungary for about twelve years, at Visegrád and later Pest.

He was eventually released around 1474–1475 and married a relative of Matthias, reportedly a cousin named Ilona Szilágyi. Vlad then served in Hungarian campaigns against the Ottomans, including fighting in Bosnia in 1476.

In November 1476, with the support of Stephen the Great of Moldavia and the Transylvanian commander Stephen Báthory, Vlad recovered the Wallachian throne for the third time. His rule lasted only weeks. He was killed in fighting near Bucharest at the end of 1476 or in early January 1477, against the forces of his rival Basarab Laiotă and the Ottomans. The exact circumstances of his death are uncertain, and his head was reportedly sent to Constantinople.

Key people

• Vlad III Dracula (c. 1428/1431–1476/1477): Prince of Wallachia, known as the Impaler.
• Vlad II Dracul: His father, member of the Order of the Dragon and Prince of Wallachia.
• Radu the Handsome: His younger brother, raised at the Ottoman court and installed as prince in 1462.
• Mehmed II: Ottoman sultan who invaded Wallachia in 1462.
• Matthias Corvinus: King of Hungary, who imprisoned Vlad from 1462.
• Stephen the Great: Prince of Moldavia, at times his ally and at times his enemy.

How the legend grew

Vlad’s reputation spread unusually fast because of the new technology of printing. From the 1460s, German pamphlets described his cruelties in lurid detail, often illustrated with woodcuts, and printed editions from Nuremberg, Strasbourg and other cities became early bestsellers. The German poet Michael Beheim wrote a long poem about him in 1463, based partly on the testimony of a monk who had fled Wallachia.

A Russian text, the Tale of Dracula Voivode, written around the 1480s, presents a more ambiguous picture: a cruel ruler, but one who enforced justice. Ottoman chroniclers, such as Tursun Beg, and Byzantine historians also wrote about his war with Mehmed II. Historians compare these sources carefully, since each had its own purpose and many stories cannot be confirmed.

Myths and facts

Myth: Vlad was a vampire or was believed to drink blood. No contemporary source describes him as a vampire. The connection was created by Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, published in 1897.

Fact: Stoker took the name, not the biography. Stoker’s research notes show that he found the name Dracula in a book by William Wilkinson, published in 1820, which mentioned a fifteenth-century prince of Wallachia. Scholars such as Elizabeth Miller have argued that Stoker knew little more than this, and that the fictional Count, a Transylvanian nobleman, is not a portrait of Vlad.

Myth: Bran Castle was Dracula’s home. Bran Castle in Transylvania is promoted as Dracula’s Castle, but there is no evidence that Vlad ever lived there. Poenari Fortress, perched above the Argeș river, is the stronghold most closely linked to him.

Myth: Every story about him is true. Many famous anecdotes, such as nailing the turbans of Ottoman envoys to their heads, come from hostile pamphlets or later tales and cannot be verified.

Timeline

• c. 1428–1431: Vlad is born, probably in Sighișoara.
• 1442: Vlad and Radu are sent as hostages to the Ottoman court.
• 1447: Vlad II Dracul and his son Mircea are killed.
• 1448, October: Vlad’s brief first reign begins with Ottoman support.
• 1456, August: Vlad seizes the throne and begins his second reign.
• 1461–1462, winter: Vlad attacks Ottoman positions along the Danube.
• 1462, 17 June: The Night Attack on Mehmed II’s camp near Târgoviște.
• 1462, late: Vlad is arrested in Hungary on the orders of Matthias Corvinus.
• 1476, November: Vlad regains the throne for the third time.
• 1476, December – 1477, January: Vlad is killed near Bucharest.

Legacy

In Romania, Vlad is remembered above all as a defender of the country against Ottoman domination and as a ruler who punished dishonest nobles and thieves. Nineteenth-century Romanian writers and later the communist-era state celebrated him as a national hero, and in 1976 Romania marked the 500th anniversary of his death. His cruelty is acknowledged, but the vampire image is widely seen as a foreign invention.

Outside Romania, the name Dracula has become inseparable from Stoker’s Count and from the many films that followed. This has made Vlad one of the best-known rulers of medieval Europe, and his story has become a case study in how propaganda, printing and fiction can transform a historical figure.

His burial place is unknown. Tradition long placed his grave at Snagov Monastery, near Bucharest, but excavations there did not confirm it, and Comana Monastery, which he is believed to have founded, has also been proposed.

Why it matters

Vlad III’s career shows the brutal politics of the frontier between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe after the fall of Constantinople, where small principalities survived by playing great powers against each other. His story also illustrates how printed propaganda in the fifteenth century, and novels and films in the modern age, can shape memory far more than the documented facts. Related episodes include the siege of Belgrade in 1456, the reign of Matthias Corvinus and the fall of Constantinople.