Vlad III, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler ) or Vlad Dracula ; 142831 – 147677), was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. His reputation for cruelty and his patronymic inspired the name of the vampire Count Dracula.
About Vlad the Impaler in brief
Vlad III, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler ) or Vlad Dracula ; 142831 – 147677), was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. Vlad’s reputation for cruelty and his patronymic inspired the name of the vampire Count Dracula. His name had its origin in the sobriquet his father, Vlad Dracul, who received it after he became a member of the Order of the Dragon. In modern Romanian, Vlad’s reputation is known as dracul, which means ‘the devil’. The Ottoman writer Tursun Beg referred to him as Kazıklı Voyklı, meaning “the impalement of execution’, which was his favorite method of execution. Vlad was killed in battle before 10 January 1477. He was the second son of Vlad Dracula, who became the ruler ofWallachia in 1436. Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, were held as hostages in the Ottoman Empire in 1442 to secure their father’s loyalty. Vladislav II, Vlad’s second cousin, was installed as the new voivode by John Hunyadi, regent-governor of Hungary, in 1447. Vlad went to Moldavia in 1449 or 1450, and later to Hungary. In 1456 Vlad invaded Wallachie with Hungarian support, and VladislAV died fighting against him.
He came into conflict with the Transylvanian Saxons, who supported his opponents, Dan and Basarab Laiotă, and Vlad’s illegitimate half-brother, Vlad the Monk. In February 1462, he attacked Ottoman territory, massacring tens of thousands of Turks and Bulgarians. Vlad attempted to capture the sultan at Târgoviște during the night of 16–17 June 1462. He went to Transylvania to seek assistance from Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary,. He was held in captivity in Visegrád from 1463 to 1475. During this period, anecdotes about his cruelty started to spread in Germany and Italy. In Russia, popular stories suggested that Vlad was able to strengthen central government only through applying brutal punishments, and a similar view was adopted by most Romanian historians in the 19th century. He himself signed his two letters as ‘Dragulya’ or ‘Drakulya,’ meaning ‘dracul’ in the late 1470s. His son Mircea Shepherd, the Voivodeship’ around 1500, called him ‘Vlad the Shepherd’ when referring to Vlad III in a letter of grant on 1 April 1551, referring to his legitimate son Vlad II, who was born in 1551. He died in 1500 around 1500.
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This page is based on the article Vlad the Impaler published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
