Talk:Vlad the Impaler

"Vlad was one mean, nasty-ruthless son-of-a-bitch that ever walked on this earth."

This is hardly NPOV, there are other less crude ways to express similar sentiments. Removed.

How bout, "Radon is interesting because it's both noble and deadly, like Vlad the Impaler."? Eh, eh?

Since the page was axed do to Copyright infringments, I figured I would add a bit of public domain information to the discussion page, as a kind of place-holder.

His name was Vlad Tepes, and was known as Vlad III of Wallachia; Vlad Dracula; and Vlad the Impaler. Dracula meaning son of the dragon, for his father earned the gentry right of the dragon (Dracul.) The Impaler monicker being earned by his propensity for execution by impaling, used against his political enemies, and most notably the bourgeoisie. He was known to be quite bloodthirsty (although mostly in the metaphorical way,) and is thought to be the character archetype used by Bram Stoker in his best known novel, Dracula, when combined with prevalent Vampire myths. During his reign, Wallachia was positioned between the Christians to the west an the Ottoman Muslim's to the East, both bent on destroying one-another. He allied (a very loose alliance,) with the Christians to the west, but was eventually incarcerated by them. He was later released, typically believed because although he was an unstable, blood thirsty tyrant, he was on their side and therefore would provide a buffer against the Muslims.

---

Was he known as Tepes during his reign? The introduction says no, but later this is contradicted.

- When was the page "axed"?

Vlad III

I believe it was Vlad IV who was refered to as Dracula.

It's certainly Vlad III. See List of Wallachian rulers:

• Vlad I: 1394-1397
• Vlad II: 1436-1442 (Vlad III's father; Dracul)
• Vlad III: 1456-1462 (Dracula)

And Dracul means Devil, not dragon, Dracula is the son of the Devil, not at all the son of the dragon.

Yes, but dragon used to be assimilated to the devil. In fact, the Romanian word "drac" (devil) is derived from Latin "draco" (dragon). Bogdan | Talk 08:35, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC).

In this context, it definitely means Dragon. His father was named Vlad Dracul, Dracul being an honorific he received once he was inducted into the Order of the Dragon. Dracula, in this connection, means "Son of (the) Dragon"; and is also said "Draculea". Check the Order article if you don't believe me. Tias 08:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

He was never refered to as "Dracula" until Bram Stoker's novel appeared. You're confusing fact with fiction.

Sure he was. You can find the spelling "Dracula" on two paintings from c. 1600. Arround 1460 Pope Pius II refered to "Dragula". - By the way, who could tell me an early source for the spelling "Draculea". How old is that? --R.wien 10:48, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes he signed his name as Dracula, and sometimes as Draculea. The -lea suffix that ends in names stands for "al lui", meaning, "as of", meaning, the son of -- the son of Dracul. --Anittas 10:01, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• why dont you guys just put a note in the article that mentions the possibility or even the 'controversy' that it may mean devil instead of dragon? its a worthy note for curious readers. ArgentiumOutlaw 2:02, 11 December 2005

Copyrighted text

I pasted some text from Michael Currie's essay "Vlad: Bad Lad or Mad Dad" with permission. I emailed him with the question: "Text in Wikipedia is licensed under the GDFL [...] Would you be willing to release your text under these conditions?" He replied: "Yes I allow the release. Feel free to use it without crediting me." --Redquark 03:34, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Defamatory paragraphs

When foreign emissaries refused, out of custom, to remove their hats in his presence, he told them that he wished only to strengthen and honour their custom - then nailed their hats to their heads. When he imposed this cruel act upon several Turkish emissaries, the sultan went to war against him.

Conversely, just as Vlad responded harshly to insult, he responded favourably to flattery. When a messenger arrived with news from neighboring Hungary, Vlad grew very angry, and invited him to dinner. Seeing the dining room filled with dead and dying people impaled on stakes, and guards behind him holding a gold-plated stake, the messenger grew very anxious. When Vlad asked him if he knew why he was asked to dinner, the messenger thought quickly and responded, "I do not know, but I know you are a wise and great ruler, and no matter what you command, even if you were to command my death, it should be done." Impressed, Vlad waved the soldiers away, and said "Had you not answered so well, I would have impaled you on the spot." The messenger was showered with gifts, before being sent back to Hungary.

please, provide sources for these paragraphs. Try to quote sources as objective as possible. These paragraphs are defamatory. Unless suported by reference to sources sustaining such defamatory formulations, i'll reformulate these paragraphs in a non defamatory /neutral way. Criztu 01:24, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dracula's Mother

No source I have consulted names Vlad III's mother as Marya Magdalene. McNally and Florescu say she was Cneajna Musati. Double names or middle names are exceeding rare in the medieval period, it's unlikely any woman would've been named Marya Magdelene Cnjeana. Unless someone can show me a good source for the "Marya Magdalene" name, I will remove it. Missi

Cneajna means princess in Russian and other Slavic languages. --Vladko 16:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfinished merging

Chapters 2 The reign of Vlad III
3 The Life of Vlad III Dracula
4 Reputation

are more or less duplicate, and the merging had not been finished yet. I added a {{unencyclopedic}} template because I can not find the template I was looking for Reply to David Latapie 20:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Hunyadi defeated?

The article says " In the Battle of Belgrade Hunyadi was killed and his army defeated."

Completely wrong. Hunyadi died because of a plague after the siege but he was completely victorious.

"The victory stopped the Ottoman Turkish advance towards Catholic Europe for 70 years ... During the siege, Pope Callixtus III ordered the noon bell, to call believers to pray for the defenders - but as in many places the news of victory arrived later than the order, it transformed into the commemoration of the victory"

Consult article Siege_of_Belgrade.

Quite correct. I corrected the article and also removed the (completely erroneous) conclusion in the article drawn from this. (Drawing conclusions about Hunyadi's defeat without him even being defeated.. Who writes this stuff?) --BluePlatypus 23:32, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

2nd wife

Vlad's second wife wasn't the sister of Matthius Corvinus. She was Jusztina Szilágyi de Horogszeg, who's aunt (father's sister) Erzsébet was married to János Hunyadi. They were the parents of Matthias Corvinus, who was thus her cousin. See the family trees: [1] [2] --BluePlatypus 17:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The reign of Vlad III

within this section, the following quote occurs: :"[Sultan Mehmed] marched on for about five kilometers when he saw men impaled; the Sultan's army came across a field of stakes, about three kilometers long and one kilometer wide. And there were large stakes upon which he could see the impaled bodies of men, women, and children, about twenty-thousand of them... And the other Turks, seeing so many people impaled, were scared out of their wits."

however, there is no attribution. should this not be either attributed, or removed? furthermore, i'm quite certain that the concept of the kilometer was not prevalent during vlad III's reign...

- I would like to know whether there are any written documents from Vlad's time, especially documents written and signed by him. Even more interesting would be the language they were written in if they were issued by Vlad's court.

Vlad III and Stephen the Great

Some history books say that Vlad III and Stephen the Great and Holy of Moldavia were cousins!

They were cousins. What's your point? --Anittas 09:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Some people do not know that.

Atrocities

"In 1459, on Saint Bartholomew's Day (in August), Dracula had thirty thousand of the merchants and officials of the Transylvanian city of Braşov impaled."

In 1785 Brasov had 17.671 inhabitants.How many did it have in 1459?

Good observation. This might warrant a disputed-tag for the article. Obviously that number is exaggerated, at the very least (It'd have to be a huge city to even have 30,000 merchants and officials at that time). This article does need a lot more sources, given how it's a subject with plenty of exaggeration going around. --BluePlatypus 12:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

the article says the following Dracula usually had a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. This description does not make sense. If a not too sharp stake was to be used so as not to kill too fast, the stake would never be stuck in up to going out through the mouth : a) to push the stake that far, it would need to be sharp so as to go through the mass of intestines and the diaphragm; b) if pushed that far, the victim would be dead before the executioners were finished, because of major injuries to the diaphragm, the heart, lungs, or large vessels in the area, and pushing the stake through the throat would cause suffocation in short order. either a sharp stake was used and pushed through the whole body, and the victim was hung up already dead, or a blunt one was pushed only far enough to be wedged in the intestines, and the victim died slowly from internal bleeding and as the contents of the abdominal cavity were pushed up against the diaphragm causing slow suffocation.--Svartalf 22:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

His Son

I don't know much about this, but there doesn't seem to be anything here about one of his sons that I read about. It may have been inaccurate information, but I believe his name was Adrian Fahrenheit or something. I believe he died young. Again, I'm just throwing it out there in case it's something we might want to look further into.

After googling for "adrian fahrenheit", I suggest you go to the Castlevania III article for more on that. This page, however, is about the actual historical figure Vlad Tepes. Not his video-game fiction relatives. --BluePlatypus 12:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

NOTICE

You have added good things, but: 1.Inform yourselves about the diacritics in Romanian. Use them. 2.Link a person's name to an existing article, on its first mention. The same for localities. 3. Stop linking old names to modern ones - ie. Kingdom of Hungary to Hungary, or countries ti cities - Muscovy instead of Moscow. It shows ignorance, and you want to give a person who is not familiar with the topic an insught into the situation then (not now). 4. Link at least some years.Dahn 14:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

"Dracul"'s meaning

Dracul definitely means devil. The title was given to him by peasants for his unsavory way of negotiating (impaling people).

I'm not sure calling the article "Vlad III Dracula" is appropriate. It should be changed to "Vlad III Tepes". Anyone have any objections? Dali 16:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)]

I do (I'm Romanian, by the way). I also think this back-and-forth about names is useless. Type Vlad Tepes (or the proper Vlad Ţepeş) and you get to this article. He is also cited as Ţepeş throughout the article. Dracul was not a name given to him by peasants, it was a reference to the dragon for sure. The main (since lost) meaning of the time was serpent. The peasants preferred the unofficial and grotesque Ţepeş - as the most parochial references to him show. Dracul (and this is in the article) was the name his father bore - which gives you Draculea/Dracula (archaism for "of the Drac"). Also, somebody would have to go an even longer way in Romania to be named "Dracul", if that is a reference to the devil: consider that they probably used "serpent" initially as an euphemism, so as not to mention the Fallen One out loud. Dahn 19:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Article length

As this article is currently 50K (recommended size is 32K), any objections to moving the Anecdotal evidence subheader (or additional sections) to a new article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Olessi (talk • contribs) .

No. Mihai -^talk 01:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No. Dahn 23:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

His Infamy

Just came back from România, where I learned some things about Vlad that I didn't knew before. According to a tour guide at the Bram Castle, Vlad got the infamy of being a bad man when he crossed the king of Hungary. It seems that the Rome gave the kind of Hungary a substantial ammount of cash to fight the Turks. But the Hungarian king was very vain and pompous, and he spent most of the money with parties and hunting.

When Vlad returned form a massive fight against the Turks, he went to ask the king of Hungary (who was supposed to be his ally against the Turks) about his whereabouts whilst Vlad was on the battlefront -- which would of course, raised the question of what happened with the money sent by Rome. The Hungarian king then decided to blame Vlad, and spread horror stories about Vlad.

Bear inmind, that I am just repeating what a tour guide (a very well educated one) told me in România. --Pinnecco 21:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Not an expert on the matter, but I am Romanian. Not questioning the education of the guide, this sounds a bit biased, and like modern wishful thinking. I think the article covers everything about Vlad already, including all that could possibly be said about his love-hate relationship with Matthias. The info you got has a whiff of anti-Catholicism. The guide is certainly not uneducated, but he/she could've been overeducated in the classical Romanian version. Plus, Bran stikes me as the wrong place to learn about Vlad (no disrespect intended): the Romanians have learned to exploit a cliche (with all the grotesque kitsch involved), and Vlad spent some days of his entire life in the castle. Dahn 23:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It’s interesting to know, that one of the greatest Romanian national heroes was in fact a vassal of the king of Hungary. The other national hero, Mircea the Elder, Dracula's grandfather was also a vassal of the king of Hungary. I quote:

"Io, Mircea voievod, mare domn şi stăpânitor a toată Ţara Ungro-Vlahiei..." The word "Ungro" is a clear and undeniable evidence for that. The story told by the tour guide is a pure fantasy.Zmiklos 22:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Ungro-Vlahia has nothing to do with that, but that's beside the point. Dahn 22:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Zmiklos, your quote means Mircea the Elder was the ruler of the whole of Transylvania and Wallahia, because Ungro-Vlahia was the name of Transylvania, meaning "Wallahia of the Hungarians" if you wish. The only "undeniable evidence" in your reply is of your lack of documentation, knowledge of Romanian language, bias, plus an added degree of malice, which we could also find in your other contributions.

Place of birth

About the diacritic, I am well aware of it - simply didn't use it because it wasn't used elsewhere in the article. I'm interested in the uncertainty about his place of birth, but couldn't find it under early life. Maybe something needs to be added? - Adam Mathias 05:41, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In general I think the article has very detailed info, but could use some cleanup. But I'm no expert. Adam Mathias 05:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. You were right, it's not mentioned (although all diacritics are in place). It used to be when I last reviewed the article, but they started editing it like mad ever since, writing down all sorts of bits of info that were repeated thrice - and without giving you a chance to see what they were erasing in the process (I mean, the task would have made one go insane). Somehow, it got lost. Also, I suspect that parts of the article are plagiarism. Dahn 06:07, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

You're right, the diacritic was there. I was flipping around the article in different languages. Adam Mathias 06:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Vlad II's Mother

I have heard from a couple reliable sources that Vlad II's mother was the Marya Magdalene who was spoke about earlier

What? Dahn 03:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Romanian for dragon?

The article presently states this:

Wishing to assert his status, Vlad II displayed the symbol of the Order (a dragon) in all public appearances (on flags, clothing, etc.). Taking the dragon for a representation of the devil (drac in Romanian), the people of Wallachia gave Vlad II the surname Dracu (Dracul being the grammatically correct form), which he seems to have accepted and used.

Elsewhere I read that dracu meant both "devil" and "dragon" in Romanian; that's what I'd expect since dracu closely resembles Latin draco, and the correspondence between devil and dragon occurs several places in the Bible.

This idea that, so this idea that the people took the dragon to represent a devil is inconsistent with that, and sounds fishy anyway. I hardly think some noble would like his people going around calling him "The Devil". --Saforrest 16:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You are almost 100% right, IMO. See what you think of the new version. Dahn 16:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)