Vlad II Dracul

Vlad II Dracul

Vlad II. Dracul ( Vlad the Dragon ; * 1395 ; † 1447 ) was 1436–1442 and 1443–1447 prince of Wallachia .

Born as illegitimate child Mircea cel Bătrâns in 1395, Vlad spent part of his youth hostage at the court of Sigismund of Luxembourg , the later Roman-German emperor. In 1430 he was responsible for the security of the Wallachian borders with Transylvania . He got his nickname from the admission to the Dragon Order ( Societas Draconis ) of Emperor Sigismund in Nuremberg . Knights on behalf of the dragon pledged to defend Christianity against the armies of the Ottoman Empire .

history

Vlad II Dracul, who was accepted into the order in Nuremberg , returned to Schäßburg , where he also had the right to mint coins. In 1436 he assembled on the orders of Sigismund's troops in Transylvania and subsequently overthrew his younger half-brother Alexandru Aldea , who was ruling Wallachia and who had good relations with the Turks. With Sigismund's consent, he ascended the throne as Prince of Wallachia in its capital, Târgovişte .

Thereupon the long-standing hostility to the Basarab family developed. After Sigismund's death, Vlad Dracul signed an alliance with the Turks in 1437, inspired by the peasant uprising in Bobâlna . During the invasion of Transylvania in 1438 he accompanied the army led by Murad II . On March 22nd, 1442, he allowed Bey Mezid with an army of between 16,000 and 20,000 men to cross Wallachia during the invasion of Transylvania. The Turkish army advanced as far as Sibiu ; however, the Hungarians pushed it back into Wallachia. Vlad Dracul briefly left the throne to his son Mircea II , but he lost him to Basarab II . With the help of the Turks, Vlad managed to regain the throne the following year. To strengthen the alliance with the Turks, but also under pressure from the sultan, whom Vlad now appeared to be unreliable because of his slavery between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary, Vlad sent his sons, Vlad III. Drăculea and Radu cel Frumos as hostages in the Ottoman Empire and thus possibly evaded even his threatened capture and deposition by the Turks. Faced with a new Christian crusade against the Ottomans, Vlad sent his eldest son Mircea II with troops to support the Turks in 1444, as the previously concluded agreement with the Turks should not be jeopardized. In the following battle near Varna , the Christian army was largely destroyed and King Wladislaw I of Hungary died.

In 1447, Johann Hunyadi had Hungarian troops deployed. Vlad Dracul either fell near Târgovişte in his final battle, or he was murdered soon after. He found his final resting place near a monastery near Bălteni . The throne was taken over by Vladislav II. A year later, his son, Vlad III. Drăculea to usurp back the throne and take vengeance for his father.

literature

• Bukoavn: Alphabetarium of the Wallachians in Transylvania. (approx. 1600)
• Constantin C. Giurescu : Istoria românilor. Vol. I, II & III

Fiction

• Liliana Le Hingrat: The dark heart of the world . Knaur TB, 2015.

Web links

• Hungarian Tactics and Significant Battles (English)
• The 1456 Siege of Belgrade (English)
• Person chronology (Romanian)

predecessor	Office	successor
Alexandru Aldea	Prince of Wallachia 1436–1442	Mircea II.
Basarab II.	Prince of Wallachia 1443–1447	Vladislav II.