Dracula: Sense And Nonsense by Elizabeth Miller

Author:Elizabeth Miller [Miller, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908495136
Publisher: Desert Island eBooks
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TRANSYLVANIA 101

“Transylvania, now a part of Hungary, was in Romania during the reign of [Vlad] Dracula.” (Larry Edwards, Bela Lugosi: Master of the Macabre 1)

The horror! the horror! Transylvania is not now part of Hungary. It is part of Romania, which happens to be a separate state. Neither was Transylvania in Romania during the reign of Vlad the Impaler. Transylvania and Wallachia were separate principalities; Vlad was voivode of the latter.

Transylvania is one of three former principalities which combined to form the modern state of Romania. The word “Transylvania” derives from the Latin for “the land beyond the forest.” It is also known as Ardeal (Romanian), Erdely (Hungarian) and Siebenburgen (German). The name can be traced back to documents from the ninth and tenth centuries to refer to that territory encompassed by the Eastern and Southern Carpathians and the Apuseni Mountains. Today, the term is sometimes used to embrace not only the original principality but also the regions of Maramures, Crisana and the Banat – an area of some 39,000 square miles with a population of seven million. This region, which ethnic Romanians consider the cradle of their modern nation, has endured a turbulent history. Its inhabitants are a mix of ethnic groupings: Saxons, Magyars, Szeklers and Romanians. In 1541 the Turks, having conquered central Hungary, established an autonomous Transylvanian territory which survived until its absorption by the Habsburgs at the close of the seventeenth century. After World War I, Transylvania joined the united principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia to form the modern state of Romania.[144]

Most significant is that when Bram Stoker was writing Dracula, Transylvania was not part of Romania; it was a constituent part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The role played in the novel by Romania and Romanians is minimal:[145] geographical references such as Galatz, Bucharest, and the rivers Pruth (Prut) and Serett (Siret); a Romanian mate on the Demeter; and Romanian crew members on the Czarina Catherine. Of course, Count Dracula is not a Romanian.[146] As a “szekler” he would be an ethnic Hungarian. In conversation with Harker, he even falls into his “country’s habit of putting [the] patronymic first” (2:58), a characteristic of the Hungarian language.[147]

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