10 Interesting Facts about Vlad the Impaler

Those who really love to read about Dracula might have considered one of these following facts about Vlad the Impaler interesting to read. Vlad the Impaler was a name dubbed posthumously. His original name was Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, a member of the House of Draculesti, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known by his patronymic name: Dracula. Vlad III was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, rulling mainly 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon. To get to know more about him, here are some other facts about Vlad the Impaler you might like.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 1: Name

Vlad earned this name (the Impaler) by impaling his enemies through the torso with large stakes, and erecting these stakes in the ground. Impalement would proceed either vertically or horizontally through the core of the body. Sometimes thousands of prisoners would be impaled at the same time. Many impalement victims lived for several days in agony.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 2: War

The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire was at war with Wallachia. In 1462, Sultan Mehmed II fled with his army at the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses rotting on the outskirts of Vlad’s capital city, Targoviste.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 3: Vlad the Dragon

His father’s name was Vlad II Dracul, which means Vlad the Dragon, although it later came to mean Vlad the Devil. His father adopted this name when he joined the “order of the dragon”, a Christian group opposed to Ottoman domination in Europe. As a result, Vlad the Impaler was often called Vlad Dracula, which means “son of the dragon”, and later, “son of the devil”.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 4: Dracula

Bram Stoker borrowed Vlad’s name for his vampire novel, Dracula. Stoker was friends with the Hungarian history professor, Armin Vambery, and may have gotten the idea from him.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 5: Academic Disciplines

During his childhood, Vlad is believed to have studied all of the academic disciplines. He was also educated in warfare and close combat.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 6: Marriage

Vlad was married twice during his lifetime. His first wife’s identity is unknown, though she may have been a Transylvanian noblewoman. She bore his son and heir, Mihnea cel Rau. He married a second time after his period of imprisonment in Hungary. Ilona Szilagyi was the daughter of a Hungarian noble, and she bore him two sons, neither of which became rulers.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 7: Reputation for Cruelty

Even during his lifetime, Vlad III ?epe? became famous as a tyrant taking sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing. He is shown in crypto-portraits made during his lifetime in the role of cruel rulers or executioners. After Vlad’s death, his cruel deeds were reported with macabre gusto in popular pamphlets in Germany, reprinted from the 1480s until the 1560s, and to a lesser extent in Tsarist Russia.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 8: Romanian Patriotism

Romanian and Bulgarian documents from 1481 onwards portray Vlad as a hero, a true leader, who used harsh yet fair methods to reclaim the country from the corrupt and rich boyars. Moreover, all his military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Empire which explicitly wanted to conquer Wallachia.

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 9: Vampires

The connection of the name “Dracula” with vampirism was made by Bram Stoker, who probably found the name of his Count Dracula character in William Wilkinson’s book, “An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: with various Political Observations Relating to Them”. 

Facts about Vlad the Impaler 10: Portrayal in Film

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), in turn inspired by Dan Curtis’ Dracula, merges a reincarnation romance with the medieval story of Vlad III. The wife of Count Dracula is deceived by his enemies into believing he has been killed in battle, and throws herself from a rampart into a river. As a suicide, she is denied a Christian burial, and Vlad Dracul, played by Gary Oldman renounces God.

Hope you would find those Vlad the Impaler facts really useful and interesting for you additional reading.