2023-08-10 22:01:23
400 years before the publication of Dracula by Bram Stocker, unfolds the true story of Vlad Dracula, known as “Țepeş”, the Impaler. We are in Wallachia, a principality which is not yet part of Romania, in the 15th century. It will be regarding the Ottomans, the late crusades, power struggles between kings, emperors, princes, voivodes and boyars; we are at the time of the fall of Constantinople, the spread of the printing press, the invention of firearms. In a turbulent Europe, Vlad, IIIrd of the name, practices the diplomacy of blood. His nickname “the Impaler” does not come from the fact that he invented this practice of torture, but systematized it, “democratized it”. He leaves behind forests of impaled corpses, as a probably effective tool of political pressure and negotiation. “Dracula” comes from “dragon”, an order of chivalry, but it can also mean “devil”. This podcast series is very scholarly and often thoughtful. The prince (whom Stocker made count in his novel) is both humanized, exfiltrated from the bloody legend, dissociated from his alter ego the vampire, and reinforced in his image of a cruel, ruthless tyrant. We tell him as a little boy wanting to avenge the death of his father and his brother, we show him mad, paranoid and angry, we draw his portrait: green eyes, black curly hair, bull’s neck… Far from the romantic legend the vampire with pointed canines, close to a very Western fantasy of the savagery of the East. Vlad the Impaler, “the most famous ‘Romanian’ with Ceaucescu” (but isn’t that the same thing?), has gone through the centuries as one of the avatars of the devil. As such, he is immortal.
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#Count #Dracula
