Vlad Țepeș - un voievod aspru dar drept și cu frică de Dumnezeu
Vlad the Impaler - a Harsh but Righteous and God-Fearing Voivode

Summary/Abstract: That the fierce Vlad the Impaler had nothing diabolical in him, on the contrary, in his time he was a sincere lover and supporter of the ancestral faith, is amply demonstrated by the special attention he paid to the saints. Therefore, eager, at the same time, to enjoy the support of the Church in the realization of his great ideals, Dracula made numerous donations to some monasteries and rebuilt and enlarged others. The righteous prince also ordered the construction of new places of worship. Vlad the Impaler also proved to be an ardent supporter of Orthodoxy abroad, making rich gifts to the monasteries on Mount Athos. Also, the vigorous voivode was among the first sovereigns of the time who helped the ancient Byzantine civilization survive. Good collaboration with the Church made it possible to use monasteries-fortresses, both in order to strengthen the royal power and to fight for the defense of his country. Regarding Vlad the Impaler’s extremely bloody deeds, they were, undoubtedly, knowingly exaggerated by the German version of the stories about the deeds of the fierce Wallachian prince, a variant that is known to have been launched by his political opponents. Undoubtedly, in a serious analysis, the phantasmagoric image created for Vlad the Impaler by the Saxon narratives appears today, even in the eyes of the readers of Bram Stoker’s grotesque novels, as unreal and often even hilarious for the most knowledgeable of them. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that this terrible punishment of being impaled, especially by Dracula, was not only a gratuitous gesture or a simple act of revenge on his part, but was dictated by high political reasons, such as the strengthening of the ruling power, the correct application of justice, the creation of a climate of security in the country, its economic-social and cultural-ecclesiastical development, ensuring the conditions conducive to prosperity for all its inhabitants and, last but not least, the restoration, strengthening and expansion of the defensive system of Wallachia and also the establishment, endowment and training of its armed forces in order to confront the Ottoman Empire. The fact that the whole people responded promptly to the call made by their voivode to rise up in battle against the Turkish invaders proves that what he had done was to their liking. In fact, Dracula was highly respected and even loved by the people, in this sense there being countless evidence transmitted both through oral tradition and through a series of Romanian and foreign chronicles of the time.

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