Dracula

           Although the first mention of Count Dracula, appears in Bram Stoker's works - "Dracula" (1897), Stoker was not the one who invented this name. The original Dracula lived in the fifteenth century, was  not a count, but a  prince and was no vampire (nor has it ever been popular tradition associated with these beings). His name was Vlad Tepes, and Stoker knew nothing about the historical character, but has found a name in the books he study ("On the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, 1820), where a brief mention of the prince Dracula and its fight   against the Turks. What caught the attention of Stoker  was a note which stated that "Dracula" in Romanian means devil and, although intended to call his character "Count Wampyr", the name "Dracula" was found to be most suitable.
            Over time, historical character has become increasingly confused with the literary one, though it is very likely that Stoker did't used Vlad Tepes as model. Count Dracula was not the first vampire in the history of literature - vampires existed in folklore for hundreds of years, and Stoker used various information about the local legends of Transylvania, as in the English literature of the nineteenth century.
             Dracula was born after the passage to eternity of the romanian prince , a ghost, an image that has been publicized since 1488, starting with those german horror stories, illustrated with wood engravings. 

            Popular legends have finally restored the historical truth. Vlad Tepes has become a living character, right and haloed in glory. Fighting crusaders against the turks, led by John Hunyadi, was disbanded after his death in 1456. But in the winter of 1461 launched a challenge against mighty conqueror of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II. The Danube campaigns, which lasted up to late summer 1462, have caused a big valve, which brought admiration to all of Europe's strategy and tactics of Vlad Tepes, as well as for his deeds of bravery. Echoes of those battles have been reported from official documents of the time, but historians both russians and germans who have been silent on them, for reasons easy to understand.