Austria or Serbia?

Roxanne Hellman and Derek Hall's Vampire Legends and Myths published in a series of books about the supernatural in 2012 by Rosen Publishing is a very attractive book about vampires aimed at adolescent readers. It is attractive because of a variety of colour illustrations from a broad range of places and sources, a selection that reflects an unusual variety of topics, which however are somewhat marred by a lack of precision. E.g. Kisiljevo or Kisilova is described as 'an Austrian village' and the text is accompanied by a nice photo of what looks precisely like that: a village in Austria instead of a village in Serbia. At the same time, Peter Plogojowitz is clearly characterized as 'a Serbian peasant'. It is, however, still a joy to flick through the pages of this book to study a great number of photos from Romania and other places around the world.

Kisilova: 'an Austrian village'

The Morava river, and Kosovo, 'in the vicinity of which Arnold Paole was seemingly troubled by a vampire'

Voltaire and Empress Maria Theresa

'Gerard van Swieten, whose investigations put an end to vampire hysteria in Austria' (sic)

Bear's blood

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

Flea market finds

Yesterday I went to a local flea market and came back home with a book of manuscripts from Carl Th. Dreyer's Vampyr and three other of his movies, as well as a 1963 Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. All for the price of approximately 2 Euros.

Below I have scanned two maps from the latter book, and you can click on them to view them in more detail.

The first scan is of a map of Hungary after the wars with the Ottomans. At the bottom is the extent of occupied areas between 1717 and 1739, including the areas of Serbia of particular interest to this blog. The Southern border, cf. earlier posts like this, this, and this, is here shown a few kilometers south of the Zapadna Morava and Krusevac (Kruschewatz).

To the East in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) you find several places known from Stoker's Dracula, like Bistritz, and to the West is Steiermark (Styria) the scene of Le Fanu's Carmilla. Here is also Krain, the subject of Johann Weichard von Valvasor's Die Ehre des Hertzogthums Crain.

To the North West is Vienna and the Southern part of Mähren (Moravia). And North of Serbia Banat Temesvar, also the scene of some instances of vampirism in the 18th century. So there is really a lot of interesting locations and information shown in this map.

The second one is a map of Vienna ca. 1800. Much easier to take in than a map of modern day Vienna.

Medvedja and Medvedja

Although Google has provided us with good tools for geographical searches, my maps of Serbia and other parts of Europe are still an indispensable tool for searching for places mentioned in texts on magia posthuma and vampires.

In connection with my posts on Medvedja and Kukljin, I think it's worth mentioning that some people have looked for 'Medvegya' in another place in North Eastern Serbia. Namely the Medvedja located on the Resava river, North of Jagodina (shown on the right side of the map below).

However, in the Visum et Repertum the ashes of the bodies are thrown into the Morava river, and it is also said that Medvedja is on the border of Turkish area. The Zapadna Morava more or less marked the southern border between the part of Serbia occupied by Austrian forces, and the Ottomans. Furthermore, the proximity of Kukljin to that Medvedja in my opinion is further evidence that this must be the correct 'Medvegya'.

And this is not the only evidence, because if you go back and look at contemporary lists of haiduk villages in the occupied parts of Serbia, you can find both 'Medved' and 'Kuklin' mentioned in the 'Jagodinaer Distrikt' along with other village names from the same area. So I am quite convinced that my identification of Medvedja is correct.

An der Türckischen Granitz III

So how close was Medvedja actually to the "Granitz"? My own best source for material on the geography of Serbia as occupied by the Habsburgs is the old Serbien unter der kaiserlichen Regierung 1717-1739 by Langer published in Mittheilungen der K. K. Kriegs-Archivs Neue Folge III. Band in 1889. For some reason most of the books I have been able to get hold of concerning the "Militärgrenze" contain little material on the Serbian area, so for many purposes I have had to content myself with the information in Langer's paper. Fortunately, it is very interesting, and the appendices are very useful for establishing the whereabouts of the places mentioned in some of the old vampire related documents, including "Kisilova" and "Medved".

However, a map of the area can be found on German Wikipedia in an entry concerning the treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac). Below I have linked to the map, which is from a 1900 German historical atlas, and you will notice that in this map the Turkish border is drawn somewhat south of the Zapadna Morava river, where Medvedja is situated.


As a curiosity here is an extract from a ca. 1720 map of Serbia and the surrounding areas attributed to J. B. Homann which is currently for sale on ebay at the price of € 320.

Previous posts on the subject: Granitz I & Granitz II.

An der Türckischen Granitz II

Curiously, I stumbled upon this blog called Languagehat that quotes one of my posts for a discussion of the etymology of the German word "Grenze". It is in fact pretty interesting, so go and read it. Languagehat is interested in the location of Medvedja (Medveđa), and it should be pretty easy to find on a reasonably good map of Serbia, as it is located along the Zapadna Morava between Kraljevo and Kruševac, very close to Velika Drenova and Trstenik. Below is a map from Wikipedia of the area. There are two other places called Medvedja which are sometimes confused with the one relevant to the history of vampires!

An der Türkischen Granitz

I recently quoted Glaser’s letter to one of the editors of Commercii litterarii about a case of Magia Posthuma in a Serbian village. Obviously, this was the famous Medvegia vampire case of the winter 1731-32.

Many years ago I first read the official report about the Medvegia vampire case, Flückinger’s Visum et Repertum, in Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker’s classic German anthology Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern: Dichtungen und Dokumente (1st edition: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1968). The reprint of the report is based on a contemporary version from Nuremberg and carries the introductory text:

“Über die so genannten Vampirs, oder Blut-Aussauger, so zu Medvegia in Servien, an der Türkischen Granitz, den 7. Januarii 1732 geschehen.”

In fact, the same text can be found on p. 211ff in Michael Ranft’s famous Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern, Worin die wahre Beschaffenheit derer Hungarischen Vampyrs und Blut-Sauger gezeigt, Auch alle von dieser Materie bißher zum Vorschein gekommene Schrifften recensiret werden (Leipzig, 1734).

However, I never really understood that bit about “an der Türkischen Granitz”, but then I must admit that for many years I was uncertain about the location of the village Medvegia.

But when I noticed that Klaus Hamberger cites it as “an der türckischen Gräniz” in his anthology Mortuus non mordet: Kommentierte Dokumentation zum Vampirismus 1689-1791 (Turia & Kant, 1992; p. 49), it occurred to me that “Granitz” must either be a variant or possibly a misspelling of German “Grenze”, i.e. border. So Medvegia should have been located near the Turkish border.

In fact Medvegia (or actually, Medvedja or more correctly: Medveđa) is close to the river Zapadna Morava, into which the ashes of the supposed vampires were thrown, and this river was to my knowledge the border between the Northern part of Serbia occupied by the Habsburgs and the Southern part still under Ottoman rule during the years 1718 and 1739.

So “Granitz” has nothing to do with granite or whatever I might have wondered about years back, but just places this famous location of Magia Posthuma at the extreme periphery of the Austrian Habsburg Empire during the few decades when Northern Serbia was under their rule.

I will return to Medvedja and other places associated with Magia Posthuma in later posts.