Calmet returns in German

From the ever productive Nicolaus Equiamicus comes a new German edition of the second volume of Augustin Calmet's Dissertation on apparitions and vampires. Soon to be published, this 160 page volume is available for pre-order from German amazon at € 14.95.

"Seit ungefähr sechzig Jahren hat sich in Ungarn, Polen, Schlesien und Mähren ein neues Schauspiel hervorgetan, indem dort Leute, die schon mehrere Jahre oder Monate zuvor verstorben sind, wieder zurückkommen, reden, gehen, die Dörfer beunruhigen, Menschen und Tiere misshandeln, ihren Verwandten das Blut aussaugen, ihnen Krankheiten und schließlich gar den Tod verursachen, und sich auch von solchen überlästigen und schädlichen Besuchen nicht zurückhalten lassen, bis man ihre Leiber wieder ausgräbt, spießt, ihnen das Haupt abschlägt, das Herz ausreißt, oder sie verbrennt..." (Augustin Calmet) Augustin Calmet (1672-1757), den gelehrten Geschichtsschreiber und Abt des Klosters Senones/Lothringen, würde heute kaum mehr eine Menschenseele kennen, hätte er nicht im Jahre 1746 dieses Buch über Vampire geschrieben. Er behandelt darin die Vampirthematik in 59 Kapiteln aus theologischer und historischer Sicht und geht dabei detailliert auf zahlreiche überlieferte und aktenkundig gewordene Vampirfälle ein. Das für Calmets Verhältnisse eher kleine Werk übertraf den Erfolg seiner anderen Bücher – unter anderem verfasste er einen dreiundzwanzigbändigen Bibelkommentar - bei weitem und erschien bereits im 18. Jahrhundert in vier französischen und drei deutschen Auflagen. Die vorliegende Neuausgabe soll dazu beitragen, dass dieser Klassiker der Vampirologie auch weiterhin nicht in Vergessenheit gerät.

A surgeon's eyewitness accounts from Transylvania and Wallachia

Most of what was written on vampires in the eighteenth century consisted of commentaries on either a very small corpus of eyewitness accounts from officials of the Habsburg authorities or the Catholic Church or of various tales of vampires and revenants from around Europe. The most careful and comprehensive study based on first hand examinations of both those who complained of being attacked by a bloodsucker and of the bodies of the suspected vampires, was written in 1756 by a regimental surgeon, Georg Tallar.

Tallar was born in Mainz around 1700, and studied medicine there and in Straβburg. He then pursued a career as a surgeon and physician in the Habsburg army for more than thirty years, serving in Transylvania, Wallachia and the Banat. As Tallar mastered the local languages of those regions, he was not only able to discuss the subject of vampires first hand with the people who actually believed in them.

The new edition of Tallar's book and two pages from the manuscript shown in the Dracula. Woiwode und Vampir exhibition catalogue

Tallar witnessed five incidents in which people claimed to be attacked by vampires – or actually: Moroi – and in three cases he was himself involved in examining those who were ill as well as the corpses that were exhumed. He had actually even known some of those who, after their demise, were suspected of being bloodsuckers.

The Wallachians who were ill and claimed to have been attacked by a bloodsucker, told Tallar that they had been in bed for a couple of days, and that their heart hurt. When asked where the heart sits, they pointed, not to the heart, but to the stomach and the intestines. They said that, whenever they tried to fall asleep, the bloodsucker appeared in the shape of this or that deceased man or woman, standing in front of them or in a corner. Some said that they saw the bloodsucker when they were asleep, but many of the afflicted actually saw nothing. Still, they believed that it was necessary to open the graves to look for the Moroi. Although exhuming and destroying corpses was prohibited by law, they were willing to break the law to seek out and destroy the bloodsucker. In fact, people were so afraid of falling prey to the vampire, that they dared not walk about after dark.

Examining them, Tallar found that they complained from pains and aches in various part of the body, including strong headaches, and that their tongue would turn first pale and then become brownish red and dry as wood. They were very thirsty, and had a faint and erratic pulse.

In each case, only Wallachians were affected by the bloodsucker, whereas neither soldiers, German settlers, nor local Serbs became ill, so Tallar concluded that the Wallachians did not suffer from an epidemic, but rather an endemic disease. Considering the traits of the Wallachians, he concluded that the food eaten by them, especially during the fasts that they fanatically observed during Winter - consisting of e.g. cabbage, garlic, and sauerkraut - was the cause of the disease. In fact, administering a simple vomitive often cured the diseased!

Tallar also discusses various beliefs concerning the dead and their graves, refuting the beliefs and providing various natural causes for the phenomena. He e.g. refutes the belief that the bloodsuckers are more harmful on Saturdays, by exhuming and examining the corpses on various days of the week, showing that the state of the corpses were independent of the day of the week.

Overall, Tallar is an exemplar of the medical enlightened man, emphasizing – like Gerard van Swieten – the lack of education among the Wallachians, while at the same time mentioning that they are not so stupid not to accept his medical remedies against the disease, when they notice that people get cured.

From Medicinische Jahrbücher des kaiserl. königl.
österreichischen Staates Band 56 (Wien, 1846)

Tallar wrote his Visum-Repertum Anatomico-Chirurgicum after the vampire incident in Hermersdorf that prompted Empress Maria Theresa to stop the burning of corpses associated with magia posthuma, but his manuscript was left unpublished for almost thirty years, until the Viennese publisher Johann Georg Möβle came upon it and decided to publish it in 1784.

A reviewer in the Viennese Realzeitung für das Jahr 1784, expressed the wish that Tallar had used his proficiency in the Wallachian language to publish his observations on the matter in that tongue. Excerpts from the book turned up in Johann Dionis John’s Lexikon der K. K. Medizinalgeseze in 1790, and in an article in the Medicinische Jahrbücher des kaiserl. Königl. Österreichischen Staates in 1846.

Now, almost 250 years after its first publication, Tallar’s book has been reprinted by Nicolaus Equiamicus in a slim volume that replaces Möβle’s introduction by a new one by Equiamicus, and adds a few explanatory footnotes, while slightly updating the language of the original. Tallar’s original is readily available online (see my list of links), but Equiamicus is to be commended for providing us with a handy edition of this essential text on vampire beliefs. And it is available for just €7.90.

A Vampire Chronology: Von damals bis(s) heute

Although, as I stated recently, changes in my personal life should allow me more time for this blog, and although I have promised to review this book, it has taken me some time to go back to my notes and finish the review I had started writing a couple of months ago. I apologize to the author and anyone else who have been curious to read my comments.

I suppose that over the past few decades the books by Klaus Hamberger, Peter Mario Kreuter, and Hagen Schaub have been the most comprehensive collections of information on vampires. Hamberger, of course, has the advantage that his first volume is an anthology of source texts, whereas Kreuter and Schaub present the vampire in the context of e.g. folklore and archaeology. More recently, Florian Kührer has written succinctly on the whole vampire phenomenon, and we have, of course, the specialist study by Aribert Schroeder from 1973 which, however, lacks the reprints of key texts available in Hamberger’s volume.

Now we can add Nicolaus Equiamicus to the list of authors who provide us with a useful resource for information on vampires. The backbone of the Nicolaus his recent book Vampire Von damals bis(s) heute (U Books, 288 pages, 14.95 €) is a chronological account of vampires based on a great number of sources. This chronology constitutes the first part of the book: ‘Der historische Vampirismus’, which is actually more than half the book.

Beginning with classical antiquity, we are introduced to some of the well-known texts on lamiae and empusae, as well as some information on related entities: the Alb and the Nachtmahr. Various types of revenants are dealt with, including the Nachzehrer, and also regional variants are described, partially based on Bernhard Stern’s Medizin, Aberglaube und Geschlechtsleben in der Türkei (1903). Finally, the scene is set for the famous vampire cases of the 18th century: Serbia 300 years ago: ‘Krieg und Elend – das Leben vor 300 Jahren in Serbien’. Equiamicus treats the cases in detail and follows them up with various other examples from contemporary and recent literature with particular emphasis on the two important cases from the 1750’s in Kapnick and Hermersdorf, respectively.

As we know, the vampire would not remain quiet despite the efforts of Empress Maria Theresa and the Enlightenment philosophers, and Equiamicus includes several interesting examples from the 19th and early 20th century of the ongoing belief in vampires or vampirelike revenants, including those from West Prussia in the 1870’s that are not particularly known in the English language vampire literature. All of them instances of beliefs and practices to protect the living from supposed vampires or revenants not too dissimilar from those that are known from other parts of Europe up to this day. Equiamicus even includes the weird ‘Highgate Vampire’ which is treated succinctly and soberly.

Some of these cases are only known through a few purported facts, whereas others can be supported by more detailed accounts. In several instances, Equiamicus shows his well-known expertise in digging up various old texts to illuminate the subject. He e.g. uses a contemporary article from a magazine called Die Gartenlaube to tell the story of a family from Kantrzyno who in February 1872 dug up the corpse of the family father, cut off his head and placed it face down at the corpse’s feet. This article can be read online here, and I can not help thinking that this would make for an interesting movie :-)

The chronology of vampire cases is then followed by a reasonably thorough review of the vampire debates from the 17th to the 20th century with emphasis on the ‘Leipziger Vampirdebatte’, von Görres and modern medical explanations, including Christian Reiter’s anthrax theory. Of particular interest here is also the couple of pages devoted to von Schertz’s Magia posthuma, which must make Equiamicus’s book the first one to deal with it since Calmet!

The rest of the book is devoted to the vampire in fairy tales and fiction, as well as some of the historical persons popularly related to the subject: Vlad Tepes, Elisabeth Bathory, Peter Kürten etc.

The book is illustrated throughout, mostly in black and white, but also including a section of colour photos, most illustrations being movie stills, including a fair number from Twilight. This seems to contradict the historical aim of the book, but will no doubt attract many younger readers. And honestly, if teenagers and other readers of popular vampire novels will be reading the book, and I think quite a few will – if only to dip into some of the interesting stories – quite a few people will become aware of the historical background to what has ended up as Dracula, Twilight and Buffy, and I think that is quite a laudable goal.

As with some of the best books on the subject, it is always a delight to read a book that is free of the Montague Summers tradition so prevalent in the literature until recently. Methodologically though, Equiamicus is first and foremost a collector of information on vampires, vampire cases and the vampire debates. His emphasis is on these subjects per se rather than on the broader historical context of the beliefs which is the focus of a number of historians (cf. academical anthologies like the Gespenster und Politik book and the Kakanien Revisited online collection of papers). But I am impressed by the lengths Equiamicus has gone to in order to read original documents and books. This means that there is something here for both the novice and the expert, and I must say that I have myself used it a few times to look up information. In my opinion it works well as both an introduction to the subject and as a reference book.

So if you have not bought it yet, do get hold of it. And if you know some young reader with a penchant for vampires, and who can read German, consider this as a gift. Even if the reader may only know a little German, why not give it anyway? There are many good reasons to learn to read German, and vampires is one of them, as the best books on the subject tend to written in that language. And Equiamicus's Vampire Von damals bis(s) heute should whet the appetite for anyone with an interest in vampires.

Happy New Year!

With only a few hours left of 2010, it is quite obvious that I have not been very active on this blog during the past year. I must confess that other activities have taken up most of my attention, and there is no reason to expect that this will change in 2011. This blog suffers from it, not only because of lack of time on my part, but also because my everyday activities leave me little time and energy for reading and absorbing myself in the subject of this blog. That is also why I have been so slow at reviewing some of the recent books, not least those by Florian Kührer and Nicolaus Equiamicus.

Looking back on 2010, however, there is no doubt that the most important new book is Vampire: Von damals bis(s) heute by Euqiamicus because of its accessible and comprehensive history of vampire cases from the famous ones of the early 18th century and into the 21st century. I will shortly be writing more on the book, but this is really the one single recent book to get hold of, if you are interested in vampire history.

Other noteworthy books from 2010 are Kührer's that I did get to write about, and Erik Butler's Metamorphoses of the Vampire in Literature and Film.

For me personally, the 'vampire' highlight of 2010 was travelling to Bucharest to see the exhibition on Dracula and vampires at the National Museum of Art of Romania.

Apropos of Romania, I also got to watch the movie Strigoi at a one off screening here in Denmark. It is very unusual and quite entertaining, so worth seeking out. It will be available on DVD here shortly.

No plans are yet set for 2011, but no doubt something will come up.

I wish everyone a happy new year!

Books and reviews

My apologies to all for first posting a review of Florian Kührer's book at this point. I have a couple of other books that I will post reviews of shortly. First of which is Vampire: Von damals bis(s) heute by Nicolaus Equiamicus (Ubooks).

Apropos of books, the forthcoming book on Calmet that I mentioned here, has been postponed until February 2011.

Vampire: Von damals bis(s) heute

While looking at magazines at the main railway station in Copenhagen the other day, I happened to notice the words: 'Die widerkehrenden Toten: DAS VAMPIR-SPECIAL' on the cover a magazine called Dark Spy which I think is aimed at people interesting in Goth styles. The 'vampire special' is actually just a three page article on vampires, but as it is accompanied by reproductions of the covers of the 1734 edition of Ranft's Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen and the Curieuse und sehr wunderbare Relation, von denen sich neuer Dingen in Servien erzeigenden Blut-Saugern oder Vampyrs by W.S.G.E., I took at closer look, and found that it is written by Nicolaus Equiamicus, known from his books and blog.

Visiting his blog for the first time in a while, I notice that he has announced the publication of the book on vampires that he has been working on for some time, and it will be out later this year:

'Auf das Erscheinen meines nächsten Buches "Vampire - von damals bis(s) heute" (voraussichtlich im November 2010) freue ich mich schon sehr, steckt doch sprichwörtlich viel "Herzblut" in dieser Essenz meiner jahrelangen Beschäftigung mit der hoch interessanten Vampirthematik. Ich hoffe, dass ich mein Ziel, einen umfassenden lehrreichen, aber auch unterhaltsame Überblick über den Vampir in Geschichte und Gegenwart zu verfassen, erreicht habe. Auf Wunsch des Verlages habe ich nachträglich auch noch einige Kapitel zur Entwicklung der Vampirliteratur und des Vampirfilms hinzugefügt, die hoffentlich eine Bereicherung und Abrundung darstellen :-)'

The crypt of Javier Arries

Nicolaus Equiamicus has kindly made me aware of this Spanish web site about vampires by Javier Arries, author of a 2007 book about vampires. It is, however, all in Spanish, but there are some nice and interesting illustrations worth taking a look at. The book even has its own Facebook group.

Interviews

December is always a busy month, so I have found little time for posting, alas, even very little time for the subject of magia posthuma itself. Anyway, here you will find an interview (in German) with Nicolaus Equiamicus about his books and work. The interview even reveals a couple of facts about the person behind the pseudonym :-) Furthermore, I myself was interviewed for a major Danish newspaper the other day, so a few words on the history of vampires will hopefully find their way to an article that otherwise concentrates on cinematic vampires. On a smaller scale, I recently helped out a youngster on the other side of the globe with an interview on vampires for a school project...

Nicolaus and Nicolas

Nicolaus Equiamicus has been a bit quiet lately, but it's probably because he's been working on another one of his books. He's just announced that next year a new edition of Nicolas Rémy's famous Daemonolatria is published by Ubooks. The above links are in German, but here is the English Wikipedia entry on Remy.

Medvedja sources

He's been at it again, fellow blogger Nicolaus Equiamicus, this time compiling a number of sources on the Medvedja vampire case on his blog!

Online text on Ranft's Traktat

Fellow blogger Nicolaus Equiamicus again refers to interesting material on vampires. This time it's a text by Bettina Meister on Michael Ranft's Traktat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern. Meister reviews the contents of the book and adds some comments on it. She says:

'Die große Leistung von Ranft besteht meiner Ansicht nach darin, sich in einer theologischen Welt im Umbruch mit philosophischen und intellektuellen Methoden der grassierenden Angst der Menschen vor dem Vampirismus genähert zu haben und Antworten zu bieten, die sich von Spekulationen und mystischen Annahmen entfernen.' (Ranft's great achievement in my opinion is that he in a theological world in upheaval has approached men's raging fear of vampirism with philosophical and intelluctal methods and has offered answers that are removed from speculation and mystical assumptions).

The article is published in an online magazine called Zauberspiegel.

More from Equiamicus

Fellow blogger Equiamicus keeps offering new posts on 18th century sources on his blog and web site, so I don't think I need to do more than just recommend frequent visits to his blog (or better still, subscribing to feeds from it).

W.S.G.E.

Nicolaus Equiamicus has added yet another source to his collection of contemporary texts on the 18th century vampires: an excerpt from Kurioser und sehr wunderbarer Bericht, von denen sich neuerdings in Serbien zeigenden Blutsaugern oder Vampiren (d. i. Curieuse und sehr wunderbare Relation von denen sich neuer Dingen in Servien erzeigenden Blut-Saugern oder Vampyrs),aus authentischen Nachrichten und mit philosophischen Erwägungen begleitet by W. S. G. E., originally published in 1732. Like the title of the book, the German text has been modernized to make it more easy to read and understand for the modern reader.

Hermsdorf

Nicolaus Equiamicus keeps coming up with new source material. This time it's a 1755 newspaper article from the Berlinische Priviligirte Zeitung on the vampire case from Hermsdorf in Silesia.

A forgotten vampire case

I have been a bit quiet here lately, as I have been busy doing other things. But now I finally get around to mentioning that Nicolaus Equiamicus recently posted a forgotten vampire case from 1725, i.e. the same year as the Kisiljevo vampire case.

In early April of 1725 Johannes Ràcz de Mehàdia who was in charge of a district in Hungary, exhumed and examined the corpse of a dead person who while alive had been suspected of being a sorcerer. He found the corpse uncorrupted and with blood under its head. As the body had been buried for three months, he concluded that it must be that of a blood sucker (Bluthsauger). With the permission the Imperial Oberinspektor, Baron von Rebenstich, he dealt with the body in the accustomed manner, probably as is well known from the other vampire cases.

Quotes from the sources can be found via the above link.

The Leipzig Vampire Debate

Returning from a visit to the reading room where I studied contemporary reviews of a couple of books on vampires from the 1730s, I find that Nicolaus Equiamicus has posted a text on the Leipzig vampire debate, which also includes a bibliography of books of note from that debate. As usual, it is only available in German.

Otto von Graben zum Stein

Nicolaus Equiamicus has been in search of information concerning a 1732 book on vampires that is mentioned in many bibliographies, but without luck. However, his search for Otto, Grafens zum Stein unverlohrnes Licht und Recht derer Todten unter den Lebendigen, oder gründlicher Beweis der Erscheinung der Todten unter den Lebendigen, und was jene vor ein Recht in der obern Welt über diese noch haben können, untersucht in Ereignung der vorfallenden Vampyren, oder so genannten Blut = Saugern im Königreich Servien und andern Orten in diesen und vorigen Zeiten has now resulted in an interesting piece in his blog, Dunkle Kulturgeschichte.

Here, Equiamicus outlines some of the information about Otto von Graben zum Stein that he has found. The Royal Prussian court prohibited the publication of his books in 1731, and that's why his book on vampires probably never got printed. At least, Equiamicus has been unable to find a copy. But there is still the possibility that the manuscript survives, and our fellow blogger seems determined to find it, so we wish him good luck!

In any case, more information on that curious fellow Otto von Graben zum Stein is welcome. I have actually mentioned him in one of my older posts, and Equiamicus informs us that there is now a German Wikipedia entry about Otto von Graben zum Stein.

Die Geisterwelt

Nicolaus Equiamicus has kindly recommended both this blog and Rob Brautigam's Shroudeater web site. Another book edited by Equiamicus has just been published, Die Geisterwelt. Apparently, a book originally published around the middle of the 18th Century, it deals with witches, werewolves, vampires, fairies and much more. More information is available at the blog of Equiamicus.

Dark cultural history

The person who uses the pseudonyms Nicolaus Equiamicus and Abraham Silberschmidt as editor and translator of recent editions of Ranft, Calmet, and other 18th Century authors of books on vampires, has launched a web site and blog, both titled Dunkle Kulturgeschichte, Dark cultural history, focusing on what's true, false and strange about witches, vampires, demonology and more!

Speaking of blogs and the darker sides of cultural history, some of you may find the engravings concerning the Ars moriendi on this blog interesting.