Where legend ends and history begins

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

TRANSYLVANIA, Romania — Whenever I tell people that I’m from this Eastern European country, confusion and intrigue settle on their faces. Then I mention that I’m actually from Transylvania. Suddenly, with wide eyes and a bright smile, the fog clears and realization dawns. “Dracula,” they say.

Indeed, Dracula, a fictitious character that put Romania on the map of the world. And when it comes to Dracula and Vlad Tepes (also referred to as Vlad the Impaler), the real-life person who inspired Bram Stoker’s book and gave birth to a whole legend and culture, we are treading a thin line between myth and reality.

Transylvania, “the land beyond the forest” as its Latin name suggests, is one of the four major regions of Romania. The heart of Transylvania constitutes the area in central Romania surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains. This region also hosts the famous Bran Castle and is the cradle of Dracula’s legend.

And this is where legend and history intertwine. Contrary to what many may believe, Count Dracula did not exist. He is the main character in the 1897 book “Dracula,” written by Irish author Bram Stoker. Many scholars suggest that Dracula was based on Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), a Romanian prince who ruled Wallachia in the 1400s. Vlad Tepes was also known as Vlad Dracul, a name derived from the Crusader Order of the Dragon, and historians of that time portrayed him as a ruthless, blood-thirsty tyrant who used to impale his enemies and wrongdoers.

Similarly, Bran Castle is the only castle in Romania that fits the description in Stoker’s book, so it’s widely known as Dracula’s Castle. Vlad the Impaler, however, never owned Bran Castle. He was associated with it on numerous occasions, including in 1459 when he passed through the town of Bran, burned its suburbs and murdered hundreds of Saxons. He is also believed to have been imprisoned in the castle for two months by a rival king in 1462.

Yet, “there was no legend of Dracula in Romania before Bram Stoker’s book,” said Teofil Gradinaru, a journalist and political analyst at Glasul Aradului newspaper in Arad, Romania. “But there’s always been [in Romanian culture] a fear of ghosts and evil spirits raising from the dead and haunting the living,” added Bogdana Balmus, public relations manager at Bran Castle.

Being a people so rooted in old traditions and beliefs, superstitions and tales of ghosts may be the reason Dracula fits so well in our culture. Throughout centuries, there were stories, especially in rural areas where customs are preserved and passed down from generation to generation, that locals who felt haunted by the dead would walk to the cemetery in the middle of the night, dig up the deceased and stick a wooden stake in his heart to make sure he was truly dead.

“Count Dracula is ours even though we did not create him,” Ms. Balmus said. Also, even to this day, nobody knows where Vlad Tepes is buried, which only fuels the legend and belief that he is indeed immortal.

Interestingly, Halloween is a fairly recent tradition transplanted from the United States. “Just like Valentine’s Day, Halloween is something borrowed, an import that we [Romanians], as a nation, assimilated little by little after 1989,” Ms. Balmus said.

Once Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and the country’s standard of living improved, Halloween’s popularity took off, especially being enjoyed by children.

But “Halloween is not part of our tradition,” said Eugen Ghita, Ph.D., a history professor at the Adam Muller Guttenbrunn High School in Arad, Romania. “It’s viewed as a pagan, non-Christian celebration observed especially in the urban setting.”

For Romanians, Halloween highlights the idea of socializing, an excuse to get together and party, something that millennials, in particular, embrace wholeheartedly. “I’m sure that the older generations have no idea what Halloween is or what it stands for,” Mr. Ghita said.

Conversely, the Day of the Dead, observed on Nov. 1, is a somber religious holiday that plays a much bigger role in our lives. “It is celebrated particularly in Transylvania where the Catholic influences left their mark on the Orthodox population, which borrowed this holiday ever since the Austrian-Hungarian Empire ruled Transylvania in the 18th century,” Mr. Ghita said.

On this day, “people go to church and then to the cemetery, where they bring flowers, light candles and give alms on behalf of the dead,” Ms. Balmus said.

The night of St. Andrew, the country’s patron saint, celebrated on the night of Nov. 29, may be the Romanian equivalent of Halloween. This night is associated with various superstitions including love spells and the belief that this is the night when vampires and evil spirits rise and walk on earth, prompting the living to bring out the garlic to ward off ghosts. The night culminates with the national religious holiday of St. Andrew’s Day, observed on Nov. 30.

“Growing up during communism [when such religious holidays were forbidden], I remember my dad bringing