A certain Vlad the Impaler lived to see a legend that went around the world (with the help of Bram Stoker). We know him as a tyrant and cruelty, a real vampire. Meanwhile, it turns out that under the guise of horror there is ... a bit of romance!
Of course, in the modern era, rulers did not marry for love. Princess or prince on release were only a commodity on the market of dynastic alliances. In such marriages, you had to be glad if the other party spoke the same language, wasn't old, fat, lame, and pitted.
How exactly Vlad the Impaler hit the first time, the sources are silent. It is known, however, that his wife was probably quite closely related to the Polish queen Sonka Holszańska.
There are many indications that due to his first wife, Impaler was a kinsman of Jagiełło. In the illustration from the manuscript of Ludwik Decius, the Jagiellonian family tree. Sonka is in the top left corner as the fourth in the group of four ladies (source:public domain).
During his stay in Moldova, Vlad made a profitable marriage. He married Anastasia, a close relative of the local hospodar. Some sources even say that the bride was his daughter, our Sonka's niece. In fact, very little is known about the marriage of these two, other than that the wedding took place no earlier than 1457, and the young couple did not live together for a long time.
Legend has it that the tragic end of the marriage was brought by the Turks in 1462. When the enemies were besieging Poenari Castle, Anastasia threw herself from the tower to avoid getting in their hands alive. During this time, Vlad showed his deep devotion to his wife ... escaping the encirclement without her through a secret passage.
This story can be put between fairy tales. Only the person of Vlad and the war are in it. Instead of the Turks knocking at the castle gates, he was in fact ... the brother of the Impaler, who had managed to take the capital and most of the country. Lunging from the tower, portrayed in the film "Dracula" by Francis Ford Coppola, was also absent.
At that time, Anastasia had been dead for several months. There is no specific information about the circumstances of her death. It is known, however, that at about the same time when Włada attacked his brother, he negotiated the best with the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus about marrying his relative.
Ruins of Poenari. It was from the tower of this castle that Anastasia, who ... was smelling the flowers from below, was supposed to throw herself a long time ago
If his first wife had remained alive and in good health, such discussions would not have been possible. In any case, the Wallachian hospodar, widower, fled from his lost country to Transylvania.
Prison instead of the altar, widow instead of virgin
Instead of asylum and help in regaining power, Vlad found captivity in Transylvania. He stayed in prison for several years, and after leaving the prison he had another wife. Much more is known about his second marriage than about the first.
When Vlad the Impaler left prison, he married Justyna Szilágyi de Horogszeg. This, quite difficult to pronounce for a non-Hungarian, is the name of Maciej Korwin's aunt or cousin. It is difficult to be precise, since Hungarian historians themselves cannot agree on whether the bride was the much younger sister of Corvinus's mother or the daughter of his uncle.
More important is the fact that the first wedding plans between Vlad and Justyna were made as early as 1462, but the wedding bells did not ring then. In the meantime, as part of the sealing of an agreement, Miss Szilágyi de Horogszeg was married off to someone else.
Instead of ruling and indulging himself, Vlad was imprisoned and married of convenience. No wonder she has a rather uneasy expression in all her portraits.
Justyna's marriage to the Impaler returned to the project a few years later, after the beautiful aristocrat was prematurely widowed. The young couple reached the wedding carpet no later than 1474. It was then that Vlad regained his freedom.
After his release from prison, writes Ilona Czamańska, author of the book “Dracula. Vampire, tyrant or hero? " the spouses most likely lived in Pécsu, where they had a brick house called" Dracula's house " . Two sons unknown by name came from this marriage.
In the end, we are probably left with the most important woman in the life of the notorious vampire. At the end of 1455 - so still as a bachelor, at least two years before his wedding with Anastasia - Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula, fell into a compote like a plum. Cupid's arrow hit him to a kill less than 200 km from Bucharest, in Brasov.
Vampire in love
The heart of the future Wallachian hospodar, better known to us as a sadist who loves to spill blood, was stolen by a young girl with an angelic appearance. She had blue eyes and long, beautiful blonde tresses, and when she first met young Vlad, her face was flushed with effort.
Władysław finally managed to establish a relationship with the King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus. The chosen one, however, was no longer a virgin ... and after Wład's death, she stood on the wedding carpet twice more (source:public domain).
The daughter of the local master of the weavers' guild, Katarzyna Siegel, pulled the heavy sledge on which her younger brother was sitting. The Impaler noticed her, helped to pull her, and escorted her home, warning her not to wander around the city by herself at night.
As Ms Czamańska writes, a romance started from that time . As it turned out later, it was not a fleeting love affair. Katarzyna and Wład was to be connected by a real feeling, the fruit of which were five children, born over a dozen years.
Initially, Katarzyna did not leave her homeland, which was all the more justified by the fact that Vlad had in the meantime married Anastasia. However, the situation changed dramatically when Brasov fell into conflict with the hospodar. The townspeople first took revenge on his mistress. Soon after, Dracula entered the city at the head of the army and ... took revenge on them himself in a bloody and ruthless way.
Miss Siegel had nothing to look for there anymore, so she left for Wallachia. This situation was at least awkward for the Impaler's wife, especially since Vlad, in love, took steps to obtain a divorce from the Pope.
Beautiful eyes, blonde hair. Katarzyna Siegel - beloved vampire in all its glory.
Facts and fabrications
When the atmosphere began to thicken, war came to the rescue. It was Catherine who accompanied Dracula during her escape from the besieged castle in Poenari. Despite the separation, his lover remained with him when he was thrown into a prison in Transylvania and when he married Justyna Szilágyi de Horogszeg. She was very devoted to him and faithful to his death, and when Vlad said goodbye to this world, she entered a monastery.
And all of this would be beautiful, if it weren't for the fact that this story… has no facts. This endearing story is told by a certain Bertha Krauser, a history teacher from Brasov.
As Ilona Czamańska established, the woman allegedly drew a legend from an eighteenth-century chronicle, the title of which she does not want to disclose. It turns out that the romantic story of a vampire in love is only a lure for tourists, for whom Brasov, apart from Dracula, has little to offer.
Sources:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- Ilona Czamańska, Dracula. Vampire, tyrant or hero? , Poznań Publishing House, Poznań 2013.