Balkans 18th century Vampire Hysteria and the origin of the vampire
Since the 19th century, the vampire has shaped Western fiction.
Most popular the 1897 publication of Bram Stokerβs quintessential Dracula.
Dracula was preceded by Sheridan Le Fanuβs Carmilla in 1872 which itself was preceded in 1819 by John William Polidoriβs The Vampyre.
Vampires were not always suave and seductive creatures of the night stalking Victorian London. The true origins of the vampire are the Balkans, where belief in vengeful revenants coming back from beyond the grave to prey on the living were widespread and centuries old.
The Balkans are where the modern vampire get their name too, from the Serbian word vampir.
But how exactly did these vampire stories spread from the Balkans all the way to England, and beyond?
In the early 18th century, after Austria gained control of northern Serbia and the Romanian region of Oltenia following the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, officials quickly noticed a curious practice among the local population: the hunting and killing of vampires, beings believed to be magically reanimated after death and hell-bent on attacking people by strangulation and blood-drinking.
During this time, there were frequent alleged sightings of vampires across Eastern Europe, in what today has been termed the β18th century vampire controversyβ.
Along with sightings was the practice of exhuming bodies of those believed to have become vampires and staking them. While oak was the favourite wood for the stake of Abraham van Helsing, 18th century villagers in Serbia preferred hawthorn, known locally as glog.
The case of Petar BlagojeviΔ, was one of the earliest, most sensational and most well documented cases of vampire hysteria.
After the death of this Serbian villager from Kisiljevo in 1725, nine more villagers died in the following days under mysterious circumstances, usually after a very short illness.
BlagojeviΔβs wife stated that he had visited her and asked her for his opanci (shoes); she then moved to another village for safety reasons. In other legends, it is said that BlagojeviΔ came back to his house demanding food from his son and, when the son refused, BlagojeviΔ brutally murdered him, probably via drinking his blood.
These events greatly upset the villagers, who sought the help of a local Veliko GradiΕ‘te priest. The body was exhumed with the Kameralprovisor Frombald, the Austrian government representative, present during the proceedings. Purportedly, BlagojeviΔβs body was found in excellent condition and with blood around his mouth. The villagers proceeded to stake the vampire through the heart, and it is said a large quantity of fresh blood poured forth.
Events surrounding BlagojeviΔ and the mysterious deaths he is purported to have caused represents one of the first well documented cases of vampirism.
According to scholars, this incident, which was first reported by Austrian newspaper Wienerisches Diarium and then widely translated West and North, contributed, along with the report of the Arnaut Pavle case, to the vampire craze of the 18th century in Germany, France and England and became the basis for the vampires seen later in fictional stories such as Stokerβs Dracula.
For an imposing and aristocratic character that was far from a villager, Stoker is believed to have based his fictional figure on real Romanian Vlad III. DrΔculea, 15th century Voivode of Wallachia.
DrΔculea was not reported as a vampire, but as bloodthirsty.
Having lead a hard life of suffering and brutality under Ottoman occupation and reportedly driven insane by it, in the end his methods were no longer just used to drive away the Ottomans, but ultimately directed his anger against his own people upon even slight misdemeanours.
A few years after BlagojeviΔ, between 1726-1732, a Serbian hajduk named Arnaut Pavle was entertaining the locals in his central Serbian village with tall tales about a Turkish vampire heβd known. The vampire had bitten him, he claimed, but not to worry β heβd taken precautions against infection by eating dirt from the vampireβs grave. Garlic and holy water, it seems, hadnβt caught on just yet.
Despite Pavleβs efforts, his untimely death in a farming accident led to him βrisingβ from the grave as a vampire. His killing spree was even deadlier than BlagojeviΔβs, with more than two dozen people dying within just a few months. As with BlagojeviΔ, the villagers dutifully dug Pavle up, to be rewarded with another ghastly sight β the apparently recomposed Pavle gasping as they drove a stake through his heart.
However, despite the much better documented cases of BlagojeviΔ and Pavle, the most well known Serbian vampire remains Sava SavanoviΔ, whose legend persists till today in his home village.
SavanoviΔ is believed to have lived around the same time as BlagojeviΔ, although the exact timeline of events is blurry. He was said to have lived in an old watermill on the RogaΔica river, at ZaroΕΎje village.
It was said that he killed and drank the blood of the millers when they came to mill their grains.
SavanoviΔ is not as well documented as BlagojeviΔ, but his infamy comes from being the subject of Milovan GliΕ‘iΔβs 1880 short story After Ninety Years, which introduced the legend to a wider audience. GliΕ‘iΔβs story is also one of the first examples of horror fiction in Serbian literature. Then, in 1973, ΔorΔe KadijeviΔβs made for TV horror film Leptirica cemented SavanoviΔβs status.
In modern times, vampire sightings are few and far between, but from time to time, there are still reports of people in small villages being terrorised by a revenant from beyond the grave.
Petre Toma was a Romanian man who died in a village near the southern city of Craiova shortly before Christmas in 2003. By February, his niece was claiming that she was being visited by her late uncle. A vampire hunting party was quickly formed, which, after a few drinks, decided to dig up Tomaβs body and take out his heart. According to local tradition, after the heart is taken out, the body must be burnt, the ash mixed with water, and then drunk.
Members of the hunting party were arrested by police and charged with disturbing the dead. They were sentenced to six months in jail and had to pay damages to the family of the deceased.
On a less serious side, in 2013, after Savaβs little watermill collapsed into RogaΔica river, articles all over Western news sites such as Daily Mail appeared with headlines such as βVampire Sava SavanoviΔ on the looseβ Serbian local council issues public health warning with plenty of rude readers scoffing at the supposedly ignorant uneducated villagers.
A more nuanced article spoke to and reported on the villagers beliefs in more depth, and described it as (at least partially) tourist marketing. Definitely correct though was the remark on the state of the poverty stricken tiny village that had lost most of its population, the remaining people a friendly community hoping for visitors.
Thesedays, ZaroΕΎje has an interesting tourist offer, which includes a tour under the name Anti-stress weekend with Sava Savanovic.
This humorous and lively tour is guided by a man who looks like Sava and includes visits to ZaroΕΎje and the old watermill, doing gymnastics in the open air and exploring dishes and drinks concealed under comic vampire names.
All guests get a garlic necklace to wear at all times. Meals are also full of it, organisers say that guests will be stinky and safe for at least 2 weeks.
The tour includes a visit to Valjevo and its old TeΕ‘njar Bazaar, as well as Petnica Cave, where guests are taught the basics of rock climbing and bat-like hanging. π¦
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