Styrian settings

Styrian Schloss Hainfeld from German Wikipedia

’Vampire stories are generally set in Styria,’ wrote Eric, Count Stenbock in 1894 in A True Story of A Vampire, adding that ’Styria is by no means the romantic kind of place described by those who have certainly never been there. It is a flat, uninteresting country, only celebrated by its turkeys, its capons, and the stupidity of its inhabitants.’ Only a couple of decades later, Romuald Pramberger wrote of the revenant beliefs of Styria, but noted that the vampire as it is now from Slavic areas is alien to Styria.

A new book published in connection with the current exhibition Carmilla, der Vampir und wir at the GrazMuseum in Styria, explores how Styria became the location of fictional vampire tales, as well as the general evolution of the vampire from the early Eighteenth Century to the mass media of our day.

Hans-Peter Weingand discusses some of the sources for Carmilla that must have inspired Sheridan Le Fanu in setting his vampire tale only about 50 km from Graz, while Elizabeth Miller explores the Stoker connection, as Count Dracula (or was that Count Wampyr?) originally was meant to live in Styria. Peter Mario Kreuter writes about the vampire investigations of the Eighteenth Century and vampire beliefs, while Clemens Ruthner lines out the development of the vampire theme. Most contributions are in German, but three are actually in English.

Overall, a nice read about Le Fanu, vampires and Styria, with notes and bibliography for further reading. Included is also a set of photos from the exhibition, serving as either a souvenir from the exhibition or a substitute for traveling to Graz.

The contents are:

Annette Rainer, Christina Töpfer, Martina Zerovnik: Grenzerfahrung, Vampirismus
Brian J. Showers: The Life and Literature of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Hans-Peter Weingand: Den leisen Schritt Carmillas … Wie die Vampire in die Steiermark kamen
Elizabeth Miller: From Styria to Transylvania
Peter Mario Kreuter: Vampirglaube in Südosteuropa einst und jetzt
Clemens Ruthner: Untot mit Biss: Kurze Kultur- und Erfolgsgeschichte des Vampirismus in unseren Breiten
Theresia Heimerl: Unsterblich und (un)moralisch? Der Vampir als Repräsentationsfigur von Wert- und Normierungsdiskursen
Laurence A. Rickels: Integration of the Vampire
Sabine Planka: Der Vampir in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur
Martina Zerovnik: Zwischen Vampir und Vamp: Auf der Suche nach der ”Neuen Frau” in Carmilla, Dracula, Twilight & Co
Auswahlbibliographie

Carmilla, der Vampir und Wir is published by Passagen Verlag in Vienna and is available from GrazMuseum, the publishers, and Amazon.

A collection of books exhibited at the GrazMuseum.

In Styria ...

'In Styria ...' Irishman Sheridan Le Fanu set his Carmilla in Styria, part of current day Austria. A current exhibition at the GrazMuseum in Graz in Styria now explores the role of Styria in vampire literature, the development of the media vampire, and what it is all about.

Le Fanu appears to have read an 1836 travel book, Schloss Hainfeld, or a Winter in Lower Styria by Basil Hall, and probably found the description of a pre-industrial and romantic part of Europe an appropriate setting for his vampire novella. By the time Bram Stoker was working on Dracula, he also chose Styria as the home of the vampire count, before deciding to place Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania. The curators of the GrazMuseum believe that at the end of the nineteenth century the construction of a backwards, threatening, and superstitious East Europe had moved further to the Southeast, making Styria a region less likely for a vampire story. Stoker, however, as we know, still retained Styria as a location in his short story Dracula's Guest.

The exhibition, Carmilla, der Vampir und wir (Carmilla, the vampire and us), sees the fictional vampire of Le Fanu and Stoker not only as an extension of the Romantic vampire figure, but rather as a reaction to the industrialization that changed the face of many West European countries throughout the nineteenth century. This is, of course, evident in the conflict between East and West in Dracula, but as industries, media, and the globalization has developed and transforms even remote places, the vampire becomes (in the view of the curators) more a mirror image of the problems that humans face in an everchanging world more and more out of contact with its history and roots. At the same time the vampire of fiction, just like humans, faces his (or her) own existential crisis.

The exhibition at the GrazMuseum appears to explore such themes rather than the vampire's roots in folk beliefs. It consists of five rooms, glimpses of which can be seen in a clip from Austrian TV, from which a few shots are shown below. It is open until Halloween this year, and a publication related to the exhibition will be available later this year.