How the Slovaks Helped Count Dracula: Stereotypes of the Late 19th Century

Bram Stoker’s iconic horror novel is heavily influenced by Central and Eastern European mythological pre-Christian stories about the undead, people undergoing lycanthropic metamorphoses, and vampires. However, the focus of this article is placed not on the interpretation of the Dracula phenomenon, but on a specific problem: the Slovaks (as an ethnic group) being presented as a sort of collective character in the novel. They are portrayed in a stereotypical manner as shepherds and rafters, one of several peoples who inhabit the Transylvanian region, and one whose reputation is not exactly spotless. It is clear that when Bram Stoker was creating the character of count Dracula, he used the information he had from the Hungarian orientalist Ármin Vambéry, who was a native of the multicultural Hungarian (now Slovak) town of Svätý Jur and studied in the other Slovak cities — Dunajská Streda and Bratislava. The study deals mainly with this Slovak, Slavic and Hungarian footprint in Stoker’s work.