Dracula and Vlad Tepes

Other than naming the main character Dracula, there is a small passage in the novel that indicates that Bram Stoker had some knowledge of  a Vlad Dracul (whether it be father or son) as a fighter for Christianity against the Turkish Ottoman Empire: "Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.' That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as 'stregoica'—witch, 'ordog,' and 'pokol'—Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest."   But, other than this reference, there is no clear evidence that Stoker wrote Dracula with Vlad Tepes as his template.
  Vlad II, the father of Vlad Tepes, was the Voivode of Wallachia and Moldavia - he was the warlord-governor serving the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, King of Hungary. In 1431, the year Vlad III was born, his father was awarded the Order of the Dragon by Sigismund, and took the surname Dracul.  Vlad was raised by his parents and extended family until the age of 13, when he and his younger brother, Radu, were given as political hostages to the Ottoman Turks. This happened because his father had been defeated as the local warlord, and Vlad Dracul agreed to pay tribute to the Ottoman Sultan and back him, in return for being reinstated as the Voivode.  While with the family, Vlad and Radu had received an aristocratic education - leadership, combat skills, geography, mathematics, science, philosophy, the classical arts, and languages (Old Church Slavonic, German and Latin).  During their time with the Turks, Vlad and Radu were taught the Turkish language, Turkish literature, warfare, logic, horsemanship, and the Quran.  Radu was a model student and became a convert.  Vlad was a consistent rebel and was frequently punished.  It is believed, by some, that it was the torments by Turks that caused Vlad to act so "monstrously" as the Viovode of Wallachia, himself.
   Vlad III was the Viovolde of Wallachia three different times before his death in either December 1476 or January 1477.  His will was read on 10 January 1477, so it is surmised he died in December of the previous year.  Vlad signed his letters and legal papers in Latin, as "Wladislaus Dragwlya."  Vlad III was greatly loved and supported by the peasants and everyday people of Wallachia; at first, the boyars, other aristocrats, supported him, but as he demanded more from them, as the years passed - support, money, supplies and men - they began to desert him.  Vlad was given the name Tepes by the Saxons and Germans many years after his death - but in Wallachia, he is still spoken of as a national hero.  Tepes means stakes - and Vlad's favorite method of death for his opponents was for them to be impaled on stakes.  These stakes entered the body in the crotch area and usually were implanted about two feet, before coming out through the chest or back, or they were stuck through the chest and back.  It was an incredibly painful and bloody way to die.  During his reigns, Vlad III is documented as having killed, or ordered killed, between 20,000 and 100,000  people.  Most of these victims were impaled; some Turkish envoys, who refused to remove their turbans, had them nailed to their heads with six-inch nails.  Vlad Tepes was known as a cruel, but just, ruler during his adult life.  It is believed that he died in battle against the Ottoman Turks, possibly led by his brother Radu.