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.

Love can only be made in perfection by the sea

'As we passed through the wood in the twilight the gentle wind took the puffs of steam from the engine and carried them in tall columns till they looked like ghosts among the trees.'

Tracing my interest in vampires and posthumous magic back to reading Bram Stoker's Dracula as a teenager, I find it interesting to occasionally follow the ongoing development in the literature on Stoker and his creation of the Count Vampyre.

The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker, edited by Elizabeth Miller and Dacre Stoker and published by The Robson Press, is a lovely and very welcome addition to both the Stoker biographies and the various editions of his own work. A caringly edited and annotated version of a journal that passed on from Stoker's widow, Florence, to their son, Noel, and now in the possession of Stoker's great-grandson, Noel Dobbs, the Journal is a kind of notebook containing verses, short pieces of prose, jokes, observations and ideas that the young, aspiring and developing writer Bram Stoker planned to use at some time. So now one can feel with the young man writing shortly before his twenty-fifth birthday of pain in 'Pain & Bravery':

'To have feeling but to lack its fit expression
To be dumb amid the music-world of life
To be still amid the roar & the progression
Where the worker as he touches stamps possession -
To be fettered by our hearts before the strife -
To be crippled ere the race - to lose the Real
Which we erst have sadly toiled for and in vain
To seek among the passing forever our Ideal
This is pain.'

The Journal is not reproduced in the original order. Instead, Miller and Stoker have organized the contents thematically, e.g. devoting one part to portions that may have inspired bits in Dracula, as they find that 'the Journal breathes new life into Dracula, offering fresh insights into Stoker's method of composition as well as motifs for his plot and characters.' This section contains references to Poe and Frankenstein, but I will let others decide to what extent it really does provide insights into Dracula, written several years after the Journal.

Stoker himself appears to have had a bit of taste for the gruesome, as in this sketch:

'Seaport. Two sailors love girl - one marries her, other swears revenge. Husband goes out to sea soon after marriage & on return after some days sees in grey light of morning his young wife crucified on the great cross which stands at end of pier.'

And we are affirmed that the sea played a special role for him, even curiously claiming that: 'Love can only be made in perfection beside the sea.'

Miller and Stoker note that 'the closest we get to vampires in the Journal are the references to Dion Boucicault,' who wrote the popular play The Vampire: A Phantom Related in Three Dramas from 1852. So the vampire historian will probably gain little from the Journal - apart from the pleasuring of dipping into the numerous bits and pieces.

Stoker researchers, of course, will find inspiration for future work, but first of all, it is simply a delightful collection of short pieces, proving that a private notebook never intended for publication actually can have some value to readers almost 150 years after it was written.

The various introductory essays and comments, along with a timeline of Stoker and his family, by Miller and Stoker aids in setting the Journal into the context of its author's life, work and times, as does about a dozen of photos of Stoker's family.

The Vampire & The Voivode

My toes tend to curl when I watch a lot of the documentaries on vampires or Dracula that turn up on TV, DVD or the internet. But I can now point to a documentary that is thoroughly worth watching if you are looking for a documentary on Bram Stoker, the genesis of his novel Dracula, the locations in the novel and similar themes. I am referring to Dracula: The Vampire & The Voivode that was made in 2008, and is available on DVD for £11.99 plus p&p. It has the benefit of having Dracula expert Elizabeth Miller as script consultant, so various myths are discarded with or debunked. Furthermore, the documentary is shot on location in Dublin, Whitby, London and a number of places in Romania, and in Romania we get some insights from the late Nicolae Paduraru on both Vlad Tepes and Romanian vampire lore.

The documentary is, however, very weak on vampires per se, so this is mainly a documentary for those who want to know more about Stoker's novel.

The Dracula Phenomenon

Two books on Dracula recently arrived. One is a classic biography of Vlad Tepes published and reprinted in Germany several times since 1980: Ralf-Peter Märtin's Dracula: Das Leben des Fürsten Vlad Tepes (Verlag Klaus Wagenbach), and the other is the quite new Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Documentary Journey into Vampire Country and the Dracula Phenomenon edited by Elizabeth Miller (Pegasus Books). As things have been in my life during the past weeks I have found little time to look at these two books, so here I will merely state my immediate notions.

Märtin's book is, I think, the current standard popular biography in German on Vlad Tepes, and it may in fact be the most reprinted volume on this medieval ruler. It looks very inviting and seems to be an easily read presentation of his life and the historical context, including a chapter on cruelty in the late medieval period. It is nicely illustrated and contains an updated bibliography (as of 2008) on the topic, including books on vampires.

The focus of Miller's book is, of course, Bram Stoker's novel, its genesis and its legacy. It is described as a 'documentary journey' because it is sort of an anthology or scrapbook of material that sets the background for Stoker's novel, describes in detail Stoker's work on the novel, and follows its publication history and way into popular media like theatre and movies. The portions on the historical vampire are symptomatically weak, as there are only a few pages on the Visum et Repertum, Calmet, van Swieten etc. But as Stoker himself did not have access to a lot of information on the vampires of the 18th century, and mostly knew about vampires from 19th century books in English, it is probably sufficient to the scholar or reader mainly interested in Stoker's vampire count. And there is certainly a wealth of interesting material on Stoker, his book, and fictional vampires, so this is definitely a must for anyone with an interest in 'the Dracula phenomenon', no doubt providing many hours of interesting study!

One slight let down is the quality of the reproduction of the illustrations. Some of them are slightly blurred, which is a shame because there are so many unique illustrations here, like e.g. a reproduction of Stoker's death certificate as shown in the photo below.

Vampires found...

You will have to bear with me, as I have simply yet to find the time to write at more length on the conference in Vienna. In the meantime I may mention a magazine and a book that I found on my trip.

At the airport I stumbled on a special issue on vampires of the UK magazine SFX. It was pretty expensive as the Danish price is more than twice that of the original price (£7.99), but I thought I had better buy it now that I was on my way to spend a few days about vampires anyway :-)

The special issue comes with a poster, a set of Buffy coasters (!) and a book containing Le Fanu's Carmilla and Polidori's The Vampyre. The magazine itself contains mostly articles about vampire movies and TV series like True Blood and Twilight, but also Hammer's Dracula movies area featured, including a special on the making of The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. In a 'Top 50' of the greatest screen vampires of all time, Christopher Lee's count is only no 2, as one of the vampires (Spike) from the Buffy series is voted no 1 by readers of the magazine! There is even an interview with Elizabeth Miller on the genesis of Bram Stoker's Dracula, unfortunately marred by the interviewer's lack of knowledge of Austrian geography, as it is claimed that: 'Originally he was going to have the Count come from Astoria, not Transylvania.' In short, if you are into recent vampire fiction, you will probably find this magazine pretty entertaining.

Slightly more information on vampire beliefs can be found in a new coffee table book that I bought in Vienna: Transsylvanien im Reich von Dracula by Gerald Axelrod, appropriately printed in Leipzig. The major asset of this book is a large number of remarkably gloomy photos from various places in Romania, as the text itself probably will not surprise those familiar with the subject: A biography of Vlad Tepes, a relatively short chapter on Balkan vampire beliefs and a similarly short biography of Bram Stoker with emphasis on the origins of Dracula. At the end of the book a map of South Eastern Europe even has Medwegya marked in the mid 15th century. The short list of recommended reading mentions just two books on vampire beliefs, but certainly also two of the best books written on the subject: Peter Mario Kreuter's Der Vampirglaube in Südosteuropa, and Klaus Hamberger's Mortuus non mordet.

Vampiri

This blog has been pretty quiet for a while. Other tasks have required my attention, and whatever I have been doing on vampires and magia posthuma have been reserved for purposes outside this blog.

I'd like to refer to a couple of links that might be of interest: Elizabeth Miller on her blog currently reports from an interesting visit to both Dublin and Whitby. She also notifies us of the recent death of Nicolae Paduraru, founder of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. I remember being in contact with him briefly many, many years ago, back in the day when he had to fax people material.

A curious item is currently on sale on ebay: A patch from the Yugoslavian 239th Fighting Bomber Aviation Squadron called 'Vampiri', the vampires. That's at least what I gather from this web site. So the vampire returned to Balkan in the shape of a vampire bat for this military use!

Dracula question 1

I am always happy to try to answer questions from people. Today I received two questions concerning Dracula, and thought that the answers might be of both information and entertainment to other readers.

Here is the first question and answer.

In a comment to my post The creation of a modern myth, Orc Bruto writes:

... I am a historian and archeologist in Brazil, and I am finishing my Master Degree with a thesis about the influences of Sabine Baring-Gould's Book of Werewolves in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I read in McNally & Florescu's In Search of Dracula and Other Vampires that there is a note in Rosenbach Foundation Stoker's Notes that says that Bram Stoker read the Book of Werewolves before writing his book... But I cannot find any source in internet with this passage...

I saw that you got Elizabeth Miller's Stoker's Notes Book. Is there any mention to Baring-Gould Book of Werewolves? Either Miller and the Romanian Dracula researcher Radu Carciumaru said me that McNally is not a very trustful source...

This prompted Leslie S. Klinger, author of The New Annotated Dracula to write:

'Please advise your correspondent that indeed Stoker did consult Baring-Gould's "Book of Werewolves"--it is on the list of reference books included in his notes, held at the Rosenbach Museum. I believe that the complete list is included somewhere in my book, and it is also reproduced in Clive Leatherdale's "Dracula Unearthed."'

In fact, the facsimile edition of Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula reproduces the list of books that includes not only Baring-Gould's book on werewolves, but also his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages and Germany: Past & Present (p. 172-3).

On pages 128-131 you find the proof that Stoker did read Baring-Gould's book: Stoker's own notes from his reading of The Book of Were-Wolves, where he e.g. notes 'werewolf has broad hands, short fingers & has some hairs in hollow of hand p. 107', and that 'Serbs connect vampire & ww. together & call them same name vlkoslak'.

The editors of the Notes further write:

'The opening of "Dracula's Guest" echoes Sabine Baring-Gould's introduction to The Book of Were-Wolves, which was one of Bram Stoker's earliest and most important sources.' (p. 279-80)

'The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves contains numerous descriptions which Stoker appropriated for his vampire: canine teeth, pointed nails, hairy palms and the ability to change form.' (p. 284)

The Notes are highly recommended, as are the books mentioned by Klinger. If you require more information, feel free to contact me by e-mail (see my profile).

A grave matter!

Although not really a matter concerning magia posthuma, I can't help referring to this post on Elizabeth Miller's personal blog. It just goes to show that there will always be unscrupulous and entrepeunering people out there trying to cash in on people's fascination for a popular subject like that of Dracula and vampires. Mundus vult decipi, but that's all the more reason to try and popularize the facts in stead of the popular myths!

Stoker's notes

As I keep saying: this blog is not about Dracula, however, I think a lot of people will be pleased to know that McFarland will be publishing a facsimile edition of Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula this fall or winter. Annotated and transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, this will be first time that the complete notes will be published, finally enabling every scholar or Dracula buff to study these notes for a better understanding of the genesis of the novel Dracula.

In Search of... Documentaries

Continuing on the theme of documentaries, I think the first documentary on the subject was the 1975 Swedish Vem var Dracula?, better known as In Search of Dracula. The Swedish title means Who was Dracula? and was the title of the Swedish translation of Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally's bestselling book In Search of Dracula which was the inspiration for the documentary.

I saw it on Swedish television back then and I'd say that I almost grew up on the mythology of that book. Well, you couldn't avoid being affected by it if you were into the subject back then. Much later on it's been pretty stimulating to see how it has been debunked by Elisabeth Miller in Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (2000/2006).

The documentary is probably most memorable for its sequences featuring Christopher Lee as Vlad Tepes, but it also contains a bit of information on folkloric vampires, although not particularly useful to anyone seriously interested in Magia Posthuma. I can't find any clips on youtube to link to, but it should be pretty easy to obtain on DVD (my own copy is American and contains a commemorative booklet on the making of the documentary).

I have, however, found this nicely produced mixture of various folkloric bits and pieces that various authors have somehow connected with vampires. It's more entertaining than enlightening, and delightfully short...