Painting by Theodor Aman.Īll these stories made Vlad one of the best-known Romanian medieval rulers, but when Bram Stoker's Dracula was published, a connection was made for the first time between Vlad Dracula and vampirism. After seeing this, Sultan Mehmed II was amazed and decided that he can not deprive of his country the man who had done such an act. When Mehmed entered Târgoviște in June, the town they found was deserted, but instead, they found a forest of twenty thousand men, women, and children, all impaled, with their bodies decaying, and birds nesting in their entrails. However, his attack failed, because they confused the tents and assassinated two viziers instead. On the night of June 16th, Vlad Țepeș broke into the Ottoman camp and tried capturing or assassinating the sultan, in order to cause chaos and panic among the Ottoman army. That is when Vlad Dracula adopted the scorched earth policy and started retreating towards Târgoviște, scorching the lands and poisoning the wells they left behind. The Ottoman army landed in Brăila, which was at the time the only Wallachian port on the Danube, and started marching towards Vlad's castle. Mehmed II raised an army of more than 150,000 people, which is said to be second in size only to the one that occupied Constantinople in 1453.

The most famous act of Vlad the Impaler is one he performed during the Ottoman Invasion of Wallachia in 1462. In Romanian history, he is known as Vlad Țepeș, and he is called 'the Impaler' because his favorite method of execution was impalement.

Pope Pius II included several stories about Vlad III in his Commentaries, and others wrote poems and told tales of how cruel he was. Throughout his life, Vlad the Impaler was one of the fiercest enemies of the Ottoman Empire, and stories of his cruelty rapidly spread throughout Europe. In modern Romania, drac means 'devil', and this contributed to Vlad III's infamous reputation. Dracula is the Slavonic genitive form of the word Dracul (Dragon), and it means Son of the Dragon.

The name of Dracula has its origin in his father's name, Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad the Dragon, a name he received after becoming a member of the Order of the Dragon. A country that still preserved alive the memory of one of its most feared leaders, Vlad the Impaler. This fear lived on throughout the ages and managed to place him in the minds of many generations as a highly controversial character called Count Dracula.Īnd why was Transylvania chosen as the land of these mysterious and terrifying creatures called vampires?Īt that time, Romania was a country not known to many foreigners, mostly rural, with a strong belief in creatures of the night. Although Vlad Dracula was one of t he most famous rulers of Wallachia, many of the inhabitants of the villages surrounding his medieval castles feared he is actually a terrifying, blood-sucking creature.

This castle is a creature of chaos