My initial work began to question comparisons between the historical figure of Vlad Dracula, the Romanian prince of the 1400's, to the character created by Bram Stoker in his 1897 novel "Dracula."
This idea -- that Stoker based his Dracula on this historical figure -- did not exist until the 1970's (in a book by McNally -- citation needed), and is now a mainstream idea taken for granted by many; the Coppolla "Dracula" film being the first Hollywood work to draw the parallel directly.
However, my own (brief) research from a few months ago has lead me to disagree with this theory, and I especially credit the work of Dr. Elizabeth Miller, who has written that Stoker was not familiar with Vlad the Impaler at all, except having once come across his name, Dracula, but not any details of his life or legend.
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/
This is definitely a site/author I am going to spend more time with.
So the connection between the two "men"/"figures"/"characters"/"legends" is tenuous and vague. Vlad Dracula is a really interesting (and terrifying figure), but I am not an historian ... as
I have been thinking about how this historical subset of my general research would probably benefit more from a traditionally-sourced approach, i.e., writing, than the one that I/we have chosen for this project, the glorious, multi-faceted medium of podcasting.
I think my next idea will be a better fit for the mode and topic of communication here.
So long Vlad ... I wonder if your team will be asking for your help tonight to beat the Nederlands in the Euro 2008 quarterfinals....I'm sure you could give them a few hints about, you know, impalement, nailing people's turban's to their heads, peeling off people's skin and making them run around town, that killer d-formation...
R.x
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