02 February 2007

About the project Dracula - The truth

Dracula - Myth and Real History


This might seem an utopia: a project aiming to present Vlad Dracula's life, the medieval Transylvania of XV-th century, what is true and what is only imagination about Vlad The Impaler and the medieval age when he lived.
However, the idea came closely to my mind while searching some real information about Vlad III the Impaler. It's not about scarcity of the information that I was surprised, but the difficulty to find only the truth, not the mythology around, as well as details about the places, the people of that age, etc.

My ideas might change in time, but what I have in mind right now is grouping the information in few big groups:

1. Vlad III Dracula. It's life, as detailed as possible. Information about impaling people in that era, the wars, etc.

2. Medieval Transylvania & Wallachia. My idea is we cannot really understand all details if we don't try to contextualize the facts. How was people's life, how were the medieval towns what did they looked like, what about the medieval church ? What about education ? But the food ?

3. Dracula's myth, the connection with Bram Stoker's novel, the vampires - did they really exist ? The idea will be a clear distinguish between myth and reality.

4. That places nowadays: South Eastern Transylvania, Wallachia, Bran Castle, Poienari Castle, Târgovişte, Snagov, Bucharest, etc.

5. Media library: pictures, movies, songs, etc

6. Documentation. All good information sources I can find: books about Dracula and about medieval eastern Europe, websites, magazine articles, eBooks, etc.

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Latest posts:

A short history of Wallachia up to Vlad's reign
The history of the country laying south to Carpathians, up to the Danube and to the Danube Delta, in East, starts by the end of the XIII-th century. The Black Prince run away from it's feudal duchy, Făgăraş and shelters South to Carpathians. That happens because the duchy was given to Ugrinus, a Hungarian noble, by the king of hungary Andrew III. Read more ...

6 comments:

rani said...

I found this blog very interesting indeed. I read "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kovstova which speaks about Vlad, and with many interesting details of medevial manuscripts. Maybe you know this book?

Radu said...

Thanks for the nice words, Rani.

Well, I've been told about "The Historian", but I didn't manage to read it first. Neither do I have it, in order to browse through it and have a snapshot.
Maybe you can tell me more about, so that I'll post about in the "books" section of this blog :)

Thanks again,
Radu

Jordan Jackson said...

I found a very interesting painting through Wikipedia of Vlad as Pilate passing judgement on Jesus. If you'd like, I'll send you the link. I've been doing research on my own about Vlad for years and have been able to find very little about him that wasn't based solely on fiction. Nice job with the site you've got here. I'll be checking in often. ;)

Radu said...

Hi Francesca,

That sounds interesting. Please send me the link. There are few books published about Vlad III Dracula.

Historians know to have/had an interest in Vlad III are Matei Cazacu, Radu Florescu, Raymond T. McNally, Kurt Treptow (although Treptow seems to be more known, in Romania at least, for a huge pedophile scandal rather than his books).

All best,
Radu

Jordan Jackson said...

The original Wiki article (For what it's worth) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_III

The Painting of Vlad as Pilate (Full Resolution)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Pilatusdracula.jpg

Another found from the same site with Vlad at the crucifixion of Saint Andrew (Full Resolution)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tepest.jpg

One thing that I found interesting about the first painting, the one with Christ, is the date given. 1463. According to your site, his death did not occur until 1476. Everything else that I have read has said that they have not been able to find a painting of Vlad that was done prior to his death. Just thought that you would find this interesting. :)

Radu said...

Hi Francesca,

Sorry, but I haven't seen your comment. Now I was cleaning up the comments and I noticed this one that was never approved (I used to get information about comments by email, but somehow it stopped). Well, better later than never...

Coming back to your comment, WOOW, I didn't know about this paintings thanks for sharing the info !! Really really interesting.

Thanks again,
Radu