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I post mainly Hellsing and Dracula (1897) on this blog, as well as OC and folklore/horror stuff.
All of my stuff is tagged, including my art, ocs, fics, and shitposts.
All of my art is under the "my art" tag, and "my oc" also has all of my OC content. Deeper info about Laura's character is tagged under the "oc rambling" tag.
⚠️ There is occasionally nsfw/suggestive content or potentially triggering/hard topics; all of my content/RBs are tagged with TWs. The tag "cw suggestive" includes both suggestive images/art and discussions about anything relating to nsfw including asks about nsfw work (safe for dirty jokes, which are often untagged).
I'm currently reading Dracula: The Postcolonial Edition, edited by Cristina Artenie and Dragos Moraru. The former is a Dracula specialist and the latter is a literary theory specialist.
According to Universitas Press:
For scholars interested in decolonization in literary studies this is a prime example. Jonathan Harker’s colonial adventure and Bram Stoker’s imperialist discourse are restored to their original context of British economic and political involvement in East-Central Europe. This edition relies both on British and Romanian sources and exposes the cultural appropriation and distortion of Romanian history and folklore. Among the many threads the editors have followed is the very significant one related to the superimposition of the vampire onto Romanian beliefs.
I picked up this edition because it was mentioned in the notes of my post about the murkiness of Dracula's ethnicity. For anyone else who is similarly curious, I am noting all the mentions made of Dracula's identity/nationality/ethnicity/race/etc.
This is a long post, so the TL;DR is that this analysis of Dracula identifies him as the historical figure Vlad Țepeș, which would make him Romanian.
From the introduction:
The explanatory modality [of Dracula criticism] came under heavy pressure in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when many critics studying Stoker's research notes for Dracula...became convinced that the novelist only very loosely based his vampire on a historical character also called Dracula...
As often happens in revisionist perspectives, commentators have gone from one extreme to the other, overlooking the many textual clues indicating that the Count is really supposed to be the 15th-century Romanian monarch.
From Chapter II, in reference to Dracula's high aquiline nose:
Two of Stoker's sources speak of the "aquiline" nose of Romanians...[Johnson] watches a two-hour-long "trade' procession"...and is impressed: "This splendid, well-arranged, and most interesting show...proved what an enterprising, progressive people the Roumanians are. Their aquiline Roman features show that blood will out—and so will noses." Mazuchelli similarly describes the "aquiline noses of the male descendants of the Dacians"...
In the same chapter, when Dracula refers to himself as boyar:
Stoker knew very well from his sources (Wilkinson and Johnson) that this was a title used in Romania, but not in an Austrian province like Transylvania...This is a first indication that Dracula, although a Székely Count, may also consider (or remember) himself as Romanian.
In the same chapter, Dracula's reference of falling into his "country's habit of putting your patronymic first" is from one of Stoker's sources on Hungary:
Stoker found the information in Crosse and summarised it as follows: "In Hungarian the Christian name comes last—Buda Adam not Adam Buda"
In Chapter III, when Dracula refers to the blood of Attila flowing in his veins:
What [Dracula] implies, however, is that the "Ugric tribe" from the North mixed with the Huns to give birth to the Székelys and his own ancestors.
In the same speech, when Dracula repeats the phrase "Dracula indeed":
The repetition of the phrase "Dracula indeed" in the space of three lines will be later echoed in Van Helsing's insistence that the Count "must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula."...the only other surviving note that [Stoker] took about 15th-century Wallachia is that of a footnote about the name of Dracula..."Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians were...used to give this as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning." None of this [regarding the name's meaning and bestowal] is actually true.
For the sentence "Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his great race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph?":
The next note taken down by Stoker is a little unexpected: "1600. After abdication of Sigismund of Transylvania, this principality became tributary to Emperor Rodolphus [of Austria] who appointed Michael VOIVODE"...The first sentence is taken almost verbatim from Wilkinson, who also writes that Michael "fixed his residence" in Transylvania...The novelist [Stoker] seems intent on finding a connection between Dracula, a ruler in Wallachia, and the neighbouring province of Transylvania. His next note is, in fact, about the late-17th-century "Voivode Constantine Brancovano Bessarabba...of Wallachia...Emperor Leopold made him Prince of the Roman Empire and gave him landed estates in Transylvania."
"That other of his race" mentioned by the Count must be Michael the Brave (1593-1601)*, a descendant of Țepeș...Later in the novel, Van Helsing and Mina will conflate the deeds of the two warriors into a single account, understanding that the Count can sometimes sleep for a century, then re-emerge as one of "his race," of the "Dracula blood," or as one of the "great men" in his family mentioned in Chapter XVIII.
*This date range refers to Michael's reign, not his lifetime.
In reference to "when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke," the annotations note that, despite one of Stoker's known sources (Johnson) describing the "ruthless hand of the Moslem" in Transylvania and the "frequent sacking" of frontier towns:
...Stoker chose to see the Turkish conquest as a kind of liberation from under the "Hungarian yoke," a formula that seems very unlikely coming from an anti-Ottoman warrior like Dracula. Rather, this expresses Turkophile sentiments very common in Victorian England.
I presume the Turkophile sentiments referenced are Dracula [the villain] seeming to support the Hungarians being driven away.
Regarding "we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders," the annotations state:
Several prominent Transylvanian aristocrats of the time were descendants of Vlad Țepeș and of his brother Vlad the Monk (1482-1495). Dracula's progeny survived through female descendants who married into Székely nobility...
When Dracula says "Ah, young sir, the Székelys—" toward the end of his speech:
This is the last time Dracula is identified as a Székely. From now on he will be exclusively associated with the already mentioned 15th-century ruler of Wallachia and with (alleged) Romanian legends and superstitions. There is no contradiction, however, in this dual identity. The descendents of the Romanian Dracula lived as Transylvanian Székelys well into the 19th century, when a scion of the family, Claudine Rhédey, married Duke Alexander of Württemberg and gave birth to Francis, Duke of Teck, a personal acquaintance of Bram Stoker.
Regarding the female vampires:
The women's noses, just like Dracula's, identify them as Romanian.
In Chapter XVIII, regarding Van Helsing's statement "I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what [Dracula] has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then he was no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.'":
First Arminius confirms, then Van Helsing and Mina Harker will infer on their own that Count Dracula and the historical character known by the same name or as Vlad Țepeș are one and the same person.
In his research notes, Stoker took down an erroneous footnote from Wilkinson stating that the name of Dracula means "Devil" and that the sobriquet can be applied in the Romanian language "to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel actions, or cunning." Curiously, he never mentioned explicitly the alleged meaning of the name (although Dracula will soon use "De Ville" as an alias) and here he replaced "cruel actions" with cleverness. Stoker could have found Vlad Țepeș mentioned in many other English books, published in the second half of the 19th century. At least two of them are somewhat sympathetic, even though they mention Vlad's cruelty...
In the same chapter, regarding Van Helsing's statement "There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women":
When Stoker began writing the novel, Francis, Duke of Teck, a descendant of the Draculas, was married to Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a close friend of Henry Irving. They had three sons and a daughter, "Princess Mary Victoria," as Stoker calls her, who married the Prince of Wales's son and, by the mid-1890s, had given birth to two sons (the future kings Edward VIII and George VI).
In Chapter XX, when Dracula uses the alias Count de Ville:
This is the first time (through an alias) that Dracula identifies himself as a count (the name he has chosen, "de Ville," is an all-too-obvious reference to the devil which, as Stoker thought, may be called "Dracula" in Romanian). Francis of Teck was a Duke, and then a Prince, but had been born Count of Hohenstein, a name he used again in the mid-1880s, when he was living incognito abroad, hiding from creditors.
In Chapter XXI, when Dracula refers to himself as "me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before [Mina's allies] were born":
Dracula confirms Arminius's report and Van Helsing's conclusion that he is the historical character he has previously mentioned only as an ancestor. He makes it even clearer by invoking an argument of countries like Hungary and Romania that they were "champions of Christendom against Mahomedan invasion" (Mazuchelli) and fought against "enemies of Christianity" (Wilkinson).
I am not sure what is being referred to with the mention of Dracula invoking countries like Hungary and Romania. This may be a reference to his lineage speech in Chapter III.
Those are all of the relevant annotations relating to Dracula's ancestry and ethnicity.
My own personal thoughts:
I absolutely agree that Count Dracula is meant to be of both Romanian and Hungarian heritage. I further agree that the intermarriage of Székely and Wallachian peoples was well-documented throughout history. Whether Stoker viewed his character as Hungarian or Romanian, it's clear that Dracula identifies with both sides of his ancestry. He may prefer the Wallachian side, given his mention of "throwing off the Hungarian yoke." Even so, he brags about his Székely blood.
Personally, however, I don't believe that Dracula stating he commanded and intrigued for nations is proof positive that he is Vlad Țepeș, and I also don't believe that Arminius or Mina's statements support this view. To my perception, Van Helsing is the only individual who connects Dracula with the Vlad Țepeș, and that could have been a mistake on Van Helsing's part (he certainly makes many throughout the book) or on Stoker's. It wouldn't be the first time Stoker erred either. I also don't recall any evidence in the novel that Dracula will "sometimes sleep for a century, then re-emerge as one of his race."
None of this means that Dracula wasn't intended to be Vlad Țepeș, of course. Short of resurrecting Bram Stoker, we'll never known for certain how much the real Dracula inspired the fictional one. But I've always taken the "other of his race in a later age" to be Count Dracula, inspired by Vlad Dracula's actions just as Stoker was inspired by his name.
With that said, I've just been flipping through the book looking for annotations about Dracula's identity, but the introduction of this edition and the other information I glimpsed was all fascinating. The Postcolonial Edition definitely offers a perspective that I think the work has always needed, and I encourage checking it out.
Saw your tags in a previous post and you'll probably like this Dracula anaylsis too!
https://www.tumblr.com/datasoong47/706864200756183040/to-some-extent-thats-still-a-common-trope
You're right, thanks anon, I appreciate it!
And re: passion being stigmatized -- yeah, as a culture we do absolutely share that revulsion for passion that Victorian English dominant society had, that the ancient Greeks had. A common thread through time is apparently us telling each other to be more nonchalant.
Meanwhile, here's Dracula the novel with its characters, including its male characters, being so incredibly chalant. Their asses are NOT winning the idgaf war, especially not Jonathan Harker. Stiff upper lip, who's she?? Small wonder both the academics and the adaptation makers don't seem to like Jonathan Harker much. Look at all that passion on him, it's unseemly cringe.
Actually canon Jonathan Harker has quite a bit of minor deviance about him, and I think it's really interesting. He's a good pious English Protestant who nonetheless finds comfort and eventual protection in Catholic crucifixes. He becomes a husband who, quite the opposite of affirming his masculinity by governing and controlling his wife, prefers to share information with Mina and consult with her and eventually do her bidding. Not exactly living up to Victorian ideals of patriarchal manliness there, is he?
shout out to Mina Murray and Lucy for making friends with an almost hundred-year-old Mr Swales and his buddies, who only talk shit about the liars in the graves they’re currently having picnics on.
Hear that? 6 o’clock. Mr Swale your grand-daughter wants you home for tea.
thinking very hard about Mr. R.M. Renfield on this day
(dracula daily folks who don't want spoilers, stop reading here!)
do you ever think about how Renfield was able to pluck the Count from thin air, as mist, and hold him so tightly that he was forced to take physical form to get free again
and that Renfield was able to do so simply because he believed that he could, wanted to badly enough
and what if October wasn't the first time
because I think about that... Just A Little Bit
The cage of abuse is closing ever tighter around Harker. Waking up and all his writing material, important documents, and his travel suit are gone.
Another massive signal on its own but if I was Harker, I'd be most disturbed by the fact that I slept through the theft. The Count is in full control.
Also, just in case you haven't seen it before, this is Shorthand, picture Harker's journals thusly. The internet thinks perhaps Harker would've used Pitman, but I don't know if that's true so enjoy these different variations (from Wikipedia)
"the catholic church has a secret demon/vampire hunting branch" is pretty common in anime (see: blue exorcist, a certain magical index), but hellsing is the only show I've seen to take the logical next step of also having a branch of anglican secret vampire hunters
and they and the catholics hate each other and get into fights over who gets to kill vampires in northern ireland
