7 ms·

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, hi

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.
    - jstanley 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. Right, and this isn't how the decision should be made. He shouldn't be trying to find a clever pretext to punish the person he doesn't like and reward the one he likes! Those kind of shenanigans rightly destroy the public's trust in the justice system.
      - trabant00 5y ago
        Are you complaining that in the children books they kill the evil witch without a trial? Also what justice system? There was no such thing at the time. Might was right in the purest form possible. PS: are you making fun of me?
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    It's not DnD. Vlad likely decided who was the liar based on context.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tsimionescu 5y ago
It's also a bit of a shame not to mention, in this context, that Vlad Țepeș is commonly used today as a symbol of law and order and anti-muslim sentiment by the (relatively weak) fascist sympathizers in the country.
- leaveyou 5y ago
  seriously, what are you talking about ? and even if it was true, what does one have to do with another ?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    It's relevant to a discussion of how he's seen to modern audiences.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Vlad Țepeș is commonly used and invoked in 'national democratic' fascist imagery, from frequent invocations by late fascist leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor[0] to the official symbol of the short-lived 'United Romania Party' (PRU) [1], to Facebook posts by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR)[2]. He is usually seen as a (a) a symbol of law and order, for the way he is perceived as having been extraordinarily tough on crime, impaling criminals; and (b) a Christian fighter against the Islamic (Ottoman) Turks, similarly to the recently sainted Ștefan cel Mare and other historic leaders - a common source of nationalistic, xenophobic pride in Romanian fascist circles. Links in Romanian. [0] https://m.poetii-nostri.ro/corneliu-vadim-tudor-in-tara-lui-ciocu-mic-poezie-id-35049/ https://m.poetii-nostri.ro/corneliu-vadim-tudor-in-tara-lui-... [1] https://m.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/pru-partidul-cu-tepes-pe-emblema-si-cu-doctrina-de-la-iorga-si-a-c-cuza-556978 https://m.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/pru-partidul-... [2] https://m.facebook.com/alianta.pentru.unirea.romanilor.a.u.r.liesti/posts/116938386839470/?refsrc=deprecated&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/alianta.pentru.unirea.romanilor.a.u.r...
    - leaveyou 5y ago
      Could you take your fascist propaganda somewhere else please ? Associating Vlad Tepes and the people above is like associating the indian religions with the nazis just because the nazis picked the swastika as their symbol. It may seem interesting to you but it brings nothing but noise to the discussion.
adrian_b 5y ago
Also, the article has many too simplistic characterizations, which will be misleading for the vast majority of the people, who have not the foggiest idea about the history of Romania. For example "far-right military general Ion Antonescu, an all-too-willing Nazi accomplice". The former general and later dictator of Romania during WW2, is a human who has done many bad things, but also many good things, so it is not possible to describe him just in black-and-white as being good or bad. Despite other things about which he may be accused, there is no ground in calling him as either "far-right" or "all-too-willing Nazi accomplice". Antonescu imagined himself as a savior of Romania and he has chosen to become an ally of Germany for the same reason as Finland, to be able to fight against the Soviet Union and recover the large territories occupied by the Russians when they invaded Romania in 1940, immediately after France was occupied by Germany and Romania lost in this way its last ally. There is no evidence of Antonescu having any sympathy for Hitler or fascism, he was just forced to be friends with them in the attempt of reaching his objectives. Antonescu was forced to accept the Iron Guard as a partner, as requested by Hitler. Nevertheless as soon as he was able to convince Hitler to stop supporting them, he was happy to incarcerate the Iron Guard members or kill those who resisted. I do not know why he could be named as "far right". What was most characteristic for him was that he, as as former military, not politician, has always attempted to rule the country like you rule an army, i.e. by giving orders that must be executed by everybody without comments and he did not have much, if any, respect for the traditional democratic institutions and parties. However, this can be hardly considered as being either right or left. Many years ago, I have seen a news coverage about a visit made by a couple of USA senators in Romania. The senators gave a speech in which they condemned the war criminal Antonescu. I was astonished that the Romanian officials were so servile to USA that they did not try to correct in any way what the Americans said. All the crimes of which Antonescu was accused were true. Nevertheless, there was a problem with his labeling as a war criminal, because absolutely all the crimes on that list had also been done by the USA president Roosevelt, during the same time of WW2. So the correct action is to either consider that both Roosevelt and Antonescu have been war criminals, or that both have been war heroes, or better, to accept that both have been complex humans, who, during a time of war, have done both very good things and very bad things. (Regarding the list of war crimes of Antonescu & Roosevelt, that is quite long. However the most serious crime of Antonescu was ordering that the Jews should be sent in concentration camps, as suspected Russian collaborators. This was almost identical to what Roosevelt had done earlier, when he sent all the Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps, as suspected Japanese collaborators.)
Galaxity 5y ago
"First of all, his name was "Drăculea", Dracula doesn't mean anything in Romanian." That's not a mistake. Vlad Dracula is just the historical Anglicized form of the name. In the same way we say Rome for Roma and Pope Francis for Papa Francesco / Franciscus.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  I thought he was called "Dracula" by foreigners only after Bram Stoker's novel. Apparently I am wrong, he was already mentioned like that by the Germans during his lifetime. https://medieval.gumlet.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/vlad-the-impaler-347x500.jpg https://medieval.gumlet.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/vlad-... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vlad_Tepes_-_Blatt_1.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vlad_Tepes_-_Blatt_1...

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.
  - jstanley 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. Right, and this isn't how the decision should be made. He shouldn't be trying to find a clever pretext to punish the person he doesn't like and reward the one he likes! Those kind of shenanigans rightly destroy the public's trust in the justice system.
    - trabant00 5y ago
      Are you complaining that in the children books they kill the evil witch without a trial? Also what justice system? There was no such thing at the time. Might was right in the purest form possible. PS: are you making fun of me?
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  It's not DnD. Vlad likely decided who was the liar based on context.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tsimionescu 5y ago

It's also a bit of a shame not to mention, in this context, that Vlad Țepeș is commonly used today as a symbol of law and order and anti-muslim sentiment by the (relatively weak) fascist sympathizers in the country.

leaveyou 5y ago
seriously, what are you talking about ? and even if it was true, what does one have to do with another ?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  It's relevant to a discussion of how he's seen to modern audiences.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Vlad Țepeș is commonly used and invoked in 'national democratic' fascist imagery, from frequent invocations by late fascist leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor[0] to the official symbol of the short-lived 'United Romania Party' (PRU) [1], to Facebook posts by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR)[2]. He is usually seen as a (a) a symbol of law and order, for the way he is perceived as having been extraordinarily tough on crime, impaling criminals; and (b) a Christian fighter against the Islamic (Ottoman) Turks, similarly to the recently sainted Ștefan cel Mare and other historic leaders - a common source of nationalistic, xenophobic pride in Romanian fascist circles. Links in Romanian. [0] https://m.poetii-nostri.ro/corneliu-vadim-tudor-in-tara-lui-ciocu-mic-poezie-id-35049/ https://m.poetii-nostri.ro/corneliu-vadim-tudor-in-tara-lui-... [1] https://m.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/pru-partidul-cu-tepes-pe-emblema-si-cu-doctrina-de-la-iorga-si-a-c-cuza-556978 https://m.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/pru-partidul-... [2] https://m.facebook.com/alianta.pentru.unirea.romanilor.a.u.r.liesti/posts/116938386839470/?refsrc=deprecated&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/alianta.pentru.unirea.romanilor.a.u.r...
  - leaveyou 5y ago
    Could you take your fascist propaganda somewhere else please ? Associating Vlad Tepes and the people above is like associating the indian religions with the nazis just because the nazis picked the swastika as their symbol. It may seem interesting to you but it brings nothing but noise to the discussion.

adrian_b 5y ago

Also, the article has many too simplistic characterizations, which will be misleading for the vast majority of the people, who have not the foggiest idea about the history of Romania. For example "far-right military general Ion Antonescu, an all-too-willing Nazi accomplice". The former general and later dictator of Romania during WW2, is a human who has done many bad things, but also many good things, so it is not possible to describe him just in black-and-white as being good or bad. Despite other things about which he may be accused, there is no ground in calling him as either "far-right" or "all-too-willing Nazi accomplice". Antonescu imagined himself as a savior of Romania and he has chosen to become an ally of Germany for the same reason as Finland, to be able to fight against the Soviet Union and recover the large territories occupied by the Russians when they invaded Romania in 1940, immediately after France was occupied by Germany and Romania lost in this way its last ally. There is no evidence of Antonescu having any sympathy for Hitler or fascism, he was just forced to be friends with them in the attempt of reaching his objectives. Antonescu was forced to accept the Iron Guard as a partner, as requested by Hitler. Nevertheless as soon as he was able to convince Hitler to stop supporting them, he was happy to incarcerate the Iron Guard members or kill those who resisted. I do not know why he could be named as "far right". What was most characteristic for him was that he, as as former military, not politician, has always attempted to rule the country like you rule an army, i.e. by giving orders that must be executed by everybody without comments and he did not have much, if any, respect for the traditional democratic institutions and parties. However, this can be hardly considered as being either right or left. Many years ago, I have seen a news coverage about a visit made by a couple of USA senators in Romania. The senators gave a speech in which they condemned the war criminal Antonescu. I was astonished that the Romanian officials were so servile to USA that they did not try to correct in any way what the Americans said. All the crimes of which Antonescu was accused were true. Nevertheless, there was a problem with his labeling as a war criminal, because absolutely all the crimes on that list had also been done by the USA president Roosevelt, during the same time of WW2. So the correct action is to either consider that both Roosevelt and Antonescu have been war criminals, or that both have been war heroes, or better, to accept that both have been complex humans, who, during a time of war, have done both very good things and very bad things. (Regarding the list of war crimes of Antonescu & Roosevelt, that is quite long. However the most serious crime of Antonescu was ordering that the Jews should be sent in concentration camps, as suspected Russian collaborators. This was almost identical to what Roosevelt had done earlier, when he sent all the Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps, as suspected Japanese collaborators.)

Galaxity 5y ago

"First of all, his name was "Drăculea", Dracula doesn't mean anything in Romanian." That's not a mistake. Vlad Dracula is just the historical Anglicized form of the name. In the same way we say Rome for Roma and Pope Francis for Papa Francesco / Franciscus.

flavius29663 5y ago
I thought he was called "Dracula" by foreigners only after Bram Stoker's novel. Apparently I am wrong, he was already mentioned like that by the Germans during his lifetime. https://medieval.gumlet.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/vlad-the-impaler-347x500.jpg https://medieval.gumlet.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/vlad-... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vlad_Tepes_-_Blatt_1.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vlad_Tepes_-_Blatt_1...