Debunking Vlad the Impaler. The Real Vlad III.

When preparing a video all about Vlad the Impaler and his connection between the "history" of the man and Dracula, I was left with a lot of questions. So, this is part two of my Vlad the Impaler series. Turns out, the real Count Dracula wasn't much of a real man at all...

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WHO AM I?
Hey there, I’m Cinzia DuBois On this channel, I talk about dark and ancient history, literature and folklore.

❗️DISCLAIMER
I'm very dyslexic, so I apologise for any mispronunciations that occur when I'm reading scripts for videos. Additionally, whilst flattered, I'm only a PhD student and not a professional educator. As such, I would advise against ever citing my videos or using them as an academic resource: please instead cite references for papers I list in the description box.

Resources:

Beresford, Matthew. 2008. *From Demons to Dracula. The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth*. London: Reaktion Books.
Kreuter, Peter. M. 2018. “How Ignorance Made a Monster:, Or: Writing the History of Vlad the Impaler without the Use of Sources Leads to 20,000 Impaled Turks in *Disgust and Desire. The Paradox of the Monster*. pp. 3-20.
Rezachevici, Constantin (2006) "Punishment with Vlad Tepes - Punishments in Europe Common and Differentiating Traits," Journal of Dracula Studies: Vol. 8 , Article 4.
Treptow, Kurt W. (2000). *Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula*. The Center of Romanian Studies.

[AlmightyRawks]

Myth vs History as a series? Yes please!

Loved seeing your enthusiasm about the topic and learning about Vlad III's history. Thank you for your in-depth research!

[DrustZapat]

I have a lot of respect for someone with the integrity to debunk their own work. Thanks for being such a great example for everyone to live up to.

[SmallSpaceCorgi]

Thank you for this video! I did my doctorate in central/eastern Europe, and I've always sighed in despair over how western historians and authors have portrayed the region. And Vlad III is a fascinating figure even apart from the German and Hungarian versions of his life. The historical Vlad deserves a novel and/or a streaming series all his own. Of course, as you noted-- explaining Ottomans in the 15th century becomes brain-meltingly complicated no matter how you try to simplify things.

[astreaward]

OOOOH, YES! I'd love for you to go this route with Elizabeth Bathory.

[johnmanole]

Corpus Draculianum is a youtube channel created by German and romanian historians. They have English subtitles!!!

[annafirnen]

Unfortunately the lack of English translations of works about history of Eastern Europe stems from the fact the Western Europe never gave a dime about this part of the world plus they had a lot of prejudice (even till this day). Which is a shame because I'm sure there's a lot of curious people like you who have hard time exploring our rich and tumultous history. Nonetheless I applaud you for trying and researching ❤.

[CrazyKungfuGirl]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who realized how much time, energy, and resources it would take to impale that many people...

[lindseyb]

Begging royal/noble families to use more than three names. There’s so many Vlads and Dans and Vladislavs. And then there’s Mike

[ALEXA_beep]

"where's the source? where's the source?" love that. I always ask that myself when researching anything in that part of the world. Archaeologists and historians in Romania often put their historical theories with words like "perhaps, maybe, possibly...etc" because they have very very very few actual sources.

[h.m.]

Interesting clip about the history of a less known part of Europe. They could do great movies about that period, without any embelishment.
In Romania we're never taught in schools of Vlad, as being "the third". He is always known as Vlad Tepes (tsepesh). That's because in the Middle Ages, Romanian princes were not called using numerals, but typically using epithets (ex. the great, the brave, the elder, the impaler, the good, the shepherd, the bad...).

[elizabrugh]

Wow. So interesting I'm not even sure what to say. I guess "the impaler" is such efficient, visceral shorthand that it cuts through all the complexity, right through the core of what we fear other people might be.

Please never stop. This was incredible. Genuinely.

[Tareltonlives]

I always felt sorry for Vlad Dracula- he tried to maintain independence between the Hungarian and Turkish empires, , tried to maintain a unified, functional Wallachia, and ultimately he simply couldn't, no matter how creative and ruthless he was (we see a lot of the same actions in other Medieval kingdoms)

[CrisSelene]

I applaud you for doing this. Lots of people make videos about Vlad the Impaler for the spooky factor, as you called it, which brings views. But even though they may know or find out that they are wrong about aspects of his life, they don't correct themselves. That really bothers me since he is an important historical figure in my country.

[robertmkorte]

A wee bit of thanks for all your interesting and fun videos. 💛

[MadMax-bqpg]

M’Lady, this is the first time in my 63 years when I have heard something about dear old Vlad that wasn’t simply a re-sensationalisation of the mythology.
THANK YOU!

[robertpetre]

The same could be said for Elizabeth Báthory in her lifetime she was completely character assassinated by people who basically wanted her property so they made up some really malicious rumours about her doing terrible things to her maid servants which to be honest we’re not necessarily true and completely blown out of proportion.

[juanramirez-wkty]

There are actually a number of very well researched and detailed books on Vlad the Impaler Dracula by Raymond T McNally and Radu Florescu that delve quite extensively into the the history of the period and politics in the time and place of his life and how his legend came into being as well as how it relates to and became associated with the fictional vampire mythology in the west.
I highly recommend them as I believe it was the research and publication of these authors books in the early 1970's that was among the first prominent works to bring these associations to mainstream attention.

[mikestone-wq]

I think the format of doing one fun-to-tell video and one academically-sound video is a great idea. Both of them serve the subject, but they represent competing interests. Things that enhance one damage the other, but the pairing could do more than the sum of its parts.

I'd also like to say it's a pleasure to see your intellectual honesty at work. You demand sources. You cite them and compliment the ones you find good. You talk about the quality and quantity of your evidence. You call out your personal opinions and speculation as such. And you do it all with the air of someone who's just demonstrating decent table manners in an age where national-level journalists rank somewhere below basic toilet training.

[andrayellowpenguin]

Great job. I'm glad to see a debunking. People very rarely look for sources. And there's also a problem with finding sources since with all the constant waring a lot of documents were destroyed. Unfortunately a lot of the documents that got to the west and were considered true by western historians were actually propaganda from Hungary. All these people were intermarried and there were a lot of plays for thrones and annexations etc. Hungary had a vested interest in the Romanian countries not uniting, and there was also the succession to the Hungarian throne in all this intermarrying. Think early England and France, war of the roses or the 100 year war... The situations were similar

[torioffline]

another debunking video!! these are some of my favorites on your channel, i can’t wait 💗