In search of Georg Tallar and other borderland vampire investigators

'While the belief in returning dead and the ritual/social practices related to it had already had a many-centuries-old, established tradition, it was the special relations of the borderland region [in the Southern parts of the Habsburg empire] which made them visible and problematized them for different officials of the state administration. At the same time, these same relations posed considerable difficulties for these functionaries to fulfil their respective tasks by essentially leaving them alone, baffled in the face of strange phenomena, which they nevertheless had to interpret and react to. Focusing foremost on medical experts in some form of state-service, the present essay seeks to map the power-relations of different parts of this distressing but exciting world, to which western culture’s perpetual fascination with vampirism owes its existence.'

As has so often been pointed out on this blog, despite western culture’s fascination with the subject very little has been written in English on the key events of 'vampire history', and for that reason it is very welcome to be able to point to the ’essay’ in question, which is in fact a M.A. thesis by one Adam Mezes. Supervised by Laszlo Kontler and Gabor Klaniczay, Mezes submitted his thesis, Insecure Boundaries: Medical experts and the returning dead on the Southern Habsburg borderland, at the Central European University History Department last year.

Situated in Budapest, Hungary, the History Department of the CEU according to its web site is 'the only transnational, English-language graduate school in Europe that is accredited both on the continent (in Hungary) and in the United States', it 'provides an excellent academic gateway to the history of Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe,' and 'offers one of the few programs in the world that effectively enables students to study comparatively the Habsburg, Romanov, and Ottoman Empires and their successor states, engaging with a variety of social, political, and cultural issues.' Its staff is multinational and multilingual, and among them we find Professor Laszlo Kontler who has a background in the European intellectual history of the early modern period and the Enlightenment. Kontler is the author of A History of Hungary: Millennium in Central Europe and the forthcoming Translations, Histories, Enlightenments: William Robertson in Germany, 1760-1795. Professor Klaniczay is affiliated with the Medieval Department of the CEU and author of, among many other papers and books, an influential article from 1987 on the Decline of Witches and Rise of Vampires in 18th Century Habsburg Monarchy that has featured prominently in the succeeding literature on 18th century witchcraft affairs.

In his thesis, Mezes focuses on the context of the vampire investigations of the 18th century, in particular those in Serbia (Kisiljevo and Medvedja) and those investigated by Georg Tallar in Banat and Oltenia. Briefly mentioning a few books on the subject, Mezes states that: 'It is visible from this brief literature overview that considerably more attention has been paid to the findings of the medical reports than to the authors themselves. The factors which influenced the way they constructed their own role and formulated their reports have not been researched in depth. Taking the studies mentioned last as a departing point, the present essay makes an attempt at applying a magnifying glass on this frontier-region and investigate the specific spheres of power and authority which shaped the formulation of the reports on vampirism. The exact mapping of these relations is a valid task, because much confusion exists even in the above mentioned literature dealing specificially with the topic of politics and vampires. It seems that basic, factual matters have to be cleared, otherwise the scholarly gaze on vampirism and state will remain hazy.'

Mezes is particularly interested in vampirism as 'a problem of ordering for Habsburg statecraft', because it was in the 18th century that various ways of governance and policing were explored and implemented in order to centralize and uniform the control of the authorities. In the borderland areas to the South, a direct control based on central institutions was employed, which had the effect that what was going on locally among the common people became more visible to the central authorities.

So Mezes describes the organization and development of the Militärgrenze, the military frontier in the Southeastern parts of Habsburg territory, including the military and governmental structure of Serbia in the short period that it was under Habsburg occupation. He also goes into detail with regards to the frontier's function as a plague cordon, the setting up of special quarantine stations where people were to be confined until one could be sure that they were not potential carriers of the plague miasma, and the order to report suspicious infection cases directly to the Aulic War Council.

Source: Wikimedia

Mezes correctly identifies Kisilova from Frombald's report with present day Kisiljevo, and points out the differences between Kisiljevo and Medvedja in the military and governmental structure of Serbia at the time. Kisiljevo being a cameral village, and not a Hayduk village like Medvedja, the investigations of purported cases of vampirism were handled differently in these two villages. Mezes also discusses the curious circumstances related to the copy of Frombald's manuscript and other information on the case in the Viennese archives.

All this is a nice and clear exposition and synthesis of information most of which can be found in various books on the subject and on the Militärgrenze, but that is certainly not the case when it comes to the part of the thesis on Georg Tallar. Here Mezes carries out a detailed analysis and comparison of both the printed book and the original manuscript to learn more about this 'enigmatic figure', Tallar, his investigation of vampire cases and the reason why a publisher decided to print the book some thirty years after the report was written.

Tallar was part of a commission consisting of himself, a theologian, and a physician, the latter according to Mezes possibly the Protomedicus Paul Adam Kömovesch (actually: Kômûves) who is recorded to having singlehandedly investigated one case of vampirism. Mezes suggests that, perhaps, the three did not actually work together, which could perhaps explain why it was Tallar and not the Protomedicus who wrote the report. On the other hand, Mezes notes that in the manuscript there are sections of a more religious character, which are so different from the otherwise sceptical voice of Tallar, that he thinks they may originate from the hand of the (unknown) theologian: 'Every now and then, there appears a voice in the text – albeit faintly and awkwardly – which addresses issues of demonic activity and morals and their consequences.'

These parts of the manuscript were omitted when the Viennese publisher Johann Georg Möβle prepared the text for printing. In his foreword Möβle claims that he stumbled upon the manuscript by accident, but Mezes finds this improbable.

Although dated 1756, Tallar may have written it in 1753: 'hypothetically, it might be conjectured, that Tallar handed in his report to the Banat Provincial Administration in 1753, right after he finished his investigation, just as his fellow-commissioner, Kömovesch did. Then, when the Hermsdorf-scandal popped out, the central administration wanted to collect materials about vampirism and asked the Banat Administration to send all documents they have on the issue. This scenario would explain why the report is dated 1756: it was written on it when the Aulic Treasury (Hofkammer) received the document three years after the report was actually finished.'

So what prompted Möβle to publish the report some thirty years later in 1784? Mezes convincingly conjectures that news of another vampire investigation got to Vienna that year, and that the authorities once again searched their archives for material on vampires, found Tallar's manuscript, and asked Möβle to publish it. Mezes lists a number of works published by Möβle that supports his theory that Möβle not only catered for 'the public's hunger for curiosities,' but was in fact also publishing books that would serve as instructive 'governmental messages.'

As for the vampire case that prompted the publication, Mezes writes: 'In our opinion (though again, further investigation is needed), the publication of the report has something to do with another vampire scandal, one which secondary literature does not yet know of (in fact neither do we). What points nevertheless in this direction is a royal statute of Joseph II., dates 1784.11.02., in which the king warns the Orthodox Church to take active part in the fight against vampire-beliefs.'

Mezes refers to an entry in Franz Xavier Linzbauer's voluminous Codex Sanitario-medicinalis Hungariae (a book that contains other source material on vampire investigations) concerning the practice among some people of the Orthodox faith of leaving corpses unburied ('in aperta tumba') for fear of bloodsuckers ('Wampier'), a practice that may cause epidemics illnesses to spread, so the authorites found it necessary to reiterate its stance.*

Franciscus Xav. Linzbauer: Codex Sanitario-Medicinalis Hungariae Tomus III. Sectio I, p. 122 (Buda, 1853)

Apart from the theological omissions mentioned above, Mezes finds that Möβle was fairly loyal to the text of the manuscript, although he made some changes like removing Tallar's references to the local authorities that appointed him to the commission: 'By doing so, Möβle severed important roots which linked the report to its original circumstances, and at the same time managed to elevate the report to a more general level of the enlightenment fighting the forces of darkness, be they superstitions or illnesses.'

Obviously, this is highly interesting work, particularly on Tallar's investigations and the interest in vampires of the late 18th century Enlightenment. Certainly a well-written and well-researched thesis, it earned Mezes a Hanak Prize at the History Department of the CEU, and as it is written in English, it also offers those who are unable to read the German language literature on the subject a glimpse of what they are missing out on.

Thanks to Jonathan Ferguson for notifying me of this work.

*) The contemporary review of the printed edition of Tallar's report that I quoted in an earlier post, was published 'Wien am 17ten Hornung, 1784', i.e. in Vienna on February 17 1784, and if that is correct, Möβle published Tallar's report several months before the royal statute.

Bringing the vampire back home...

'And that was how it was throughout Transylvania and Hungary and Bulgaria, and through all those countries where the peasants know that the living dead walk, and the legends of the vampires abound. In every village where we did encounter the vampire, it was the same.

"A mindless corpse?" the boy asked.

"Always," said the vampire. "When we found these creatures at all. I remember a handful at most. Sometimes we only watched them from a distance, all too familiar with their wagging, bovine heads, their haggard shoulders, their rotted, ragged clothing. In one hamlet it was a woman, only dead for perhaps a few months; the villagers had glimpsed her and knew her by name. It was she who gave us the only hope we were to experience after the monster in Transylvania, and that hope came to nothing. She fled from us through the forest and we ran after her, reaching out for her long black hair. Her white burial gown was soaked with dried blood, her fingers caked with the dirt of the grave. And her eyes ... they were mindless, empty, two pools that reflected the moon. No secrets, no truths, only despair."'

Anne Rice let her vampires meet 'the European vampire, the creature of the Old World,' only to find that it was a mindless corpse, devoid of the qualities that characterized her vampires from New Orleans, no doubt in particular those romantic qualities that has made an incredible number of readers gravitate to her Interview with the Vampire since its publication in 1976. Obviously, the village vampire was not an enticing subject, whereas more or less aristocratic and artistic anti-heroes and stories of alternate races whetted the appetite of readers, leading us on to the vampires of Twilight, all but annulling the essential characteristics of the vampire.

Popular fiction, however, has always had a fancy for adding some historical ingredients, and the supposed 'vampire' skeleton found in Venice has sparked an interest in exploring that connection. As mentioned previously, an episode of the Dr. Who series, Vampires of Venice, was set there, and I recently had opportunity to watch it. Unfortunately, it is strictly for kids only, providing nothing of interest to anyone interested in vampires - apart from the setting of a vampire story (ahem, they are actually aliens) in Venice (something that incidentally was also the case of Nosferatu a Venezia, sort of a sequel to Werner Herzog's Nosferatu).

The Venice connection has also inspired James Becker to write a riveting novel, The Nosferatu Scroll, the fourth in a series about British police detective Chris Bronson and his wife, the archaeologist Angelia Lewis. The novel combines vampiric skeletons in Venice with the notions behind the Vampir Prinzessin documentary, but ultimately, the story is simply an exciting horror and crime novel, not very dissimilar to a mix of Fred Vargas and Dan Brown, providing no particular insights into vampire history. It contains an author's note on vampires and the inspiration for the novel, including a photo of the brick in mouth skull from the Nuovo Lazzaretto. I am, however, sure that readers will be intrigued by the many locations in Venice that are visited in the novel, like the island of Poveglia. Certainly suggestions for thanatourism, if someone has an inclination for that.

The Vampyrus Serviensis is explored in a handful of novels. I have recently reviewed Un lieu incertain by Fred Vargas and Fear and Servant by Mirjana Novakovic, but the same subject has inspired Kinder des Judas by Markus Heitz, which includes historical persons like Glaser and Flückinger, and Totenbraut by Nina Blazon which is set in another part of Serbia but at the time of the famous Serbian vampire cases in Kisiljevo and Medvedja. Both authors, like James Becker, include some notes on their historical inspiration at the end of their novels, but Blazon has added some more information on her web site, and Heitz has published a popular book on vampires.

Whether we can in fact speak of a new trend in vampire fiction is, I think, hard to say, but perhaps more novels will be inspired by archaeological discoveries and the actual historical information we have, bringing the fiction vampire somewhat closer to its roots? That would require a bit of work on behalf of the novelists, but then Markus Heitz writes that he had so much fun out of creating a vampire novel in a historical setting that he might revisit the theme in the future.

I myself have no aspirations as a fictional author, although I once suggested how a novel à la Dan Brown could include some clues to vampires in Vienna, but I think that another source of inspiration for future vampire fiction could be travelogues, e.g. like those by Mary Edith Durham, a British woman travelling around the Balkans in the early 20th century. Like earlier travellers through the region, she learned about the local customs and beliefs, including those concerning vampires, and she wrote a number of books and articles about her experiences. I am sure that also here is a good deal of ideas to inspire novelists, bringing 'the European vampire, the creature of the Old World' further back home.

Fear and Servant

During the winter of 1736-37, the Devil travelled to Belgrade, Serbia, with his Serbian servant, Novak, to investigate rumours about vampires. At the same time, an Austrian commission was on their way to Belgrade to find out if vampires really exist.

However, the vampires they encounter - if they can in fact be considered vampires - are not exactly what one might expect, neither from the actual vampire cases of the period or from modern Western vampire fiction.

In fact, the whole story is as far from an attempt at recreating the period as it is a piece of ordinary vampire fiction. Rather, Mirjana Novakovic' Fear and Servant is a literary fantasy mixing history with literature, no doubt inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita and Milovan Glisic's novel about the vampire Sava Savanovic, Posle devedeset godina from 1880. In the mix are numerous references to e.g. Melville, Shakespeare, Baum, and even the Rolling Stones (whose Sympathy for the Devil itself is perhaps inspired by Bulgakov's novel about the Devil visiting the Soviet Union).

The story is narrated by the Devil using the nom de plume Otto von Hausburg, and Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis, the wife of Carl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, who played his role in distributing the information about the investigation of purported vampirism in Medvedja in Serbia (cf. Hamberger, Mortuus non mordet, p. 111).

A reader in Nis in Serbia recently kindly mentioned that the novel, originally published in 2000, had been translated into English and published by Geopoetika in 2009 in a series of Serbian Prose in Translation. Obviously, Fear and Servant is not your typical vampire novel, nor is it a novel that provides much information of use for vampire research, but it is a very enjoyable and well-written novel, and as a literary experience certainly far more rewarding spending time on than Fred Vargas's Un lieu incertain.

The novel has been reprinted several times in Serbia, was awarded the Isidora Sekulic Award and a play based on it was performed in 2003 at the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade where parts of the action takes place. As mentioned in an earlier post, the novel was translated into French in 2006.

'Vampire, see Serbia'

'Vampire, see Serbia', is what you find if you look up the word Vampyr in Dr. Christian Wilhelm Hufeland's encyclopedia on apparent death, Der Scheintod, oder Sammlung der wichtigsten Thatsachen und Bemerckungen darüber, from 1808.

The entry on Serbia, which incidentally follows an entry on the apparently dead eating themselves (das Selbstverzehren der Scheintodten: 'Man hat Beispiele von Todten, welche im Sarge sich selbst zu verzehren angefangen haben sollen...'), actually carries the title: 'Servien's Scheintodten-Ereignisse', the incidents involving apparently dead persons in Serbia. The entry concerns the incidents in Medvedja in the winter of 1731-2, although here erroneously dated 1733. Hufeland states that Emperor Charles VI asked Dr. Beyer to write an analysis of the matter, which however has not been published, but was probably suppressed by the Church ('Dieses ist aber, so sehr das Publicum auch darauf wartete, niemals öffentlich bekannt gemacht und warscheinlich durch den Kaiserlichen Beichtsvater, nach dessen Sinne es nicht ausgefallen seyn mochte, unterdrückt worden').

Hufeland finds that the vampires were in fact persons who became afflicted with some local disease and were presumed dead, and consequently  prematurely buried. Well, all things considered, it is not exactly a satisfactory theory, but that is the reason why Serbia and vampires are included in Hufeland's book.

But Hufeland is not the only one to identify Serbia with vampirism, and vice versa. In a recent book, Vampire Nation: Violence as Cultural Imaginary (Duke University Press, 2011), Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at the University of Winsconsin, Tomislav Z. Longinovic, writes:

'Until the Bulldozer Revolution in October 2000, global media networks and the public relations industry profiled 'the serbs' as avatars of post-communist violence in the Balkans. Despite the burden of all too real war crimes committed during the 1990s in the name of collective survival of their own territorial identity, global media excessively emphasized 'the serbs' as the incarnation of an exemplary and exceptional form of evil not proper to Europe, a vision that gradually excluded this imaginary assemblage from the sphere of civilization. Despite the fact that 'the serbs' belong geographically to the very core of Europe, symbolically and territorially, their borderline position was constructed as a projection of the Eurocentric fantasy about a cruel Orient in Europe.' (p. 5-6)

'The perception of pathological fixation of Eastern Europe in general and of the Balkans in particular, on the "old centuries" voiced by Stoker at the end of the nineteenth century through the persona of Dracula* is symptomatic of a cultural vision based on an interesting intersection of local and global discourses of violence. The past and its bloody memories define a refusal to yield to modernity imputed to the countries of the Balkan region, whose resistance to civilization and its laws are naturalized as inherently evil to oppose the advances of the Enlightenment and its technologies of mediation. The narrative projected onto the vampire as a beast within, enslaved to the undying, bloody past, serves as a national fetish underlying the repressed origins of Europe proper.

A small nation such as 'the serbs' is by definition led by a mysterious, degenerate leader who is ready to sacrifice others and commit bloodshed only to prolong his political power. During the 1990s, this vision of the other Europe reinforced an imaginary relationship that extended the vampire metaphor from the realm of the Gothic period's horror genre to the mundane practice of global politics, strategically deploying violence to advance civilization and the rule of law in the Wild East of Europe. The signifier that will forever sink into historical oblivion - Yugoslavia, the proper name of the country that was erased to deny the striving of culturally heterogeneous populations to live in a common state - has been assaulted by differentialist logic of the "clash of civilization" to enforce local insecurity by bringing about a collective return to the ideology of the vampire nation.

Stoker's Dracula, which founded the literary discourse of the Gothic imaginary, appears as the incarnation of those old centuries that refuse to fade away in the face of modernizing Europe. This imaginary, sparked by a belated Romantic mourning for the glory of the past boundaries of Europe, uses violence with the automatism of the beast who has no other choice but to feed itself on the blood of others. This hungry being is always engendered in zones of intense cultural and linguistic hybridization and simultaneously is imbued with the pathos of a race submerged in the narratives of its own past and viewed as a herald of a cruel modernity at hand.

Many "national" histories written and taught in the Balkans and in the rest of "Oriental" Europe are saturated with a celebration of violence that is monumentalized as just revenge and sacrifice offered to the glory of cultural life and survival. Small nationalisms contain this imaginary economy; they appear colorful but ostensibly irrational, steeped in gore despite enlightened intentions and dominated by discourses of masculine injury that claim the victim's right to feed on the blood of others as the only way to sustain survival.' (p. 19-20)

'The discourse of stolen blood reveals how the imaginary lens crafted by Stoker persists in the West as a cultural filter that defines alterity: Eastern Europe is a location where sex and violence know no limits. The image produced in British popular culture at the end of the nineteenth century has traveled to the end of the twentieth century to establish political discourses that the U.S.-led West sustains when it deals with new yet old types of revenant nationalism: the specter of 'the serbs' as the global vampires who deserve a well-guided stake of democracy.

This Gothic vision defines the boundaries of proper identity and its civilizatoinal other within Europe, a location where bad but sharp teeth, carnage, and fornication abound. The other Europe is an extension of the notorious count's ruined castle, where excessive passions and "old centuries" conspire to halt the progress and enlightenment proper only to the superior technology of the West. One of the most symptomatic returns of this Gothic vision is the mediated emergence of 'the serbs' as a phantasm of a vampire community governed by an excess of malignant historical imagination that is alien to the values of Europe and the "civilized world."

Firmly rooted in political and cultural ideals inherited from the best European traditions of nationalism and liberalism, 'the serbs' share military rationality and territorial logic of the nation-state with Europe proper. In fact, the Yugoslav tragedies of the 1990s are a legacy of the violence that formed the foundation of modern Europe: the political and cultural ideals made flesh and blood in the uncanny law binding the nation-state. The temporal disjunction between the "other" Europe steeped in old centuries of its historical imagination and the hypermodern amnesia of the U.S.-led West is at the root of this interpellated subjectivity structuring the Gothic emergence of 'the serbs'.' (p. 10)

Europe according to USA, from Mapping Stereortypes

'The extraordinary success of Twilight among youth in the United States appears as a global symptom of chronic hunger for attention from others and a craving for freedom that, paradoxically, shrinks under an invisible yet omnipresent force based on consumption and concealed forms of violence inherent in the developed modes of the current economy. Images of vampires have persisted in popular culture as a remnant of that undying demand for the extraordinary established by the Romantics and reveal, with symptomatic ambiguity, ever more powerful yet abstinent revenants who can control their craving for the blood of the ones they love. The disgusting, corpse-like appearance of the vampire has been sublimated into beauty in Goth subcultures, lending esthetic currency to the love of death that is overcome by the ever increasing levels of consumption demanded from ordinary humans.

In fact, the global media gaze that has discovered the cradle of European violence among 'the serbs' continues to act as a stake to put other vampire nations out for good. The skill of the vampire slayer equals that of the exterminator, acting with rational violence against the irrational one of the nations deemed below civilization's dividing line. The imaginary of minor and peripheral cultures of southeastern Europe has been interpellated by the political discourse based on that gaze to produce a variety of strategies of resistance to both domestic and foreign attempts at appropriation. While 'the serbs' face up to the unflattering task of confronting the real crimes committed in their name, the sublimation of the vampire on the global entertainment scene points to the displacement of Balkan topoi to account for the return of imperial desire to its rightful source.' (p. 186-7)

'In the global landscape where the force of capital naturalizes its existence to appear as the omnipotent and invisible source of death-in-life, the vampire perhaps remains the only true face of a being lost in the speculations of Western metaphysics. Its imaginary journey from the undead creature of Balkan folklore to the antihero of Hollywood blockbusters tells the story of our post-human future, shared by the most peripheral of European cultures and the political and economic centers of the West, to account for the increasing acceptance of humanity's transformation since mass ideologies of emancipation failed in 1989. The status of the vampire in popular culture suggests that the naturalized state of predation inherent in the global order of consumption marks a transition of humanity to a new stage of development in which it gradually accepts and covertly celebrates the violence whose origins remain hidden by the ruins of Dracula's castle. The notion of the nation as an effect of bourgeois liberalism that originated in the philosophy of the Enlightenment has given birth to a vampire whose current transformations manifest a dawn of a different subjectivity, detaching itself from the nation to enter the global stage of free play, and offer a model identification that transcends humanism.

The vampire as a theoretical hybrid between political science and psychoanalysis offers a kind of lay philosophy that transcends both the model of the machine and that of the animal commonly utilized by theoreticians of the post-human. The power of this hybrid to incarnate the subjectivity to come builds on the conventions that, in previous centuries, posited the vampire as the opponent of the common human subject. The precognition inherent in the imaginary flights of popular culture speaks the truth about a political unconscious that has found its incarnation in both the phantasm of 'the serbs' as a vampire nation and the vampire as a new model for the global order of being - an order that is all too (post)human.' (p. 188-9)

I have only dipped into this complex, and I think it fair to say: far from easy to read book, so in the words of another blogger I will be cautious when commenting on Vampire Nation: 'I will let others more knowledgeable than I opine on how successfully Longinović applies critical theory to historical analysis. In any case his book makes a provocative addition to the literature on the Yugoslav wars.'

The popular and globalized vampire of Western fiction is, of course, probably as popular in Serbia as in so many other parts of the world, so there is even a Vampires Serbia magazine containing photos of the stars from Twilight and other vampire films and TV series. We love Twilight, we love True Blood, and we love The Vampire Diaries in Serbia as well.

*) Longinovic refers to Jonathan Harker's diary in Stoker's Dracula where Harker while in Dracula's castle writes: 'It is the nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have powers of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill.'

An Uncertain Place: Highgate, Kisiljevo and Medvedja

Vampire history very infrequently turns up in fiction, and as I only sporadically inform myself about fictional vampires, and by the way have never been a fan of crime fiction, the vampiric connection in Un lieu incertain (An Uncertain Place) by Fred Vargas somehow slipped under my radar. Fortunately, a reader recently mentioned it, so I have picked up and read the 2008 novel in the Danish translation, Et uvist sted.

Definitely a page-turner, although I personally find that the gallery of more or less eccentric characters smacks a bit too much of a crime fiction cliché, this novel in the series about Commissaire Adamsberg takes him and his colleagues to Highgate Cemetery in London and to a small village on the Danube in Serbia, Kisiljevo, on the trail of a murderer who literally destroys his victims. The plot not only involves the infamous 'Highgate Vampire', but also the famous 18th century vampires Petar Blagojevic/Peter Plogojowitz from Kisiljevo and Arnold Paole from Medvedja, as well as their ancestors. What kind of sense this combination makes, if any, you should read the novel to learn, because I am not going to spoil the fun by giving it all away here.

Fred Vargas herself is actually a French historian and archaeologist called Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, who became a successful author of crime fiction in the mid 1990's. Some of the Adamsberg novels have been made into a TV series, Collection Fred Vargas, including Un lieu incertain as shown in the youtube video below. This episode, unfortunately, is not yet available on DVD.



'An example of modern legend-building,' according to English Wikipedia, the Highgate Vampire case, to the extent one can actually call it that, has taken on a life of its own, in particular on the internet. Because of the legend-building, perhaps even cult surround the subject, it is probably difficult to be certain what actually happened in 1969 and 1970 when a 'vampire hunt' purportedly took place in the famous cemetery.

Fred Vargas couples this incident with another legendary occurrence in the old part of the cemetery, the one initiated by poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti when in 1869 he had the corpse of his late love, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal (also visit this site devoted to her), dug up from its grave in Highgate Cemetery to obtatin the one and only copy of a book of poetry that he had left buried in her hair. Rossetti's operation is told in Felix Barker and John Gay's Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla (1984):

'Much secret preparation took place in which [Dante Gabriel Rossetti] enlisted the help of a young man called Howell who, as well as being Ruskin's secretary, had a talent for conspiracy. Through Howell, Rossetti obtained the Home Secretary's permission for an exhumation, and on a night early in October 1869 'the ghastly business', as Rossetti called it, was carried out. The deed was done by the light of lanterns and the warmth of a small bonfire watched by Howell, a solicitor and a Camberwell doctor. The receipted bill of two guineas for the workmen is still in existence. Rossetti could not bring himself to be present. Full of self-doubts he waited alone at Howell's house in Fulham.

When the coffin was opened, it was said that Lizzie's pale beauty remained unimpaired, and someone - it was probably Howell - carried back the message that her lovely hair had retained its colour and had grown in death. The vital manuscript, discovered to be intact, was eased gently from her face. After being disinfected and dried by the doctor, it was conveyed to Rossetti.'

The preservation of Lizzie, and particular the claim that her hair had grown in death, is of course reminiscent of the phenomena related to vampirism, the 'vampire state' reported about in the early 18th century from both Kisiljevo and Medvedja.

Imperial Provisor Frombald's 1725 report from Kisiljevo, which today is only known in a copy in the Viennese archives, is well-known from a contemporary newspaper, the Wienerisches Diarium, reprinted and translated in a number of journals and books, and the inspiration for the young Michael Ranft's first edition of his De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis from 1725, commenting on the similarly titled book by Philip Rohr published in 1679. Frombald's report is the oldest known use of the word vampire as spelled that way (the copy actually has: 'vanpiri').

The occurrences in Kisolova, i.e. Kisiljevo, concerning the vampire Peter Plogojowitz (probably Petar Blagojevic) are recounted in English on Wikipedia. In An Uncertain Place, the villagers in Kisiljevo are today familiar with the vampire story, and one can still locate the grave of Plogojowitz, but this is mere fiction, because Serbian media have been unable to locate any local information on this contender to the title of the world's first vampire.

In that respect Plogojowitz plays a central role in defining 'vampirism', so it is important to point out that the people who said there were haunted by Plogojowitz did not complain of bloodsucking but of being suffocated by him as he lay on top of them. Furthermore, his wife said Plogojowitz had come to her to retrieve his shoes (Oppanki = opanci, according to Wikipedia: Opanak are 'traditional peasant shoes' worn in Southeastern Europe). As Peter Kremer has pointed out, this is the well-known motif of a deceased returning as a revenant to retrieve something that he requires to rest in peace after death, in this case his shoes.


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Source for this map: Wikipedia

The exhumation and examination of Plogojowitz' corpse, including his penile erection, forebodes the large scale examinations carried out seven years later in Medvedja in the Southern part of Serbia under Habsburg military control. Commissaire Adamsberg doesn't visit this village, but Arnold Paole, probably Arnaut Pavle, contender for the title as the world's most famous and influential vampire, also plays a role in An Uncertain Place. Oddly, Vargas places Medvedja in the Branicevo District, not very far from Kisiljevo, but I am not aware of any Medvedja in that area.

For more information on this, the most famous incident in vampire history, see my post on the Visum et Repertum, as well as other posts on this blog.

This vampire case also turns up in a work of popular fiction, as German author Markus Heitz includes it in his 2006 novel Kinder des Judas.


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Serbian vampires and a journey along the Danube

While the Serbian documentary on vampires I posted about last year has been removed from youtube, here is a video from Radio Television Vojvodine about, as far as can I gather, a specific vampire incident in Radojevo. However, readers more familiar with the language are welcome to supply more exact information.

As for Serbia, here are a couple of extracts from Servia and the Servians by the Reverend William Denton, published in 1862. The book contain Denton's observations from a journey along the Danube. In Northern Serbia, Denton one evening 'strolled to the village of Dobra about a mile and a half to the west of the place where our boat had been moored for the night':

'The way to the village led past two small cemeteries, one apparently deserted, and both of them at least half a mile from any houses. The little village cemeteries of Servia are less squalid and forlorn looking than similar ones in France and Germany, but they lack the neat appearance and the shade and repose of an English churchyard. The entrance lies through what is known in England by the name of a lych gate. Such gates, however, as with us are only seen at the entrance of a churchyard, are in Servia common not only to cemeteries, but also to private houses> the piece of shingle roofing being absolutely necessary for the protection of the wood work of the gate from the effect of the sun. In the centre of the first cemetery which I entered stands a square piece of cob-wall with a shingle roof, but whether tool-house or chapel it was impossible to determine. One or two dry twigs stuck at the head of some of the grass evidenced an attempt at planting a tree, which seemed to have failed from want of water. The tombstones were of very singular forms, but scarcely any could be met with older than the time of the War of Independence. Over the little mounds of earth and in and out of the graves sported large green lizards, besides troops of small brown ones. In no place are so many lizards found as in these cemeteries; the dry hillocks of earth which rise over the graves, and the uninterrupted quiet which reigns around makes the abodes of the dead a favourite retreat for these beautiful beings. Eastern fables represent the spirit of man under the shape of a lizard: and the reason for so doing seemed clear enough, as I looked on the number of these reptiles sporting around the graves or lying basking in the rays of the sun on the top of a tombstone.' (p. 110-1)

Denton also visits the village Medvedja in Eastern Serbia, that some people have erroneusly identified with the Medvedja of Flückinger's Visum et Repertum:

'A drive of about an hour and a half brought us to the village of Medvedje, where we found the parish priest the service in the church having been over more than two hours before seated under the far projecting roof of a little tavern, and engaged in explaining to his flock the provisions of a bill, as we should call it, then before the Skoupschina, or Servian Parliament, for an alteration in the law of assessment to the public service. The main feature of the new bill was, that it proposed to lighten the amount of taxes to be paid by the classes which had been hitherto the sole contributors to the revenue of the country; but by enlarging the area of taxation to maintain, or perhaps to increase, the whole sum received by the Treasury. In order that the wishes and sentiments of the people should be made known, the Government had directed the various parish priests throughout the country to assemble their parishioners, and invite a discussion on the proposed alteration. When we drove up to the inn-door, the pastor or pope of Medvedje was engaged in reading the proposed enactments clause by clause. An animated and very creditably conducted debate on the part of the people then ensued, and the opinions of the village parliament appeared to be much divided as to the prospective advantages of the new bill. On the whole, however, it seemed to me that the proposed scheme of the Ministry of Prince Michel was regarded with disfavour by the majority of the community. At least, the villagers of Medvedje, which probably comprised a larger proportion than some other districts of hitherto non-paying members, were not disposed to acquiesce in the alteration of the law, which would deprive them for the future of exemption from taxation. Of course, it is impossible to please those who feel the constant pressure of a direct tax, but it must be owned that the temper and ability with which the bill was discussed by the Medvedjean Parliament was very creditable to them, and might advantageously be imitated in larger popular assemblies.

Though the village of Medvedje does not, so far as I know, appear in any map - at any rate it is not marked in Kiepert's map, which I carried with me - it lies about equal distances from Swilainatz and the monastery of Manassia, on the cross road which leads to towns and villages in four different directions. The village itself seems to have grown out of the necessities of such a position, and consists largely of small taverns and eating houses, mingled with the homes of labourers and small cottage proprietors. For their needs a church was just about to be erected. The ground had been cleared, and the stone for building had been collected and brought to the spot, by the various inhabitants, and a small assessment on real property would soon supply the means for paying the workmen. Judging from what I saw in the course of my rambles, there must be a considerable amount of church building going on in Servia. My travelling led me through thinly peopled and rural districts more than through towns and amongst a concentrated population; yet merely taking account of those which were building by the road-side, there seemed to be every disposition on the part of the people to supply themselves with churches adequate to the population. Indeed, a monk with whom I had an interesting conversation on the state of the Church in Servia, whilst lamenting that so many persons neglected the service of the Church, yet added, what might well be the confession of other priests than those of this country, "The people are ready enough to build churches and are willing to die for their religion at any time, but it is not so easy to get them to come to church." There is great truth, no doubt, in these words; but the difficulty, as I assured the monk, was not altogether and solely a Servian one. In the present case it may perhaps be a satisfaction to sermon-writers to know that the disinclination does not arise either from the length or the quality of the sermons as people are but little troubled with preaching in the orthodox Church - at any rate in this part of it.' (p. 188-90)

'Vampire Skeletons'

As reviewed on Taliesin meets the Vampires, and including a dramatization of Flückinger's examination of supposed vampires in Medvedja in 1732.

Bear's blood

The Medvedja krv redwine is from Rubin, producer of wines from the Zapadna Morava region in Serbia.

Serbian vampires close-up!

This Serbian documentary provides an exceptional look at some of the places related to vampire history and legends in Serbia, including Kisiljevo and Medvedja. As I do not understand the language, I cannot tell you much about what they are actually saying, but names of places and persons, like e.g. Petar Blagojevic (i.e. 'Peter Plogojowitz'), are easy to recognize. Part two also includes some (split screen) clips from the old Leptirica film.

It is pretty ridiculous to see a guy trying to locate the grave of Blagojevic using a pendulum, and I had to smile when I saw Flückinger portrayed as an old man writing the Visum & Repertum. But I find it very nice to see Serbians reclaiming the vampire. After all this is where it started. Without the vampires - or at least the villagers worried about vampires - of Kisiljevo and Medvedja we would hardly be talking about vampires today.

Vampyres according to an English Gentleman and a German Director

One of the most frequently quoted descriptions of vampires in English is referred to as a translation from a dissertation on vampires published in Duisburg in 1733, the only German book on vampires written and published in this part of German territory. The original translation of the description is found in an anonymous manuscript, The Travels of three Gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh, being the grand Tour of Germany, in the Year 1734, first published in volume IV of The Harleian Miscellany: A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as well in Manuscript as in Print in 1745, and continued in the subsequent volume.

When in Lubljana in Slovenia, the author mentions Valvasor: 'All persons of taste and learning in Carniola have in high esteem the piece of Baron Valvasor, intitled 'Gloria Ducatus Carniolæ,' which, they say, is wrote with the utmost truth, accuracy, and exactness.'

The landlord of the three gentlemen, 'a cheerful agreeable person, and a man of very good sense and understanding,' 'seemed to pay some regard to what Baron Valvasor has related of the Vampyres, said to infest some parts of this country'. In this connection, the author mentions a dissertation upon vampires written by the director of the gymnasium in Essen in Germany, M. Jo. Henr. Zopfius, 'from whence we shall beg leave to transcribe the following paragraph'.

This paragraph is quoted in various books and on many web sites, but it may be worthwhile to quote it in toto:

'The Vampyres, which come out of the graves in the night-time, rush upon people sleeping in their beds, suck out all their blood, and destroy them. They attack men, women, and children; sparing neither age nor sex. The people, attacked by them, complain of suffocation, and a great interception of spirits; after which, they soon expire. Some of them, being asked, at the point of death, what is the matter with them? say they suffer in the manner just related from people lately dead, or rather the spectres of those people; upon which, their bodies (from the description given of them, by the sick person,) being dug out of the graves, appear in all parts, as the nostrils, cheeks, breast, mouth, &c. turgid and full of blood. Their countenances are fresh and ruddy; and their nails, as well as hair, very much grown. And, though they have been much longer dead than many other bodies, which are perfectly putrified, notthe least mark of corruption is visible upon them. Those who are destroyed by them, after their death, become Vampyres; so that, to prevent so spreading an evil, it is found requisite to drive a stake through the dead body, from whence, on this occasion, the blood flows as if the person was alive. Sometimes the body is dug out of the grave, and burnt to ashes; upon which, all disturbances cease. The Hungarians call these spectre Pamgri, and the Servians, Vampyres; but the etymon or reason of these names is not known.'

Montague Summers quotes the passage in his 1929 The Vampire in Europe, but one year earlier, on the first page of the first chapter of The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, this is how he quotes Zopf(ius):

'Vampires issue forth from their graves in the night, attack people sleeping quitely in their beds, suck out all their blood from their bodies and destroy them. They beset men, women and children alike, sparing neither age nor sex. Those who are under the fatal malignity of their influence, complain of suffocation and a total deficiency of spirits, after which they soon expire. Some who, when at the point of death, have been asked if they can tell what is causing their decease, reply that such and such persons, lately dead, have arisen from the tomb to torment and torture them.'

Not being satisfied with just quoting either of these English translations (or transcriptions?), I have looked up what the director of the gymnasium in Essen actually wrote. Zopf's Dissertatio de Vampyris Serviensibus consists of 27 pages written in Latin, and when you start looking for a text like the ones in English, you find that it is actually adapted from two bits of text on pp. 6-7.

On page 6, the dissertation is introduced with some comments on the word 'vampire', which includes this passage:

Apud Hungaros etiam PAMGRI audiunt, cuius de vocabuli notione atque etymo non magis constat, quam de obscuro Vampyrorum nomine. Germanico idiomate dici solent Todten-Freßer/Blut-Sauger/vulgoque habentur pro hominum defunctorum spectris, quæ nocte intempesta de sepulcris prodeant, in dormientes insiliant, & sanguine exhaustos, leto tradant.'

It is the last sentence that refers to the spectres of dead people, who come forth from their graves at the dead of night, throw themselves upon sleeping people, and leave them to die, drained of blood.

The main description of vampires and their characteristics than be found as § III on page 7:

'Ex iis relationibus, quae de Vampyris Seruiensibus adhuc emanarunt in vulgus, haec potissimum phaenomena nobis innotuerunt: tradunt nimirum (1) apparere in Seruia, praesertim in pago Medvedia, non procul Beraxino, spectra personarum, quae paucis ante diebus, septimanis, mensibus, e vita discesserint; (2) spectra isthaec adoriri homines vtriusque sexus, neque etiam infantibus parcere; (3) personas ab eiusmodi incubis infestatas, de suffocatione & spiritus interceptione grauiter conqueri, ac breui post exspirare; (4) rogatos a suis moribundos, ecquid malae rei ipsis acciderit, a spectro hominis nuper defuncti sibi illatum, profiteri; (5) quo facto cadauer personae a moribundo designatae e sepulcro effodi, in quo crudus adhuc vigor, capilli vnguesque recens prognati, nares, bucca, pectus, ventriculus, & reliqua corporis vasa, recenti sanguine turgida deprehendantur, cumque alii post eos extincti iam putrescant, in his ne minimam corruptionis notam conspici; (6) eos, qui ab eiusmodi Vampyris necentur, eandem post fata naturam induere, atque alios pari leto adficere; (7) quod ne latius malum serpat, hominis enecti praecordia palo transfigi praeacuto, vnde cruor largus, quasi ab homine viuo, profluat; (8) saepe cadauer e sepulcro erui, rogoque impositum in cineres redigi, quo ipso malum sopiatur.'

In short, the English translations are close to the original text, but not literal. Also, if you take a look at the beginning of the previous paragraph, you can see that both the anonymous gentleman and Summers chose to omit the reference to Medvedja ('Medvedia') in Serbia.

Michael Ranft was not happy with Zopf's dissertation and his idea of a 'contagium quoddam magicum', a kind of magical contagious disease. As translated into German in Klaus Hamberger's Mortuus non mordet:

'Es scheint uns nicht völlig unwahrscheinlich, daß die ganze Vampyrpest bei Serben und anderen in einere magischen Ansteckung (contagium magicum) besteht, die nach dem gerechten Ratschluß Gottes die Bewohner jener Gegend heimsucht. Wir sagen Ansteckung, weil sie sich gleich einer Seuche weiter ausbreitet und mit ihrem Anhauch nicht nur einzelne Mesnchen, sondern ganze Familien infiziert und ausrottet; und wir nennen sie magisch, weil der Teufel sein Wirken unter die Kräfte der Natur mischt, und so einige widernatürliche Effekte erzielt.' (p. 204)

As for the three gentlemen, I have referred to the author of the manuscript as the anonymous gentleman. Aribert Schroeder in his Vampirismus: Seine Entwicklung vom Thema zum Motiv from 1973 discusses the identity of the anonymous gentleman at length and identifies three persons as possible matches: The astronomer James Bradley, the botanist Johann-Jakob Dillenius, and the physician Frank Nicholls. However, a paper from 1999 by T. Shaw, John Swinton, F.R.S., identified as the author of a 1734 travel journal, identifies the author as John Swinton, whose entry in the wikipedia succinctly says:

John Swinton (1703–1777) was a British writer, academic, Fellow of the Royal Society, Church of England clergyman and orientalist. In 1731 he was a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, but migrated to Christ Church in 1745. He contributed to George Sale's Universal History. Swinton also contributed articles on the transcription of the 'Ruins of Palmyra'. Beginning in 1749, Swinton donated a number of Roman coins to the collection at Christ Church. From 1767 until the year of his death he was Keeper of the Archives at Oxford University.

As Schroeder remarks, the English gentleman (the Rev. John Swinton, apparently) probably could not read most of the books on vampires, because they were written in German. For that reason he referred to Zopf's dissertation in Latin, and his transcription and the later adaption by Montague Summers made Zopf a household name of vampire books and web sites in English.

Johann Heinrich Zopf himself was born in 1691 and died in 1774, and you can easily find biographical info like this, as well as a number of books by him on the internet.

De statu quodam peculiari mortuorum

I just came across another book online worth adding to the list of selected works on the right hand of this blog: The 1732 edition of Commericum litterarium ad rei medicae scientiae naturalis published in Nuremberg, which contains the most comprehensive contemporary debate on the Serbian (or Hungarian, if you will) vampires. I referred to the journal and debate in an early blog post on Joh. Frid. Glaser's tale of horror, calling this initial report on the vampires of Medvedja 'a piece of cultural history'.

So now it is no longer necessary to go to some library to follow the journal's accumulation of information about vampires, the speculations and the reviews of books on the subject, it is right here available on Google Books - in Latin, of course, but worth a look anyway. In fact, you might start with the recensio synoptica at the beginning of the book because it contains a lengthy survey of the debate with references to where you can find various contributions. Readers of Hamberger's Mortuus non mordet will recognize the names of contributors like Geelhausen and Segner.

It is also interesting to see the context of this debate. The issue that contains Glaser's letter, from week 11 ('hebdomas undecima') begins with mentioning and commenting on what has been received by mail:  A new medical book: Lexicon medicum universale, Glaser's letter and a short notice on a medical case. Then you find reviews of two medical books, a list of causes of death in Nuremberg during February of that year, and finally a table of meteorological observations in Nuremberg during that same month.

I can recall when I, a few years back, sat in a reading room with this journal from 1732 and 1733, and noted how remarkably much is actually written on the subject of vampires in 1732, and then all of a sudden within less than a year of the publishing of Glaser's letter, the debate stops. Of course, as we know, Calmet and others resurrected the vampire as a learned subject, and corpses were still staked and burned in certain regions of Europe. But the original and fervent debate of 1732 died out relatively fast.

What if ...

What if Flückinger had not been sent to Medvedja in 1732? Or if the Visum et Repertum had attracted no attention but had just been another report stored at the Hofkammerarhiv in Vienna?

As we know, Michael Ranft was so intrigued by reading of the supposed vampire Peter Plogojowitz that he presented his own De masticatione mortuorum later in 1725, but otherwise few people seemed to take note of it.

It did, however, attract a bit of attention at the Academia Naturæ Curios. in Breslau (Wrocław in Poland), the publisher of the so-called Breslauische Sammlungen, a major scientific journal of the early 18th century. Founded by Johann Kanold, it was originally published in Breslau, but later on in Leipzig and Budziszyn (Bautzen).

In 1727 the volume containing information on the Summer quarter of 1725 was published, and among other both enlightening and entertaining articles, e.g. ‘von einem See-Manne’, of a merman, it contains an Article 19: ‘Abentheuerliche Begebenheit mit einem Vermeyntlich wieder gekommenen Todten’. The dead man who was presumed to return was Peter Plogojowitz as referred to in a ‘gazette’ containing the report from Kisiljevo in Northern Serbia: ‘Copia eines Schreibens aus dem Gradisker District in Hungarn M. Aug. 1725’.

The document is followed by an analysis to prove that the incident stems from superstition, oversight and rashness (‘Diß ist abermals eine Begebenheit vom Aberglauben, Inadvertenz, und rachgieriger Ubereilung’), which argues in a forensic fashion that was to be used in several texts on the subject after the incidents at Medvedja in 1732. A short review of Ranft’s original dissertation is also provided, and a reference is given to a previous issue on examples of masticating dead from Poland and Prussia (‘Von dem Polnischen Upiertz oder sich selbst fressenden Todten und der daraus entstandenen Furcht for Pest- und Vieh-Sterben’).

I think it is fair to say that if Glaser and Flückinger had not reported from Medvedja in 1732, this would have been about as much attention the Serbian vampire had received.

Medvedja anno 1738

Changes in my personal life may allow me to spend a bit more time on this blog. Well, I better not make any promises, but there is a chance that I can devote more time to the subject of 'magia posthuma'. So, let me kick off this new year with a part of a map from 1738 of Serbia that shows the site of the most famous vampire case, Medvedja, near the Zapadna Morava river in central Serbia. Unfortunately, this scan of the map is not in high resolution, but in the figure below you can see the village at the top. The map below it shows the surrounding area of the Jagodiner District.



The same map also shows the Ramm District, the site of the first attested vampire case in Kisiljevo in 1725. Maybe I will return to that in a future post.

A unique tour of vampire sites and other remarkable places in Serbia

Predrag Djordevic, an experienced tourist guide in Serbia, has suggested that he can arrange a tour of vampire related sites as well as other exciting places in Serbia if an adequate number of people are interested.

The tour would probably last 4-5 days and could e.g. be in June or September of 2010. Those participating would have to arrange individual travel to and from Belgrade, but otherwise a tour by air conditioned bus would include:
• Sightseeing in Belgrade and information on the Belgrade Vampire
• Kisiljevo, Medvedja, and Kukljin, known from vampire history
• The mill related to the vampire Sava Savanovic
• 14th century Ljubostjinja monastery and other sights en route
• Pozarevac (Passarowitz) where the Habsburgs and Ottomans signed a peace agreement in 1717
• Conversations with locals on e.g. vampires
• Local food and wine
Depending on the interest and contributions, it is also possible to include a seminar, individual lectures or similar activities.

Djordevic and I have corresponded on the matter for some time, and we now need some feedback to gauge the interest in participating in a unique tour like the one suggested. Nothing is set, so your feedback will only state an initial interest and it will also allow you to provide additional suggestions. The date and price will very much depend on the number of participants, so no one who contacts me stating an interest in this tour has made any commitment whatsoever, only stated an interest!

This will probably be the first tour of its kind, so if we succeed in arranging it, those who participate will certainly be in for a unique experience, including exploring the actual places where vampire cases were investigated in the 18th century.

If you are interested, please contact me at niels@magiaposthuma.com as soon as possible, stating:
1) The number of people you write on behalf of
2) Whether June or September 2010 would be possible
3) If you would be interested in a seminar in conjunction with the tour
4) If you have any ideas or suggestions you would like to propose

The Belgrade Vampire

I bought a couple of books while in London. One of them being Theresa Cheung's volumionus The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires: An A-Z of the Undead (Harper Element, 2009) 'dedicated to the memory of Montague Summers'.

Curiously it refers to a number of books in German, including those by Peter Mario Kreuter and Peter Kremer, but I doubt that Cheung has actually read them, as she, unfortunately, makes a number of errors in writing the history of vampires. She e.g. refers to 'The Belgrade Vampire', 'a vampire case that took place in Belgrade, Serbia in 1732,' that 'was recorded by Dr. Herbert Mayo in his esteemed 1821 work: On the Truths Contained in Popular Superstition.' A comparison with Mayo's book shows that this 'Belgrade vampire' is in fact the Medvedja vampire case recounted in the Visum et Repertum, that Cheung writes about in an entry on 'Arnold Paole'.

She also claims that Augustin Calmet triggered 'an outbreak of panic in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This infuriated the Empress Maria Theresa, who sent her personal physician to investigate.'. We learn that 'In 1755 the town of Olmutz in Austria was also the scene of several vampire reports, and in the region of Styria there were also two cases of reported vampire killings,' of which the last one was mentioned 'in a 1909 edition of the Occult Review.'

Obviously, the book is an inaccurate mix of information taken from various sources, blending fact and fiction and presenting the most fantastic subjects like 'Ethics, among Vampires':

'By any system of law every single vampire is a multiple-murderer without ethics. But if there is such a thing as a real vampire it is for all intents and purposes a different species to humans; a species that requires fresh blood, preferably human, in order to survive, and as such, a species that should perhaps be judged by its own standards. The ethics for real vampires are therefore a matter for them. However, when it comes to sanguinarians, people who have a need to drink blood, psychic vampires, people who feed on the energy or life force of others, and modern vampires, people who simply like to model their lives on the vampire lifestyle, there is without doubt a place for a code of vampire ethics.'

The book also includes a list of 'Vampire Organizations, Societies, Fan Clubs, and Websites'. This blog is not included.

Theresa Cheung apparently 'has been involved in the serious study of the psychic arts for over twenty-five years. She writes full time and is the author of a variety of books, including The Element Encyclopedia of 20,000 Dreams.' I hope that her other books are more consistent in dealing with their topics than the mix of fact and fiction that is The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires.

Some notes on the Conference on Vampirism and Magia Posthuma

So, finally, here are the notes on the conference on vampirism and magia posthuma in the discourse of the Habsburg monarchy in the 18th and 19th centuries I have promised you. As it is always difficult to provide a detailed account of the presentations at a conference, so I will simply highlight the themes and theories presented.

First of all, I would once again like to thank the organizers, Ursula Reber and Christoph Augustynowicz, for making the conference possible and for inviting me! It was an extraordinary experience to spend three days in the company of people who share this peculiar interest and who can speak with familiarity of Frombald, Glaser and Flückinger.

Held at the Institute for East European History which is located in the buildings of the former Alte Allgemeine Krankhaus (AKH) that now house the Viennese Unicampus, we were close to the Josephinum and Van Swieten Gasse. In fact, right outside the windows of the auditorium we could see the Narrenturm. All in all I think that around fifty people participated with a nucleus of some 25 participants, many of whom presented papers during the conference in sunny and hot Vienna.

The conference started on the evening of Thursday 2 July, when Christoph Augustynowicz, Ursula Reber and the head of the institute bid us welcome. I then spoke for about an hour about this blog: Why I started the blog, my approach to vampires, my search for the book Magia Posthuma, the blog itself, its visitors and the feedback I have received. I finished my talk with some information about von Schertz’s Magia Posthuma. The evening ended with a reception and a copious supply of food, beer and wine.

Next day Peter Mario Kreuter, author of Der Vampirglaube in Südosteuropa and currently at the Südost-Institute in Regensburg, compared the state of the interest in vampires to that of the unscientific attitude towards witch research until 1970s. He recommended that researchers should examine the original documents at the Hofkammerarchiv in Vienna. As for the use of the word vampire in the documents, he interpreted the differences in the use of the word from Frombald’s 1725 document (unfortunately only known in a copy) to Flückinger’s 1732 Visum et Repertum, and posed the theory that the term 'Vampyr' must have become well-known in the years following 1725, but that the cases of vampirism in the intermediate years apparently have not been documented.

The 18th century documents on vampires were also the focus of Christian Reiter, professor extraordinarius in forensic medicine, as he delivered an analysis of the Visum et Repertum from the point of view of forensic medicine. He convincingly argued that the epidemic in Medvedja in 1731-32 was caused by anthrax. Furthermore he concluded that Flückinger and co. had falsified their report concerning the corpses not in a ‘vampire state’ with the intent of obtaining remuneration for their examination of the corpses. Clearly a number of the participants wanted to exonerate Flückinger of this charge, but was unable to oppose the theory, so no doubt Reiter’s paper will be closely studied when published.


Another kind of documentation that is often taken as evidence of vampire beliefs are archaeological finds of human remains that appears to have been treated to prevent the deceased to harm the living. Author of Blutspuren: Die Geschichte der Vampire, Hagen Schaub, presented his thoughts on these finds, including the recent excavation in Venice. Overall his analysis left little or no positive evidence that any of these archaeological finds convincingly can be taken as proof of beliefs in vampires or similar revenants. Some of the interpretations of the archaeological evidence are just far too fantastic, and alternative explanations can not be ruled out. The verdict did not seem to surprise to anyone, but it was nice to hear a clear presentation of the various founds and the theories that are frequently claimed to support them as evidence of vampire beliefs.

The interpretation of human corpses were also the topic of Marco Frenschowski, protestant theologian and associate professor with an impressive knowledge of vampires and related subjects, as he spoke on various notions concerning incorruptibility, in particular from the point of view of various Christian churches, and their relation to ‘living corpses’.

As for other aspects of vampire beliefs, Christa Tuczay, lecturer and associate professor at the Institute for German Studies in Vienna as well as author of several books including this one, discussed various examples of nightmare entities, e.g. in the works of Philostratus, Füssli and Sacher-Masoch, and how they were perceived throughout particularly the 19th century. In the following discussion, Christian Reiter mentioned that the experiences related by victims of the “alptraum” could be explained as an asthmatic attack. Hans Richard Brittnacher should have talked on blood magic, but was unfortunately unable to attend.

The development of vampire or vampire related cases and tales, as well as of the term vampire, was the topic of several papers.

Clemens Ruthner, lecturer at Trinity College in Dublin, discussed Herbert Mayo’s fictionalization of Flückinger’s Visum et Repertum with an emphasis on the literary aspects of the version.

Thomas M. Bohn, professor in History of Eastern and Middle Europe at the University of Regensburg, in detail traced the interesting development of the original 1718 posthumous execution of Michael Kasparek in Lubló in present day Slovakia into various tales and interpretations, including that of a vampire ('ein Vorläufer der Serbischen Vampyrs, und von allen das abenteuerlichste dieser Spuckgespenster' according to in Georg Conrad Horst in his Zauber-Bibliothek). Apparently the story of Michael Kasparek has even inspired a Czecko-Slovak movie, Kisertet Lublon (1976).

Christoph Augustynowicz, professor extraordinarius at the University of Vienna, discussed the portrayal of vampires by Sacher-Masoch, Karl Emil Franzos and Bertha Pappenheim in the 19th century, and the views of Jews in Galicia in these texts.

Karin Barton, associate professor at Laurier University in Canada, is particularly interested in insects and their role in cultural history and literature, currently with emphasis on the flea. She presented a paper on The Habsburg Flea: Notes on the Cultural and Literary History of an Insect Vampire with numerous examples of how the flea has been presented in various media, including some that related it to vampires. Remarkably, she presented a source from 1866 that mentions the word 'nosferatu', a term otherwise usually perceived as constructed by Emily Gerard in her Transsylvanian Superstitions from 1885!


Ursula Reber spoke on Klaus Hamberger’s original thesis on vampires, and on Michel Serres’ La Légende des Anges. Apparently Hamberger, author of the seminal collection of source material Mortuus non mordet: Vampirismus 1689-1791 (1992), in his voluminous thesis wrote in a now obsolete discourse that makes it rather difficult to read today. The organizers had actually tried to contact Hamberger to invite him to the conference, but without being able to localize him. He probably is no longer interested in the subject, but there was a general consensus that a reprint of Mortuus non mordet is long overdue. (I was by the way relieved to find during the conference that I am not the only one who has had difficulty in reading volume 2 of Hamberger’s work on vampires: Über Vampirismus: Krankengeschichte und Deutungsmuster 1801-1899).

Sigrid Janisch, Ph.D. student in Vienna, talked about various definitions of vampires from 18th and 19th century encyclopedias, the subject of her Ph.D. work, and Bernhard Unterholzner, Master student in Munich, traced the vampire debates from 1732 and onwards.

Another aspect of the topic brought vampire beliefs into our present day as we were presented with two different kinds of field work on Balkan. Assistant professor for languages and cultures of the Balkan region, Thede Kahl, talked about his field work in Albania and Northern Greece, where he got about 200 tales about vampires, revenants and other entities. He discussed the various types and divided the tales into five narrative categories depending on how the narrator referred to a belief in vampires. The interesting findings will be published later this year.

Whereas the work of Kahl is that of an outsider investigating vampires in areas of Balkan, Vlado Vlacic, a student from Munich, has carried out his field work in the parts of Bosnia where he himself grew up. So Vlacic actually has first hand experience of vampire beliefs from his native community. He struggled somewhat with presenting the beliefs and their framework to us outsiders, as he apparently found it hard to put into words and terms the ‘silent’ knowledge he has grown up with. I think that many of us who were present hope that he overcomes his frustrations and keeps working on how to communicate to us the concrete vampire beliefs of Bosnia.

Obviously the conference touched upon various aspects of the subject, all of which contribute to a better understanding of vampire beliefs, their history and reception, as well as the development of the concept of a vampire into a metaphor and a fictional character that can be used for almost any purpose. For a detailed insight into the topics presented you must wait until the papers are published on the Kakanien Revisited web site. The plan is, however, that they will ultimately be published as a regular book.

Considering e.g. Stephanie Meyer’s current bestselling books, it is amazing that a topic that is so ‘hot’ in the popular media, attracts only a relatively limited number of scholars. Peter Mario Kreuter told us about an attempt at making a TV documentary series that presented the actual historical facts on vampires and other matters. Unfortunately, no one was willing to support the project, as you apparently have to compromise historical facts to highlight fictional vampires if you want to get in the media!

Originally Kreuter himself had to win money in a quiz show to be able to finance the publication of his book on vampires. Publishers apparently are not queuing up to publish this kind of book, but fortunately he is currently working on an updated edition of his book which will be published in English!

If we accept the parallel to witch research, we may hope that the research into vampires and other revenants will follow a route similar to that of witch research within the next couple of decades. The papers from this conference should contribute to that, and I hope that this blog in some way can also contribute to this end. Before the end of the conference there was some slight discussion of a future conference, and hopefully it will be possible to arrange one in a not too distant future!

I thank participants for good company and support, as well as for interesting presentations discussions. The conference also allowed me to visit a Heuriger with traditional food and wine on the outskirts of Vienna. And most curiously, I found out that Peter Mario Kreuter speaks Danish, so to my surprise I found myself talking in my native tongue a few times with this German authority on vampires!