In the 15th-century manuscript “History of the bloodthirsty madman called Dracula”, Michel Beheim describes feasts to which Vlad invited several guests. After the guests had eaten, the host would have them impaled and buckets set out for the blood to drip straight into. The pile driver would calmly finish his dinner while looking at the dying and eat bread dipped in buckets full of fresh blood. ¹⁾

At the age of eleven, Vlad was captured by the Turks along with his father and younger brother Radu III the Beautiful. The Turks freed Vlad the Devil and left his sons as hostages. After being released from prison, Vlad III learned that the boyars had plotted and killed his father. Unfortunately, he didn't know which of them had made the decision, so he simply invited 500 people to a lavish party. When dinner was over, Impaler's soldiers rushed into the chamber and killed all the invitees. Each guest was impaled on a blunt stake. Dracula repeatedly held parties where he killed the guests. Everyone knew what an invitation to dinner meant. However, if anyone refused to come, they were killed the moment they declined the invitation. ²⁾

Bram Stoker did not invent the word Dracula, Vlad III liked to be called that. His father Vlad II was a member of a secret society called the Order of the Dragon. He was very proud to belong to this order and changed his name to “Dracul”, which means “dragon” in Romanian. Vlad III was invited to join the Order of the Dragon as a child and changed his name to “Dracula”, which meant “Son of the Dragon”. However, some believe that a better translation is “Son of the Devil”. Whether the son of the Devil or the Dragon, it was a great name for someone who killed everyone he met in his path. ³⁾

The ruler took a liking to one form of punishment, and no matter if you committed a serious crime or stole a loaf of bread, the punishment was the same - impaling. ⁴⁾

Around 1400, Turkish troops constantly harassed certain areas of Wallachia. Dracula got annoyed and sent his soldiers to chase the Turks out. Unfortunately, the Turkish army proved superior and they forced Vlad's troops to retreat. During the retreat, the Impaler burned his villages so that the Turks would have no place to rest and eat. He poisoned the water in wells in order to finish off as many enemies as possible. In order not to give them any satisfaction from the killing, Vlad ordered his soldiers to murder the inhabitants of their villages. ⁵⁾

Vlad loved impaling people, boiling and skinning them alive. During this hard work, he would throw jokes at his victims, commenting on their behavior. He used to say that those dying on the stake “hopped up like frogs” and admired the grace of the premortem convulsions. One day a passerby entered Dracula's house, where he came across a pile of rotting corpses. Vlad asked him politely if the stench bothered him. When he heard that the visitor was greatly disturbed by the fetor, he nailed him to the ceiling, where the stench was less noticeable. ⁶⁾

In order to remove the poor from the streets of Târgoviște, the capital of Wallachia, Dracula invited all the sick, vagabonds, and beggars to one of his houses on the pretext of feeding them a delicious dinner (by now I think we all know where this is headed). At the end of dinner, he apologized to the guests, went outside, ordered all the windows and doors to be boarded up, and set fire to the building. Not a single person was saved. Dracula got rid of unwanted citizens in this way several times. Sometimes he set fire to villages for no particular reason. ⁷⁾

One of the effects of merciless killing was that Vlad III had total control over his subjects, who were panic-stricken and afraid of him. One day Vlad placed a cup made of sincere gold in the marketplace of the capital. He said that one could drink from it, but under no circumstances was anyone allowed to move it to another place. At that time there were about 600,000 people living in Târgoviște, and throughout Vlad's reign, no one even touched the cup. Even the poorest did not try to steal it, because it was known that cruel punishment awaited the daredevil. ⁸⁾

Historians say Dracula killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people. When the Turkish army approached the capital, they saw a forest of stakes on which hung the bodies of 20,000 slain Turks. Radu Florescu in his book “In Search of Dracula” wrote: “When morning came, all those he captured, young and old, men and women, were impaled on piles on a hill near the chapel, and he sat at a table placed among the piles and enjoyed the meal and the sights.” ⁹⁾

Dracula died on the battlefield while repelling an attack by the Turks. According to some, he was wounded accidentally by one of his soldiers, while according to others he was murdered by stealth. His severed head, preserved in honey, was sent to Istanbul, while his body was buried, according to legend, in the Snagov monastery, located on an island in the lake of the same name. Dracula's body disappeared. It is likely that the tomb of the wealthy ruler was robbed by thieves, and the corpse was discarded in the process. ¹⁰⁾

Those auditioning for the role of Count Dracula in the 1992 movie included: Andy Garcia, Gabriel Byrne, Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, and Viggo Mortensen. Potential candidates for the role included: Daniel Day-Lewis, Alec Baldwin, Jason Patric, Aidan Quinn, Christian Slater, Nicolas Cage, Michael Nouri, Dermot Mulroney, Keanu Reeves, Costas Mandylor, Nick Cassavetes, Adrian Pasdar, Hugh Grant, Rupert Everett, Ray Liotta, Sting, Kyle MacLachlan, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, and Hart Bochner. ¹¹⁾

Revenues from the film saved Coppola's film studio, Zoetrope, whose bosses had been struggling financially for the past three years, from bankruptcy. Their debts reached $27 million. ¹²⁾