Vlad Dracul and Vlad Tepes Portraits

A contemporary painting of Vlad Dracul, father of Vlad Tepes

A 1462 engraving of Vlad Tepes from a Transylvanian Saxon pamphlet

A 1488 painted woodcut of Vlad Tepes from a Nuremberg book

The Ambras Castle portrait of Vlad Tepes, painted in 1560; a copy of a painting made during Vlad III's life, which was later lost

Theodor Aman painted "The Meeting of Vlad Tepes and the Turkish Envoys" - was when they refused to remove their turbans, and Vlad had them nailed to their heads

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.

The Vampire And Dracula

The first book, or story, exclusively regarding vampires was written by John Polidori and published in 1816.  The novella, The Vampyre, was written at the same time as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and was written at the same Lake Geneva estate, under the same challenge.  The novella was originally attributed to Lord Byron, but was later acknowledged as the effort of Polidori.  The Vampyre was a great success, and in 1871 Sheridan Le Fanu published Carmilla, the story of a lesbian vampire, which was even more popular.  Then a series of Penny Dreadfuls was introduced, written by James Malcolm Rymer, about Varney the Vampire.  The Victorian society of London consumed all of these gothic horror stories with glee.
   In 1897, Bram (short for Abraham) Stoker published the novel Dracula.  Bram was a long-time friend of Oscar Wilde, and both men had paid suit to Florence Balcombe.  Florence chose to marry Stoker, a solid accountant with a good family.  Bram was attracted to many men, including Walt Whitman, and his friend and employer, Shakespearean actor Sir Henry Irving.  While employed as the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre, Stoker supplemented his income by writing quite a few novels between 1878 and 1898.  And, during his life-time, while Dracula sold well, it was not considered a work of note.  After Oscar Wilde's trial and sentencing for indecency and sodomy in May of 1895, Stoker became, increment by increment, a violent homophobe.  Bram Stoker died in 1912, leaving his wife Florence and son Irving Noel Thornley Stoker, nicely well off.
  One of the settings of Dracula is the village of Whitby, which is where Stoker and his family spent the summer holidays.  While there, he read and took notes from an 1885 essay, written by Emily Gerard, titled "Transylvania Superstitions."  Another of his sources was the 1820 edition of An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia written by British Consul William Wilkenson, who was posted there - it was here that Stoker ran across the name of Vlad II Dracul, who took his surname from a chivalric Order that he joined in 1431.  The Order of the Dragon (Dracul in the Wallachian language) was instituted by Sigismund of Luxemborg, then King of Hungary, as an honor for aristocrats to achieve as a supporter of Christianity and as a defender of the Empire against the Ottoman Turks.  When Vlad II became the leader of Wallachia, he always wore his Order of the Dragon medal, and had his coins stamped with a dragon.  His son, Vlad III, was also known as Vlad Dracula (son of the dragon), and Vlad Tepes (of the Stakes - or, in today's terms, the Impaler).  It is not known how much Stoker knew of the Dracul father and son - but in his journals and notes, one may find the entry, "Dracula in the Wallachian language means DEVIL."  (The capitalization is Stoker's.)  In the book itself, Dracula is referred to as a man who fought the Turks.
   It is thought that Stoker might have used any number of old castles or ruins found in Romania as his setting for Dracula's castle.  There were multiple books out at that time that had photographs, engravings and paintings of older castles in the mountains, and some even suppose that the castle is one Bram Stoker visited in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales.  Bram Stoker was a man of many layers, and he successfully hid himself quite well.