Resources: Reading list, chronology, reference sites, compare to Bram Stoker "Dracula"

Overview - There is a historical Vlad III Tepes, who may or may not conform to your own acquired understanding of him. Please put him in his own setting, with the dangers he and his countrymen faced, with the practices of others in his time, and look for his other qualities as a ruler - not just his extreme law-enforcement or cruel deterrent practices. For people who like heavy deterrence, and believe in it, this worked for Vlad but only lasted several decades. The Turks (fill the slot with any other invader) were back. Torture is temporary, and has its backlash.

• For a novel about Vlad, try The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, 2005, Little, Brown&Co.

• Overview and photos, sites and related issues: www.donlinke.com/drakula/vlad/photos., for Vlad Photos, sites.

• Narrative, chronology, facts and resource list at www.royalty.nu/Europe/Balkan/Dracula. I was interested to see that Vlad was raised by Turks, a hostage as a child, or at least whatever one calls a person who is being kept as a guarantee that the father will conform to what the holder wants. He may have learned much, early.
  

• More photos and a journey log: www.dunwich.org/draculea/draculea. Also, photos at www.ciaoromania.com/draculatour.
  

• Here is a site showing where many stories originated: www.tabula-rasa.info/DarkAges/VladTheImpaler. This is a horror-site, so if you get to the home page, please do not leave in disgust. Just go fast to the Dark Ages section then in the left menu, to Vlad. The written account there is ok.

• Here, an overview with list of resources and footnotes. www.eskimo.com/%7Emwirkk/castle/vlad/vladhist.

The sites for Vlad III Tepes, Impaler, are fine to see, but may detract from the rest of Romanian culture and places. So we put the Vlad sites at their own blog.

Because any visitor will be constantly reminded of Vlad, here are some reading materials to help determine what is fact, with reasonable corroboration, and what is legend, and what is sheer fiction - literally, thanks to Bram Stoker, the author and his "Dracula."

Reading materals here, for your next trip to the library or on-line source:

1. Bram Stoker, "Dracula" (the nineteenth century novel)
2. Elizabeth Miller, "A Dracula Handbook," Gerot Publishing House, Bucharest, Romania (English version-973-96601-4-2) (among books recommended by the Transylvanian Society of Dracula)
3. Ioan Praoveanu, "Castle Bran," C2 Design House Publishing, Brasov,Romania, 1999
4. Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, "In Search of Dracula, a True History of dracula and Vampire Legends," New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut 1972.


We had these books with us:

1. Lonely Planet's "Romania and Moldova"
2. History of Romania (paperback, in the house here somewhere, well-dog-eared)