Transylvania – Dracula: historical fact or Victorian soft porn?

The world’s largest theme park isn’t found in Florida or Tokyo, rather it is Transylvania. Like all theme parks it trades in tack: sandwich boards point the way to vampire themed restaurants; torture dungeons are ‘re-created’ in places they never were in the first place; Hollywood style signs blight the scenic hills behind the major tourist destinations Brasov and Rasnov. This phenomenon is all thanks to one man, whose cartoon image is plastered on shop windows, menus, hostel reception rooms and t-shirts everywhere: Wallachian Prince Vlad Tepes, known to history by his patronymic – Dracula. Two men perhaps, if you count the Irish author who turned Vlad Tepes into the world’s most famous vampire.

Although he never went to Transylvania, Bram Stoker describes the picturesque landscape with vivid accuracy through the diary of Jonathan Harker, the book’s protagonist. Harker remarks on the beauty of the birch trees that carpet the Carpathian Alps, “their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves”. About 450 years earlier, Vlad Tepes also noticed the stems of the birch trees, but for a different reason: he saw that they could be sharpened, inserted into a human rectum, threaded past the vital organs and pushed out via the shoulder, while also being strong enough to support the writhing victim when replanted in the ground. This macabre pastime earned Vlad the moniker “the Impaler”.

Vlad Tepes was particularly fond of terrorising his Turkish enemies, no doubt in part as a form of vicarious revenge against the Ottoman prison guards who had raped him as a child. An entourage of diplomats who respectfully declined to remove their religious headdress in his presence were returned to the Sultan, alive, but with their turbans nailed to their scalps. Stories spread about him dining in front his impaled victims, dipping his bread in their blood. His attempts to scare the life out of the Turks had some success: it’s said that Mehmet the Conqueror turned his army around after being greeted in Vlad’s territories by a forest of 20,000 impaled Turks.

As a result of his victories against the Turks, Vlad remains a national hero in Romania. However, that doesn’t stop the locals from using his name and image to milk the Dracula cash cow. Any place that can claim a tenuous connection to Vlad Tepes does so without qualification. Many that can’t, do anyway. Bran Castle is the most famous culprit: guidebooks and tour operators all freely refer to it as ‘The Dracula Castle’, while disclaiming almost in the same sentence that he didn’t own it, but may have stayed there one or two nights while passing through. The real real sites, such as the house in Sighisoara where he was born, are so replete with tack and gimmickry that they barely warrant a visit (although admittedly I did not visit the ruins of his actual residence at Poenari). You can even buy Dracula cookbooks featuring meals referred to in the book, like the tasty paprikas dish that Jonathan Harker eats on his way to Castle Dracula.

Despite the emphasis placed on Vlad Tepes all around the Dracula tourist circuit, he was only one part of the inspiration for the book. Stoker appropriated Dracula’s name and grisly reputation, but in most other respects the historical figure bears little resemblance to the fictional Count – starting from the fact that he wasn’t a Count at all. At least an equal contribution came from Romanian folklore, in particular the werewolves and vampires that were rumoured to feed on peasants who strayed too far (a myth that may have developed from the discovery of the bodies of wolf attack victims).

Stoker’s genius was to fuse Romanian history and folklore in the shadowy figure of Dracula, bring him face to face with pure Victorian England, then charge the whole narrative with eroticism (both homo and straight). Jonathan Harker falls into a sexual trance as he is ravished by three vampettes while a prisoner in the Transylvanian castle, until the furious Count burst in and hisses: “This man belongs to me!”  Lucy Westenra sleepwalks in her nightgown to the same spot each evening where she willingly submits to the Count, who feeds on her in the form of a giant dog. When Lucy is infected in turn, she almost lures her fiance Arthur to fall into the same seductive trap – luckily Van Helsing is there and chops off her head instead. Even Jonathan Harker’s wife, the virtuous Mina, goes limp in Dracula’s arms and allows him to insert the fangs. This must have been tantamount to soft porn in Victorian England.

Ever since Stoker made vampires sexy, successive storytellers have kept upping the stakes. There was the 11 year-old Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire whispering to Brad Pitt, “I want some more”, in an inappropriately suggestive tone (then later kissing him). Then there is Anna Paquin’s character in True Blood, who seems not to be able to climax unless she has been partially exsanguinated. Most popularly, Robert Pattinson from Twilight became the biggest adolescent sex symbol of the 21st century when his character nobly refused to bed his high school sweetheart, in case he accidentally slaughtered her in the process. There seems to be something about the possibility of death in the sexual act that draws people in. Perhaps it’s the same reason people get off on adultery – because they know they shouldn’t be doing it.

Thankfully, Transylvania is yet to tap into sexual fetish vampire tourism, although it may be on the horizon. For the time being Dracula tourism remains wholesomely kitsch, if uninspiring. It touches only in the most superficial way on Romanian history, and where it does it’s liable to bend the truth to breaking point to please the crowds. That being said, Draculafication doesn’t detract in the slightest from the appeal of Transylvania, which overflows with natural beauty, historical charm, Hand of God skies and quality cuts of pork. And if you really want to get the shit scared out of you, you can always go for a wander in the woods around Rasnov’s abandoned citadel, where there’s a pack of vicious stray dogs who will happily open your veins.