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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast thanks for tuning in sorry it's been a while a lot of other stuff going on been quite busy so uh yeah get on with this one it's uh about someone i think we've all heard of it's vlad the imperler but why just used to one on him and why now well it's october so halloween or spooky season or whatever um and obviously vlad the imperler was the inspiration behind brum stoker's famous villain dracula so as usual go over a bit of a personal profile about him get straight into it so he was born round about 14 28 to 31 and no one actually knows the exact date of his birth but it was wrong about those years and he was known as either vlad iii vlad the impaler of vlad the third dracula he died somewhere between december 1476 to january 1477 and he reigned on three separate occasions the first was just a short one from october to november 1448 the next one was from 1456 to 1462 and then the last one was from 1476 to 77. his marriage is we don't know much about that he just has someone who's always referred to as an unknown first wife and then justina silgari well tell you what before we go any further i'll apologize for any pronunciations obviously it's all from eastern europe romania hungary i don't know how to pronounce the names over there so you'll have to bear with me on that one i'm afraid excuse me um and as far as we're aware he had three children the eldest was called mania who was born in 1462. then he had an unnamed second son who was killed in 1486 and a third son also called vlad vlad dracula he was part of the dracula dynasty and also married into the house of basarab so just a quick note before we go any further as well so throughout this i'm just going to refer to vlad the impeller as either vlad or vlad the imperler because there are a few other characters called vlad so i'll refer to them in full such as vlad ii dracula who's vlad's father of vladislav ii who was voivod of valakia for a time just so to avoid any confusion and if i remember i'll post a list of the characters in the description box below so you can because there's a lot of people in this and just so you know who's who so we'll start off as usual with the early life so with vlad's early life so obviously as i said vlad iii who's better known as vlad dracula or vlad the imperler he was born in sigisura which is a part of transylvania which covers modern day romania you'll be able to see on the map on the screen there where whereabouts transylvania is in relation to modern day romania so uh yeah he was born there he was the second illegitimate son of vlad the second dracul hence the name dracula now his father was the voivode which is just another word for ruler of valacchia which you'll also see on the map there um he was the voivode of valachia from 1436 to 42 and again from 1443 to 47. now the nickname dracul came from vlad ii's membership in something called the order of the dragon which was a military fraternity funded by sigismund the holy roman emperor in 1408 and it was dedicated to stopping the ottoman turks advancing to europe from the east so as i said before vlad's date of birth is often contended because there's no definitive sources as to when he was actually born so the dates are often presumed to be somewhere between 14 28 to 31 and we know this because he was old enough to be a candidate to the throne of volakia in 1448 meaning his birth would have had to have been at least 20 years before then so what we do know though is he was born in where his father lived in a three-story stone house because there's a picture on the screen there so yeah and uh as an adolescent boy during the varna crusade which was from 1443 to 44 vlad was sent as a hostage to the court of the ottoman sultan murad ii who reigned from 14 21 to 44 and 46-51 now it's here that vlad was actually exploited as a child sex slave and the sort of buggery to which he was subjected to uh can be considered the likely psychiatric source of his later obsessions which is something we'll obviously go into into greater detail pretty shortly so as i said before he ran three times on three separate occasions so although his first and third rules were significantly shorter than his second they're still relevant in any discussion about vlad so with no further ado let's carry on with the first reign which was like said october to november 1448 so upon the death of his father and elder brother in 1447 vlad became a potential claim to the valackian throne because in volakian history it was always assumed that any son of a ruler of a voivode of valaccia uh did have a claim to throne obviously even though vlad was second son he still had a claim to the throne however the current ruler who was someone called vladislav ii had taken the throne before vlad had a chance to publicly put his claim forward now it's often believed that vladislav ii assassinated vlad the second dracula who was vlad the imperial's father in order to seize the throne now vladislav ii was assisted by a man called john hunyadi who was a leading military figurehead in volakia and part of a noble transylvanian family but in september 1448 john hunyadi launched a campaign against the ottoman empire so vlad took advantage of hunyadi's absence and broke into valaccia in early october now the ottoman forces defeated hunyadi's army in the battle of kosovo between 17th to 18th of october 1448 but hunyadi's deputy a man called nicolas vizanki he urged vlad to meet him in transylvania but vlad refused so vladislav the second return to valaccio with the remnants of his defeated army but it was still enough to scare vlad off so vlad then fled to the ottoman empire and arrived in a place called edem on the 7th of december 1448 which put an end to his first reign now his second reign was from the 15th of april 1456 to july 1462. so vlad moved from a team to moldavia which forms part of modern day moldova romania and ukraine today and that was where his uncle bogdan ii had taken the throne with john hunyadi's support in autumn of 1449. so vlad allegedly wanted to settle in brazov which was a city in transylvania but hunyadi forbade the burgers who were just the privileged citizens of medieval european towns they called burgers not like cheeseburgers but b-u-r-g-h grs to let him settle there in a letter that he wrote on the 6th of february 1452 so vlad instead returned to moldavia now unfortunately and not for the last time which is quite annoying from a historian's perspective there's a gap in the history of vlad's life here so we do know that you returned to hungary sometime before the third of july 1456 because on that day hunyadi informed the citizens of brasov that he'd tasked vlad with the defense of the transylvanian border from the ottomans so unfortunately there is a bit of a gap there for your gap but we move on so once again vlad inverted valaccia in spring 1456 but rather than garnering support from the ottomans he instead tried with hungarian support now he was successful this time in two ways so firstly vladislav ii who was the imposter in vlad's view was killed in the inversion and secondly vlad was proclaimed voivode of valakia now this was evident in the letter that was addressed to the burgers of brazov on the 10th september 1456. so in this letter he promised to protect them from an ottoman invasion of transylvania but he also sought their support if the ottomans occupied valakia now perhaps the most important element of this letter though i think is when he when vlad stated when a man is strong and powerful he can make peace as he wants to but when he is weak a strong one will come and do what he wants to him now this quote is often the first bit of evidence that many historians see as vlad's completely authoritarian personality coming out into the open so shortly after this infamous leicester is when vlad began his purges and now the contemporary byzantine historian lanikos charles conaldies charcondis recorded in his chronicle that hundreds of thousands of people were impaled with the aid of needle thin grease sticks which was rammed up the victim's rectum and out through the mouth in such a way that these death throats could actually last for days at vlad's order at the beginning of his second round now he initially targeted the aristocrats who'd participated in the murder of his father and brother or whom he suspected had conspired against him as well now interestingly charcoal deals that's what he's called shortcut and deals also wrote that vlad helped the villain economy somewhat by using the money property and other goods of his victims to help pay off any debts he'd accumulate from his previous inversions and to pay soldiers in his retinue now the next major event in vlad's secondary and also occurred early on so john hunyadi had died on the 11th of august 1456 and his son ladislau sunyadi became the captain general of hungary now laddie slouch accused vlad of having no intention of remaining faithful to the kingdom of hungary in a letter to the burgers of brazov and ordered them to support a man called dan the third who was vladislav the second brother against vlad however the king of hungary ladislaus v had ladislov hunyadi executed on the 16th march 1457. now hunyadi's mother ursabet sligay and her brother michael stood stirred up a rebellion against the king now taking advantage of the civil war in hungary vlad assisted his cousin stephen who was the son of bogdan ii of moldavia in his move to seize moldavia in june 1457. now at this time vlad also broke into transylvania and plundered the villagers around brazov in a place called sibiu and some early german stories from the early 1460s described vlad as carrying men women and children from a transylvanian saxon village to valakia and having them impaled now since the transylvanian saxons remain loyal to ladislav's vlad's attack against them strengthen the position of the cigars now vlad's representatives participated in the peace negotiation between michael sligae and the saxons and the bergs of brazov agreed that they'd expel dan the third from their town obviously delighted this news vlad described michael as his lord and elder brother in the letter that was dated the first of december 1457. excuse me but obviously nothing ever goes to planning these sort of things as i'm sure you've guessed by now but ladislaus hunyadi's younger brother a guy called matthias carvinius covinus he was elected king of hungary on the 24th of january 1458 upon ladies lost the fifth's death now he ordered the burgers of sibiu to keep the peace with a vlad on the third of march and in may of 1458 vlad ordered the burghs of brazov to send craftsman to valvakia he disregarded the transylvanian saxons in this respect because he forbid the saxons to enter valaccia forcing them instead to sell the goods to volatile merchants at board affairs and one uh one saxon merchant confiscated the steal a valachian merchant had brought to him and upon hearing about this vlad ransacked and tortured saxon merchants in early 1459 according to a letter written by a guy called basarab laota who was the son of dan the second of volakia and in this letter he said the officials and councillors of brassov cried to us with broken hearts about the things which dracula our enemy did he captured all the merchants of brasov who had gone in peace to valacki and took all their wealth but he was not satisfied with only the wealth of these people he imprisoned them and impaled them 41 in all he became even more evil and gathered 300 boys from brazov that he found in valaccia of these he impaled some and burned others now in response dan the third broke into valaccia but vlad defeated him and had him executed on the 20th of april 1460 and vlad then invaded southern transylvania and destroyed the suburbs of brazov ordering the impalement of all men and women who'd been captured and peace was restored which was simply through the people of brazil fearing flood by the 26th of july 1460 when vlad addressed the burgers as his brothers and friends so i mean you can see by now he's obviously an absolute sociopath but uh vlad was obviously not all about brotherly love and friendship because he had war on his hands and the war that he had was where the ongoing ottoman wars so i mentioned earlier he was promoted as a defender on the hungarian border against the ottoman empire who were constantly at odds with those in eastern europe now the most famous of these skirmishes in the ottoman wars in vlad's reign was called the knight attack at tagoviste and this battle was fought between vlad's valackian forces and sultan mehmed ii's ottoman forces overnight on thursday the 17th of june 1462. now it initially started when vlad refused to pay the jizya which is attacks on non-muslim subjects to the sultan and it intensified when vlad invaded bulgaria in early 1462. so in response mcmahon raised an army of approximately 000 men which was compromised of about a hundred thousand regular troops 150 000 conscript engineers with the aim to conquer valaccia and annex it to the ottoman empire in response vlad raised an army of 30 000 men 22 000 of whom were light infantry and volunteers and with a band of these soldiers he attacked the ottoman camp overnight in an attempt to kill mehmed himself now the assassination attempt failed and mcmahon marched the volakian capital of targovista where he discovered it had been almost utterly destroyed so upon leaving the capital and heading back to constantinople mechamedia's men were absolutely horrified when they discovered what was called a forest of the impaled which was thousands and thousands of impaled turks who'd been killed during vlad's invasion of bulgaria now the number 23 844 is mentioned by vlad himself that's of carcasses impaled in a letter to matthias corvinus in the same year and our favorite historian chukokon deals wrote that there were large stakes on which it was said about 20 000 men women and children had been spitted quite a sight for the turks and the sultan himself there were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes and birds had made nests in their entrails now it wasn't hard to see why even with an army that was eight times larger than vlad's that mech mead retreat you're back to constantinople so our next little section is on vlad's imprisonment which was from 1462 to 75 so shortly after receiving vlad's letter described the gory details of the thousands of impaled turks matthias corvinus oh he's not now titled matthias the first of hungary he came to transylvania on november 1462 upon vlad's request now vlad was insistent on waging war against the ottoman empire but matthias was hesitant despite the negotiations lasting for weeks so in the end matthias contacted a czech mercenary he was called john giska of brandes and he captured vladimir rukai and valakia in order to imprison him now vlad was imprisoned in hungary at matthias's request but in order to explain vlad's sudden imprisonment to pope pius ii matthias presented three letters to him allegedly written by vlad on the 7th of november 1462. one of them was allegedly written to mehmed ii one was written to mahmud pasha who was grand vizier of the ottoman empire and steve another to stephen iii of moldavia who was vlad's cousin who he assisted earlier if you remember me mentioning him now in these letters it was stated that vlad had offered to join his forces with the sultan's army against hungary if the sultan restored him to his throne so many historians agree that these letters were forged to give grants of vlad's imprisonment but port pius ii obviously bought the story of vlad's three letters and he made chewery stead imprisoned now he's first imprisoned in what's referred to as the city of belgrade which strangely wasn't the modern day capital of serbia what's now a place called alba julia in romania and he was then taken to visagrad in hungary where he's held 13 years now as i mentioned earlier there was another gap in vlad's biography and that's here so there's absolutely no documents that we know of yet have actually been preserved which refer to vlad between 14 62 and 75 but what we do know is that in summer 1475 stephen iii of moldavia sent his advice to matthias corvinus asking him to send vlad to valaccia against basarab laota who'd submitted himself to the ottomans now steven wanted to secure valakia for valakia for a ruler who'd been an enemy of the ottoman empire because the valakians were like the turks to the moldavians according to his letter now matthias accepted stephen's request and he released vlad from prison so my last little section is vlad's third rule and death which is 1475-77 now matthias recognized vlad as the lawful prince of valakia but he didn't provide him military assistance to regain his principality so vlad moved from hungary to transylvania in june 1475 before briefly returned to pecs in hungary to purchase a house and his house became known as dracula hazar which means dracula's house now mcmahon ii invaded moldavia and he defeated stephen the third of moldavia in the battle of valeer alba on the 26th of july 1476 but meanwhile vlad stayed in brasov and he confirmed the commercial privileges of the local burgers in valakia on the 7th of october 1476. so stephen and vlad ceremoniously confirmed their alliance and together they occupied budapest forcing bassrob loyota to seek refuge in the ottoman empire on the 16th of november so vlad informed the merchants of brasov about his victory in a speech and urged them to come with him to valaccia and he was crowned voivod of valaccia on the 25th november 1476. however bas rob leota returned to valacki with ottoman support and completely overwhelmed the valakian forces taking them by surprise now vlad was killed in the fight in then sometime in either december 1476 or early january 1477 news age between 45-49 so in a letter written on the 10th of january 1477 stephen iii of moldavia related that vlad's moldavian retinue had been massacred and according to leonardo botta who was the milanese ambassador to buddha the ottomans cut vlad's corpses into pieces and uh his head had been sent to mcmahon the second and the actual sight of vlad's burial is unknown which further adds to elements of the mystery of his life but according to popular tradition in the 19th century pieces of vlad's body were reportedly buried in the monastery of snagov which is in modern day romania however when it was actually excavated in 1933 nothing was found which only adds to the horror stories and myths which surround the real life dracula so that's vlad's life so we'll have a little bit about his legacy now so there's plenty of works containing stories about vlad's cruelty and these actually emerged as early as the 1480s in the holy roman empire and obviously invention of movable print in the 1450s thanks to a man called johannes gutenberg meant that these stories and woodcuts could be published on mass and distributed across europe and these initial stories about vlad made about vlad and his reputation actually became one of the earliest examples of a best-selling book and obviously to enhance sales many of the books were published with woodcuts on their title pages which depicted these horrific scenes and notable examples these include the additions published in nuremberg in 1499 and stroudsburg in 1500 as you'll be able to see on the screen now but where did the dracula connection come from so we know that it was called vlad dracul but what about the vampiric element so interestingly bram stoker's 1897 novel dracula is actually the first time a connection was made between flood and vampirism but it's not just the bloodsucking element which makes it that vastly different to vlad's life there's numerous other similarities that can be drawn so for instance the fact that stalkers count dracula lives in a transylvanian castle as did vlad and the stakes which can be used to kill vampires such as vladim pearl and his enemies on stakes and rumors of his body being buried in a church which was popular in the 19th century regarding vlad and obviously nothing being found there another element that's similar to dracula in the book and one of my favorite historians norman davies he contends that stories about vlad's cruelty served to remind us about religious fanaticism and inherent evil which persisted in western europe as well as eastern europe now to explain this he draws upon examples of mary the first of england who you might know as bloody mary and her persecution of protestants i think off top my head she burned about 280 in her reign as relating john fox's book of martyrs in 1563 and he says they belong to the same sickening genre as the horrors of valacki and vampire prince so i hope you enjoyed this one make sure you've obviously got plenty of uh garlic in your house to keep away those vampires so hope everyone who's celebrating has a great halloween and i hope you've enjoyed this one don't forget to like comment subscribe share invite all your friends see if they're into it be great if we try and reach 100 subscribers by the end of the year that's my target so if we could all help with that that'd be fantastic i've got all my links to my socials below so if you want to check those out as well feel free so thanks for listening i'll see you next time