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Trip Report – Romania 2007 Jeroen: For the first and best cycling trip report about Radu: For being our “guardian angel” and everything else … Resources The Rough Guide to Romania (4th edition) Dimap road atlas of Comprehensive history site: http://countrystudies.us/romania/ Dacai 1300 – My Generation (in the Story section): http://www.forma12.com/dacia/ Addendum It can be said without fear of contradiction that, in the time of Vlad Tepes, Romania was on the front line of a “clash of civilizations”. For more than a century European nations had fought increasingly desperate battles against the invading Ottoman Turks. Islam had already swept over the ancient Roman colonies of North Africa; across the Levant, through Persia and into the Indian sub-continent; over Asia Minor; and now into the Balkans. From southern Spain to the shores of the Adriatic Muslim armies had advanced from strength to strength. The Christian nations of Europe were under attack from both east and west. Europe was divided among competing and mutually-contemptuous factions. In an era when religion was synonymous with politics, the churches of Rome and Constantinople were divided on matters of doctrine, ritual, and precedence. Frederick III, head of the strongest and most important European polity, the It is worth looking at a map to appreciate Romania’s position in all this. The modern state of “In the feudal system of Europe, arms were the title of distinction and the measure of allegiance.” (Gibbon) The Voivodes or rulers of these territories survived only with the support of either Hungary or the Turks. Vlad’s father (Vlad II) paid the Sultan an annual tribute of gold to keep his armies out of Wallachia; he was required each year to send 200 – 300 boys between the ages of 7 and 12, chosen for their intelligence and strength, to become part of the Sultan’s elite troop of janissaries; and he had to send two of his sons, Vlad III and his younger brother Radu, to the Sultan’s court as hostages to their father’s good behaviour. It was quite likely in Adrianople that Vlad III acquired the hatred of Turks for which he was noted – while there he lived in constant fear of rape and the terror of the silken cord with which foreign dignitaries were strangled. Vlad II also had to deal with his feudal overlord to the west, the king of Hungary. He was invested as a member of the Order of the Dragon, dedicated to fighting the Turks, and as such was expected to send an army in support of an Hungarian crusade. In the event, Vlad II did not send troops and the flower of Hungarian nobility were annihilated on the field of Varna, after which his position became untenable. Out of this little story, however, we find that Vlad II, as a member of the Order of the Dragon (“draco”), was known as Vlad Dracul (“the Dragon” – the Romanian suffix “ul” equating to “the”), and his son Vlad Tepes (“the Impaler”), son of Vlad Dracul, was referred to in the diminutive as … you guessed it. (I am more than happy to be corrected here regarding my etymology.) Vlad Tepes’ hatred of the Turks did not stop him from accepting their support on his father’s death in 1448. At the age of seventeen he was released and returned to rule for a brief two month period before being driven from the throne by the Hungarian king (who supported a candidate of the rival Danesti clan). Eight years were spent in exile in Moldavia and then Transylvania, where he became a vassal of the Hungarian king (shifting allegiances, etc.). The choice of a new Voivode was never a simple matter, because succession was not based on primogeniture (i.e. the hereditary right of the first born male child). The boyars or nobles of the land retained a jealous right to select whom they wanted to rule over them from among the princely descendants of the house of Basarab, which was bitterly divided into two clans. Voivodes changed, often violently, as a result of bribes, threats, promises and the force of arms. One old boyar had seen 31 different Voivodes during his lifetime – Vlad Tepes was his last. Here we come to two pivotal moments in European history whose legacy we live with today: the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of the printing press in 1454. The story of the siege of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) is littered with ruthless valour on the part of the Turks and shameful ignominy on the part of the Christians. The city is situated at the point where The Turkish Sultan, Mohammed II, was an exact contemporary of Vlad Tepes. There is no record of them meeting face to face, but the event would not be unlikely during Vlad’s imprisonment in Adrianople – they were only a year apart. On learning of the death of his father in 1451, Mohammed rushed to In contrast to Mohammed, the personalities of the Europeans make for a sorry story. Frederick III, the “blockhead”, did not lift a finger to help Constantinople despite the self-evident consequences for his own empire should the city fall (Hungary would become the front line of defence). The Pope, Nicholas V (founder of the Vatican library), valued the reconciliation of the Catholic and Orthodox churches at a grand total of one Cardinal and 300 mercenaries. The ambassador of There are a few shining exceptions to this ignominy: three Genoese captains braved the Turkish blockade of 320 ships to join the defence; the Italian captain Justiniani organized the defensive forces so impressively that Mohammed tried to bribe him to change sides; and the last Eastern Emperor, Constantine XI, was a man worthy of the name of his predecessor; his brave and noble defence of the ancient city is universally acknowledged. Constantine was cut down under a rain of blows where the janissaries finally breached the city’s walls. The fall of Constantinople, guarding the strategic and geographic gateway from Asia to Europe, sent a thrill of shock through Christian Europe. The library and its irreplaceable texts of Aristotle and Homer was destroyed; the ancient rites of St. Sophia were supplanted by the call of the Imam; the seat of influence of Eastern Orthodoxy migrated to Moscow; the armies of the Turk poured into Europe unchecked; the Greek cradle of European civilization was overrun; and for the next two centuries the Turks advanced up to the very gates of Vienna itself. From these times we still cope with ethnic tensions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia, and with the question of what role (if any) Turkey has as a member of the Europe Union. The second pivotal event, the invention of the printing press, was less sensational but of far greater consequence for civilization. In the context of our story, the new technology was slow to be adopted – it was more than a decade before printed pamphlets became common – but among the first documents to be published (other than the Bible) were lurid accounts of the life of Vlad Tepes, reprinted in gory detail dozens of times over the next 50 years. His reputation was contemporary – you might say Vlad Tepes was the first mass media celebrity. These pamphlets, and the oral traditions of the Romanian peasant, are our primary sources of information about Vlad Tepes. While they agree on essential facts (i.e. his appetite for cruelty), they differ in tone: the German pamphlets paint him as a categorical monster, the Russians as a strong ruler applying an iron hand to an unruly country, and the peasants as a prince who insisted on fairness for all subjects regardless of rank. Vlad was not unique in his use of torture – when Mohammed was informed that Vlad had nailed the turbans of his ambassadors to their heads (they had refused to doff them), he howled with glee, and ordered that this particular form of torture be immediately adopted in his court. Many of the exquisite facial expressions in the art of the budding Italian renaissance were the result of artists’ models enduring long hours of torment. It was an era in which torture was entertainment and weakness was fatal. Nor was Vlad’s use of torture entirely arbitrary. His impalement of thousands at a time was the cruel right of the ruler, the victor and the judge. His insistence on honesty and hard work ensured that theft was virtually unknown during his reign; an army of Turks turned back in dismay when they came across their defeated allies, whose agonies extended across a field one kilometre long and three kilometres wide. What set Vlad apart was the twisted pleasure he took in these miseries. He positively revelled among his victims – the stench at his banquet table could be sickening. Even by the standards of a cruel age, his depravity was phenomenal. Vlad’s cruelty was his own undoing. After being restored to the throne for a third time, his Wallachian supporters deserted him, his Transylvanian allies marched home, and he was left with only 4,000 Moldavian troops loaned by his cousin Stephen the Great to march against a Turkish army. His death was far more honourable than that which he allowed his victims (did they number 40,000 or 100,000 – who knows?). He was cut down in battle, and his severed head spiked and put on display by Mohammed II in Constantinople – proof that “the Impaler” was dead. If all men are born with a capacity for goodness, then Vlad Tepes becomes a compelling figure. He may have been unnaturally cruel, but he was not without merit: he was brave, and a good soldier; he fiercely resisted the onslaught of a foreign invader; he refused to pay tribute for the first time in generations; he insisted on hard work and honesty; his justice had no regard for rank. Like a Greek tragedy, his is the story of man’s fall from greatness by means of his own folly. Had not the example of the Scottish Macbeth been so close at hand, Shakespeare would have done Vlad Tepes better justice than Bram Stoker, whose fanciful creation is seductive, one-dimensional, and owes nothing to the real character of the man other than a sobriquet. Sources Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the H.A.L. Fisher: A History of J.F.C. Fuller: The Decisive Battles of the Western World |