My father was born and raised in Transylvania (ethnic German from one of
the fortified cities built there in the 1200s to defend against the
Turks). He says he never heard of Dracula until he moved to the US.
Vlad the Impaler's castle was in the vicinity and that story he knew,
but it had no connection to Dracula. The castle that is nowadays
attracting tourists as Dracula's castle is actually big and bright and
fairy-taleish. Not at all sinister. The bus ride to it was
frightening, however.
Ursula
Andy Amago wrote:
I'm Russian Orthodox. I never heard of vampires until I saw it on television as a kid and read Dracula. Certainly Slavic people are superstitious, but so is everybody (good/bad things happen in threes, etc.). After all, it took the Victorian British to dream up Dracula and immortalize him in the first place. If you tell me about Vlad Teppes, I'll tell you about the Marquis de Sade and about the way Henry VIII put down uprisings and 9-year-old Edward IV who signed death warrants with impunity and the general horrific brutality of Europe in the Middle Ages and later.
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