ROMANIA AS AN ONGOING VAMPIRE STORY: COUNT DRACULA AND THE POP-CULTURAL DÉTENTE
ROMANIA AS AN ONGOING VAMPIRE STORY: COUNT DRACULA AND THE POP-CULTURAL DÉTENTE

Summary/Abstract: The present article analyses two recent fictional reiterations of Count Dracula’s topos – namely, Alucard in Kouta Hirano’s Hellsing manga series (1997-2008) and Fifi/FAD (Florin Anghelescu Dragolea) in Alexandru Muşina’s novel Dracula’s Nephew (2012) – as two rather authoritative contemporary references modifying the vampiric epitome originally outlined by Bram Stoker (and others). The focus is set on the evolution of ‘nation branding’ related elements reflected inside the common fictional paradigm. More specifically, this imagological investigation revolves around the ethical-symbolic dimension of the two selected contemporary works, in its particular relation to the controversial tendency of ‘branding’ Romania (or Transylvania) as the ‘actual’ homeland of the vicious vampire count. The ethical response both works imply is distinctive as well as significant, in the sense that it illustrates a current tendency towards what will be referred to in the present study as a ‘pop-cultural détente’.

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