Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
IMAGINARY PLACES: Is There Really a Transylvania?
Geographic Voices
Bram Stoker,
Dracula
(1897)
I had visited the British Museum and made search among the topics and maps in the library re-
garding Transylvania: It had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to
have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find the district he named is
in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and
Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of
Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula,
as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I
found that Bistritz, the post town named by Dracula, is a fairly well known place.
Few places in literature convey the instantaneous sense of dread, mystery, and evil evoked by Bram
Stoker's description of the foreboding landscape of Transylvania. In Stoker's 1897 novel
Dracula
, the
young Jonathan Harker travels from England to this remote part of Europe, the home of one of the most
terrifying and fascinating characters in fiction, Count Dracula. But does such a place as Transylvania actu-
ally exist, or is it merely the creation of Stoker's vividly eerie imagination?
In fact, Transylvania is on the maps, a historic region of central and northwestern Romania. It sits high
on a plateau separated from the rest of Romania by the Transylvanian Alps to the south and the Carpathian
Mountains to the east and north. The Carpathians form a natural boundary between Romania and Moldav-
ia, one of the former Soviet republics, now independent.
Sitting along a natural invasion route for armies passing between Asia and Eastern Europe,
Transylvania has had more than its share of bloody history. During its tempestuous past, Transylvania has
been invaded, fought over, and controlled by everyone from the Huns to the Ottoman Turks, the Habs-
burgs, and the Austrian-Hungarian empire. During the Second World War, Romania aligned itself with
Hitler's Germany. The Soviet Union invaded, and Romania, including Transylvania, became part of the
Warsaw Treaty Organization, aligned with the Soviet bloc. Besides its unfortunate location as a convenient
pathway for armies of conquest, Transylvania also boasts rich mineral deposits, large areas of forest, and
fertile plains.
But if Transylvania is real, what about Dracula? The name, which means “demon,” was first applied
to Vlad IV (that stands for “the fourth” not “intravenous”), known as the Impaler. Vlad was a fifteenth-
century local prince upon whom Stoker based the notorious character of Count Dracula. The atrocities
committed by Vlad, who reigned in the region of Walachia from 1456 to 1462, are nearly unspeakable. In
1459, he attacked a small town and, for reasons unknown, systematically impaled thousands of locals on
sharpened stakes. Vlad supposedly then ate a casual dinner in the midst of this grotesque scene of mass
murder. Another of his legendary exploits was inviting beggars from the local countryside to attend a feast,
locking them in a castle, and having it burnt to the ground. The number of Prince Vlad's victims is not
known exactly, but it may have reached one hundred thousand before he was deposed and beheaded.
Vlad was not the only local prince to give Transylvania its bloodthirsty image. In 1514, an uprising of
peasant farmers in the region was put down with brutal force. The leader of the revolt was then forced to sit
on an iron throne that was heated and had a white-hot crown placed on his head. As this unfortunate rebel
prince slowly roasted, his followers were forced to eat pieces of his cooked flesh. Transylvania's vampire
image was further enhanced by the exploits of Countess Elizabeth Bathori. According to legend, she be-
lieved that bathing in the blood of virgins increased her beauty. Some six hundred fifty young peasant girls
were reportedly killed for the sake of the noblewoman's vanity.