Historical vampires
Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614)
Elizabeth Bathory went to countess that tortured and she murdered several young and, because of that you/he/she was well-known as one of the " true " vampires of the history. Although frequently mentioned as Hungarian, owed in bars it leaves to the displacement of the border of the Hungarian Empire, she was in fact more intimately associated with what it is today the Slovak Republic. Most of its adult life was passed in the Castelo Cachtice, close to the city of Vishine, to northeast than it is today Bratislava, where Austria, Hungary and Slovakia join. (The Castle was erroneously mentioned by Raymond T.McNally as placed in Transilvânia).
Bathory grew in one era in that most of Hungary had been conquered by the Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire, being battle field between armies of Turkey and Áustria(Habsburgo). THE area was also divided by religious differences. The family of Bathory joined to the new wave of Protestantism that made opposition to the traditional Roman Catholicism. It was created in the property of the family Bathory, in Ecsed, in Transilvânia. When child, was subject to sudden diseases, accompanied of intense hate and uncontrollable behavior. In 1571, its cousin Stephen became prince of Transilvânia and later, in the same decade it ascended to the throne of Poland. It was one of the most competent regents of its time, although its plans for the unification of Europe against the Turks were frustrated by virtue of the necessary efforts to combat Ivan, the Terrible, that coveted Stephen's territory.
In 1574, Elizabeth engravidou as a result of a brief affair with a peasant. When its condition became visible, it was hidden until the baby's arrival, because it was bride of Conde Ferenc Nadasdy. The marriage happened in May of 1575. Conde Nadasdy was a soldier and I/you/he/she was out of house, frequently, for long periods. In that middle time, Elizabeth assumed its duties of taking care of Castelo Sarvar's subjects, of property of the family Nadasdy. It was there that its malign career really began - with the disciplinamento of a great contingent of employees, mainly young women.
In a period in that the cruel and arbitrary behavior of the ones that maintained the power to the servants it was a common thing, the level of cruelty of Elizabeth it was notorious. She didn't just punish the ones that they infringed its regulations, as well as he/she found excuses to inflict punishments and he/she delighted in the torture and in the its victims' death its contemporaries could accept very in addition. It threaded pinos in several sensitive points of the body, as, for example, below of the fingernails. In the winter it executed its victims making them to undress and to walk in the eve, emptying water frozen in them until the freezing of the body.
Elizabeth's husband joined to her in that type of sadistic behavior and to he/she taught it some punishment modalities. It showed it, for example, a variation of those freezing exercises for the summer: it undressed a woman and it covered it of honey, leaving at the mercy of the insects. He died in 1604 and Elizabeth moved to Vienna after its funeral. It passed also some time in its property of Beckov and in the solar of Cachtice, both located where it is today Slovakia. Those were the sceneries of its more famous and vicious acts.
In the years that were followed after the death of the husband, Elizabeth's companion in the crime was a name woman Anna Darvulia, of who not very it is known. When the health of Darvulia worsened in 1609, Elizabeth went back to Erzsi Majorova, local farmer's widow, its tenant. Majorova seems to have been the responsible person for Elizabeth's final decline, to the encorajá-la to include some women of noble ancestry among its victims. By virtue of being having difficulties to regiment younger as servas as the rumors about its activities were spread by the redondezas, Elizabeth followed the advices of Majorova. In some period of 1609, she killed a noble youth and it hid the fact saying that had been suicide.
Already in the beginning of the summer of 1610, initial investigations around the crimes made by Elizabeth had begun. The base of the investigations was political, in spite of the growing number of victims. The crown hoped to confiscate Elizabeth's latifundium and to leave of paying to high loan that its husband had made to the king. With that in mind, Elizabeth was arrested on December 26, 1610.
Elizabeth was judged some later days. The judgement was driven by Conde Thurzo, as the king's agent. According to registration, the judgement (wisely characterized as a farce by the biographer of Bathory, Raymond T.McNally) it was not just begun to obtain a condemnation, but also to confiscate its lands. One week after the first judgement, a second session was accomplished, on January 7, 1611. In this, a calendar found in Elizabeth's rooms was presented as test. It contained 650 victims' names, everybody registered with Elizabeth's letter. Its accomplices were condemned to the death, being the form of certain execution for its roles in the tortures. Elizabeth was condemned to the perpetual prison, in solitary. It was placed in a room of the castle of Cachtice, without doors or windows, just a small opening for the passage of air and of victuals, there staying for the three following years until its death on August 21, 1614. It was buried in the lands of Bathory, in Ecsed.
Besides its reputation as sadistic murderess with more than 600 victims, it was accused of being a lobisomem (werewolf, in the original, doesn't have gender) and vampira. During its judgements, witness affirmed that in several occasions she bit the girls' body during its tortures. Those accusations became the base for its connections with the " lobisomenismo ". The connections between Elizabeth and the vampirismo are a so much one finer. Naturally, there was a popular faith in the Slavic lands that the lobisomens in life became vampires after the death, but that didn't go to done accusation Elizabeth. To the opposite, she was accused of drenar the its victims' blood and of taking a bath in that blood to retain its youth. For all the parameters, Elizabeth was a very attractive woman.
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Conde Drácula
The Prince of Valáquia
One of the most famous histories of the literature on vampirismo is Dracula, of Bram Stoker, that influenced, and it still influences, several other books and films of the gender.
The romance became a success from its first publication in 1897, extending until the days today, without never to leave of being re-edited. Perhaps the secret of Dracula's success is in the fact that, in spite of Bram Stoker to have written a fiction, he/she researched enough to already base it in legends existent and historical facts, giving the impression of being a truthful history. Its main information were obtained through investigations in the acervo of the British Museum, of London and of long chats with the friends of vast culture and knowledge.
Legends about the terrible creatures' chupadoras of blood existence are already mentioned in the Egyptian and Greek old literatures. The faith in these you be he/she should have been being born due to the perception that the moribund enfraquecem with the loss of blood. Thus, people of little culture should have been concluding to drink blood it recuperated the forces or, even, that the blood of the alive ones could resuscitate the deads.
But the main source to compose the myth on vampirismo in Dracula was the deeply taken root crendices of rural Romania. According to the religion there dominant, the one of the Oriental Orthodox Church, the people that you/they died excommunicated or under curse they were transformed in kill-alive (called of Moroi) until they be acquitted by the Church.
They still said the Rumanian legends that certain people, as the illegitimate or no-baptized children them, the witches and the a seventh son's seventh son, they were condemned they be she vampires. They also believed in the existence of birds demoníacos, known like Strigoi, that only flew at night, avid for meat and blood humans.
Besides bringing the death for the attacked victim, the vampires were also considered the causadores of the plague, being this extremely hated and feared way.
It was also believed that vampires hated garlic; the aldeões scrubbed like this the seasoning in whole the doors and windows for they be protected of the drinkers' of blood possible attacks nocturnes. In some villages who he/she refuses to eat garlic become I suspect of vampirismo, especially recently-fond of strangers.
But the most curious legend is present in the illustration of the main vampire of the work, the Dracula. The character was based on historical Vlad Tepes, the prince tyrant that reigned during the century XV, in Valáquia, close mountainous territory to Transilvânia, known cruelly by empalar its enemies. According to the book, the prince Vlad was cursed after blaspheming against God when its lover died, she became a powerful vampire that, feeding of human blood, you/he/she could prolong its existence as a creature of the darkness for several centuries.
Stoker chose Vlad Turrets' illustration to embody its vampire, for the form that the prince entered for the history. He was well-known like Vlad, Empalador. The empalamento is a quite cruel death, the victim's body it is crossed by a great wood stake or of iron that if espeta in the ground, letting to be in death agony her until the death. To increase the suffering, the prince it ordered to blind the points of the stakes.
Everything indicates that true Vlad was really cruel and sadistic. They say the legends that it felt pleasure when torturing its enemies and that made meals peacefully while its servants esquartejavam cadavers. The emissaries' of the Turkish court history that you/they dared to conserve the turbans in its presence exists and the prince ordered that were they nailed the craniums. Vlad also condemned people of its people for they be punished. They could be skinned, mutilated, cooked alive or died in the bonfire.
This way, same being famous and acclaimed by the whole Christian Europe, due to its success in the war against the Turks, its own people, tired of its tyrant's cruelties, it forged a letter suggesting that the prince would desert to the side of the enemy. Vlad was arrested and 12 years it passed in it jail.
In the prison he/she made friends with the guards, that, kindly, they supplied it mices and other small animals with which he/she had a good time empalando-them in the cell.
After free it returned to the throne, being killed not very later in a battle against the Turks.
An interesting detail the about of the history of Vlad, Empalador, was that Dracula was really its nickname while monarch. The name was derived of the symbol of its family, the dragon (Dracul), Dracula means filhote of Dragon. But, for coincidence, equally it can mean Demon.
Another curious fact regarding the history of Vlad went to its physical likeness with its father. As the boy had been captured by the Turks in the childhood and maintained hostage until its father's death, the people full of supernatural crendices, believed that the son was still the father, attributing it the immortality.
With all these histories and legends on the prince, Bram Stoker noticed that Vlad was the perfect real character to embody a vampire and, through its work, he/she became really the prince valaquiano immortal.
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Ivan, THE Terrible (1530-1584)
Ivan, the Terrible was the first czar of Russia, and its arbitrary and cruel behavior took many you compare it it Vlad Empalador, the historical Dracula. Ivan inherited the title of the Grain-duke of Moscovy when he was 3 years of age old and it grew observing the families leaders (the boiardos) of its earth they lead the countries for a caus period, to the measure in that fought to each other for portions of power. He/she was 17 years old when a Council of Choice appeared to make reforms. Although they have had success in ending with the caus, Ivan discussed continually with its members about a vast amount of administrative subjects. In 1564, frustado, abdicated suddenly. When the people demanded its return, it could dictate the terms of its reintegration and to obtain the almost absolute power. It was moved quickly to establish its própia government elite, Oprichnina, that removed great part of the remaining power of the hands of the boiardos.
The reign of two decades of Ivan was marked, partly, for its conquest of the lands along Rio Volga and for its movement for Sibéria, as well as the disastrosa war in that wrapped up when it tried without success to capture Livônia (today Estonia). He is reminded, though not for its political actions, but for its personal conduct. In the enstabelecer desire, he/she acted quickly in the punishment (and sometimes execution) of many that challenged its reign or that in some way showed disrespect for the that he considered its enlarged status.
Among the exceptional tendencies more reminded by its conteporâneos, Ivan possessed a sense of black humor, very similar to the that I/you had gone atríbuido to Vlad. Frequently, that humor characterized the tortures and executions of those that became the object of its anger. As it marked a historian, S. K. Rosovetskii, many of the histories on Ivan they were variations of those attributed Vlad one century before. For example, there was the Rumanian folkloric history on the citizens inhabitants of the city of Tigorviste, Dracula's capital. The citizens had made fun of of Dracula's brother. In reprisal, he gathered the main citizens (the boiardos) after the celebrations of the Passover and, in its best clothes, he/she did with that marched in the construction of Dracula's Castle. Ivan, reporta-if, he/she made something similar in the city of Volgoda when the people saw it in the morning of the Passover. It still joined them everybody in its best party clothes and it built a new wall for the city.
Perhaps the most famous counted history of Dracula starting from Ivan referred to the Turkish correspondent that refused to remove its hat in Dracula's presence. This, soon after, nailed the man's hat its head. Ivan, reporta-if, he/she made the same with a Italian diplomat (or, in an alternative report, with a French ambassador).
Ivan, like Vlad, a lot of times it was turned against powerful illustrations of the Russian society and it humiliated them to avoid its return to the dignity of its positions. The history is told, for example, of its attack on Pimen, the Russian-orthodox metropolitan representative of Novgorod. It undressed him of yours you dress liturgical and it dressed it of traveling ministrel (an occupation rejected by the church) and it set up a satirical marriage in which Pimen would marry a mare. Introducing the naked prelate with the signs of its new status, a pipe of bellows and a lira, Ivan dispatched it of the city.
Ivan was different from Vlad with relationship to its sexual appetite, he had seven wives and about 50 concubines. He/she also left its immediate successors with a mixed inheritance. Although he/she had expanded the territory of Russia, he/she left the country in the bankruptcy and the dissatisfaction with its reign it grew in a continuous way. Ivan, though, he/she died in a peaceful way while it played chess, on March 18, 1584.
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Peter Krten (1883-1931)
A lot of times mentioned as a real vampire, Peter Krten - called him Vampire of Dsseldorf - it was a matador in series that operated in Germany between 1929 and 1930. He/she was born in Mulheim, Germany, one of ten siblings, alcoholic and brutal father's son. He/she had lived its youth's part as apanhador of dogs and he/she remembered to have delighted with the death of no-claimed dogs. Krten was 9 years old just when it killed a person for the first time. It pushed a colleague inside of the water and later he/she repeated the act with a second boy that tried to save the first.
Its second tentative of homicide it happened later eight years, when it tried to rape and to kill a youth. It was in the chain for four years because of that evil-happened attempt. It lived in the streets after having left the prison, but one year later was again in the chain for robberies and thefts. He/she would allege, later on, to have killed two of its cell companions for envenenamento. In 1913 it was of turn to the streets in Dsseldorf and it killed again. He/she murdered a 10 year-old girl. It cut its throat with a knife and he/she said to have tried an orgasm sells its blood to gush.
It was not except in 1929 that Krten a series of crimes that you/they would give it a place in the history of the crime rate began. In February of that year tried to murder a woman and it got to kill two children, a boy and a girl, both to the knife. Its homicide attempts, a lot of evil-happened times, they didn't help the police. They accused a sick one mental of being the responsible person for the boy's death, that, in fact, Krten had killed.
On that summer it was well-happened, only killing nine people in the month of August. It continued killing during the winter of 1929-30. In May, it tried to strangle a youth, but inexplicably it interrupted the task and it let to go her auspiciously. She identified it and he was arrested. During its merrymaking of crimes, it had confused the police continually altering its methods. Only when its confession began, telling acuradamente the circumstances of each crime, it is that all the doubts were dissipated. It was condemned and executed by decapitação on July 2, 1931.
Krten certainly was not a vampire in the traditional sense. Superficially, it demonstrated a tendency vampírica in its obsession for blood, but it didn't like nor of the folkloric vampire nor of the tradition cinematográfica and literary of the modern vampire. Its history of crimes is inserted better in the history of murders in series. The life of Krten inspired two films, M (1931) and he/she Reads Vampire Dsseldorf(1964).