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Children of the night: the strange and epic tale of modern Romania

54 points by lermontov 5y ago

neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/36Gjn https://archive.is/36Gjn
gerdesj 5y ago
"A bloodthirsty history of the demented dictators and cult heroes who contributed to the formation of modern Romania will leave you gasping at the fact that this benighted country has come so far" Perhaps I'll worry about the ordinary people of Afghanistan instead.
- bsedlm 5y ago
  Mayhaps it would behoove you to worry about your more immediate surroundings, looking at worldwide trends most of us won't have much choice soon enough.
- bserge 5y ago
  Either way, you'll accomplish nothing.
sn41 5y ago
A minor gripe: Children of the night are wolves.. But perhaps it is deliberate, trying to compare tyrants to wolves. ---- quote: There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said:-- "Listen to them--the children of the night. What music they make!" (from "Dracula", by Bram Stoker)
flavius29663 5y ago
Decent write-up, but I hate that the writing starts with 2 major mistakes: > Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, the country’s most infamous anti-hero First of all, his name was "Drăculea", Dracula doesn't mean anything in Romanian. Second, he's most definitely a national hero for Romanians, he managed to bring order, eliminate thieves, stand up against the Turks. Through his daring night attack he was very close to kill the sultan himself: he and a small group of soldiers dressed as Turks and entered their camp, causing great confusion and making them kill each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Attack_at_T%C3%A2rgovi%C8%99te https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Attack_at_T%C3%A2rgovi%C... We hand wave the impaling as something that was happening at the time in the region. Vlad learned this habit from the Turks, where he was a child prisoner. Many gruesome stories about him are just invented by the German merchants that had beefs with him.
- bashmelek 5y ago
  I'm glad someone brought this up. Vlad Tepes was remembered by his people as a just ruler. One story about him (paraphrased): A wealthy merchant lost a purse holding a large sum of money. He announced to everyone that whoever found it and brought it to him would receive a tenth of what it held. Eventually, a poor villager found it and brought it to him. The merchant looked inside and saw all of the money in there, but, not wanting to pay the promised reward, said "Oh thank you! And it seems you have already taken your share of the reward. Then all is well." But the villager protested that he took nothing from the purse, and that he deserved the promised reward. They took it up to Vlad Tepes. The prince heard the story, checked the bag, and decided "Since this did not have the money that was you say it was lost with, then it is not your purse." And he ruled that the purse and all of its contents go to the villager.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    That doesn't sound like a very good precedent. Steal someone's wallet, throw away a single coin, and now they no longer have any claim over it and it's rightfully yours?
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      Good leaders know how to make practical, human-centric decisions. Forgetting the human by hyperrationalizing, creating rules and following them too strictly etc is a good way to become an absolute ass of a person. There are fields that reward that type of thinking though and i recommend going into game design for example if you want to learn how to create fair rulesets that "remember the human" (or rather, put the player's enjoyment of the game as a priority).
    - trabant00 5y ago
      The decision was not meant to be fair or rational, but to find some clever pretext to punish the greedy noble and reward the honest peasant. The story is fiction of course, Vlad would not have presided over so small issues. The unjust nobles and noble peasants are also stereotypes of popular stories like this.
tisthetruth 5y ago
This might provide some more perspective on the revolution and the years afterward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbN6DXJwFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbN6DXJwFg
cko 5y ago
I've made Romania (Cluj, specifically) my home for almost two years now (I'm originally from the US). I love it here! There's too many cars zipping around this city, and rents are actually quite expensive relative to local wages, but those are my only gripes. For the sake of the youth I really hope Romania develops further and the brain drain stops.
trabant00 5y ago
I'm Romanian and I am left confused after this article. It's so fragmented and chaotic I tried loading it in my second browser without extensions to see if maybe there's paragraphs that are not being displayed or something of the sort. Secondly the content is completely pop culture. For example there's really nothing really exceptional about Vlad the Impaler in his time and place. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler - it's almost cliche for the time period: held hostage as a prince to insure his father's loyalty, backed up or opposed as a claimant to the throne as foreign interests changed, political purges after gaining power. I'm not saying he was boring or anything like that, he was quite brave and determined, but only shocking if judged by modern standards.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  > I am left confused after this article. It's so fragmented and chaotic It's a book review. ~10 paragraphs summing up the contents of a five hundred page book is bound to be fragmented.
wooptoo 5y ago
This piece of writing is libellous, superficial and short-sighted. I struggled to make sense of the sensationalistic writing style or the facts presented. This should not be on the HN front page. Romania as it is today only formed in 1918 but its three major provinces Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia managed to stay distinctively Romanian through out their history. Before WWI the nation found itself positioned at the crossroads between three major empires and during its tumultuous history suffered from their repeated attempts to dismember the country. It did not benefit from the favourable geographical position such as Britain had, nor from managing to expand and conquer new territories, which always meant bringing back riches and slaves for the colonising country. This is a nation which has endured a lot and deserves some respect when its history is brought up.
ldehaan 5y ago
The review is poorly written and has political bent as should be expected from this website. The historical inaccuracies of the book are hugely overblown by this 'reviewer' and the core story of the book is completely missed. This website has many reviews of this low quality, I'm assuming this was shared as an example of how not to write a book review?
Executor 5y ago
> Vlad was a mean boogeyman Vlad drove back the pig-fucking turks who were trying to steal Christian land. He was a hero. > Muh National Socialists Hitler tried saving Europe from bolshevik communists but was crucified by evil men. Kiss his ass! > Muh anti-semitism We're Christian. Anti-Christian is the word that you should fear!

54 points by lermontov 5y ago

https://archive.is/36Gjn https://archive.is/36Gjn

"A bloodthirsty history of the demented dictators and cult heroes who contributed to the formation of modern Romania will leave you gasping at the fact that this benighted country has come so far" Perhaps I'll worry about the ordinary people of Afghanistan instead.

bsedlm 5y ago
Mayhaps it would behoove you to worry about your more immediate surroundings, looking at worldwide trends most of us won't have much choice soon enough.
bserge 5y ago
Either way, you'll accomplish nothing.

sn41 5y ago

A minor gripe: Children of the night are wolves.. But perhaps it is deliberate, trying to compare tyrants to wolves. ---- quote: There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said:-- "Listen to them--the children of the night. What music they make!" (from "Dracula", by Bram Stoker)

flavius29663 5y ago

Decent write-up, but I hate that the writing starts with 2 major mistakes: > Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, the country’s most infamous anti-hero First of all, his name was "Drăculea", Dracula doesn't mean anything in Romanian. Second, he's most definitely a national hero for Romanians, he managed to bring order, eliminate thieves, stand up against the Turks. Through his daring night attack he was very close to kill the sultan himself: he and a small group of soldiers dressed as Turks and entered their camp, causing great confusion and making them kill each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Attack_at_T%C3%A2rgovi%C8%99te https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Attack_at_T%C3%A2rgovi%C... We hand wave the impaling as something that was happening at the time in the region. Vlad learned this habit from the Turks, where he was a child prisoner. Many gruesome stories about him are just invented by the German merchants that had beefs with him.

bashmelek 5y ago
I'm glad someone brought this up. Vlad Tepes was remembered by his people as a just ruler. One story about him (paraphrased): A wealthy merchant lost a purse holding a large sum of money. He announced to everyone that whoever found it and brought it to him would receive a tenth of what it held. Eventually, a poor villager found it and brought it to him. The merchant looked inside and saw all of the money in there, but, not wanting to pay the promised reward, said "Oh thank you! And it seems you have already taken your share of the reward. Then all is well." But the villager protested that he took nothing from the purse, and that he deserved the promised reward. They took it up to Vlad Tepes. The prince heard the story, checked the bag, and decided "Since this did not have the money that was you say it was lost with, then it is not your purse." And he ruled that the purse and all of its contents go to the villager.
- jstanley 5y ago
  That doesn't sound like a very good precedent. Steal someone's wallet, throw away a single coin, and now they no longer have any claim over it and it's rightfully yours?
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    Good leaders know how to make practical, human-centric decisions. Forgetting the human by hyperrationalizing, creating rules and following them too strictly etc is a good way to become an absolute ass of a person. There are fields that reward that type of thinking though and i recommend going into game design for example if you want to learn how to create fair rulesets that "remember the human" (or rather, put the player's enjoyment of the game as a priority).
  - trabant00 5y ago
    The decision was not meant to be fair or rational, but to find some clever pretext to punish the greedy noble and reward the honest peasant. The story is fiction of course, Vlad would not have presided over so small issues. The unjust nobles and noble peasants are also stereotypes of popular stories like this.

tisthetruth 5y ago

This might provide some more perspective on the revolution and the years afterward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbN6DXJwFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUbN6DXJwFg

cko 5y ago

I've made Romania (Cluj, specifically) my home for almost two years now (I'm originally from the US). I love it here! There's too many cars zipping around this city, and rents are actually quite expensive relative to local wages, but those are my only gripes. For the sake of the youth I really hope Romania develops further and the brain drain stops.

trabant00 5y ago

I'm Romanian and I am left confused after this article. It's so fragmented and chaotic I tried loading it in my second browser without extensions to see if maybe there's paragraphs that are not being displayed or something of the sort. Secondly the content is completely pop culture. For example there's really nothing really exceptional about Vlad the Impaler in his time and place. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler - it's almost cliche for the time period: held hostage as a prince to insure his father's loyalty, backed up or opposed as a claimant to the throne as foreign interests changed, political purges after gaining power. I'm not saying he was boring or anything like that, he was quite brave and determined, but only shocking if judged by modern standards.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
> I am left confused after this article. It's so fragmented and chaotic It's a book review. ~10 paragraphs summing up the contents of a five hundred page book is bound to be fragmented.

wooptoo 5y ago

This piece of writing is libellous, superficial and short-sighted. I struggled to make sense of the sensationalistic writing style or the facts presented. This should not be on the HN front page. Romania as it is today only formed in 1918 but its three major provinces Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia managed to stay distinctively Romanian through out their history. Before WWI the nation found itself positioned at the crossroads between three major empires and during its tumultuous history suffered from their repeated attempts to dismember the country. It did not benefit from the favourable geographical position such as Britain had, nor from managing to expand and conquer new territories, which always meant bringing back riches and slaves for the colonising country. This is a nation which has endured a lot and deserves some respect when its history is brought up.

ldehaan 5y ago

The review is poorly written and has political bent as should be expected from this website. The historical inaccuracies of the book are hugely overblown by this 'reviewer' and the core story of the book is completely missed. This website has many reviews of this low quality, I'm assuming this was shared as an example of how not to write a book review?

Executor 5y ago

> Vlad was a mean boogeyman Vlad drove back the pig-fucking turks who were trying to steal Christian land. He was a hero. > Muh National Socialists Hitler tried saving Europe from bolshevik communists but was crucified by evil men. Kiss his ass! > Muh anti-semitism We're Christian. Anti-Christian is the word that you should fear!