The Tyrant and the Saint: Cruelty, Ambivalence, Humour in the Earliest Dracula Tales

Abstract

The article explores the literary and artistic traditions around Vlad III (alias Dracula), Prince of Wallachia, which started circulating about him in the second half of the fifteenth century. His proverbial ruthlessness and cruelty gained him a name among the most vicious historical figures already during his lifetime. This study examines how, by imitating and rewriting contemporary literary topoi, the authors created the image of the voivode as the cruel tyrant and the persecutor of Christians. By comparing the German and Russian versions of the Dracula tales, we tried to prove that the Russian author also incorporated the political ideology of his era in the Russian Dracula stories. The analysis relies on three sources: the Sankt-Gallen manuscript (1461), the verse chronicle of Michael Beheim (1416?–1479?), and Skazanie o Drakule voivode (1486).

Keywords

• michael beheim
• german and russian dracula tales
• literary topos
• literary propaganda
• body in middle age