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Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania 'Place Myth'

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 IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHIES, DRACULA AND THE TRANSYLVANIA
‘PLACE MYTH’

DUNCAN LIGHT
Department of Geography, Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD United Kingdom
e-mail: [email protected]

Imaginative geographies have become a central concept in Anglo-American cultural geography in

recent years. We all form knowledge, ideas and beliefs in our minds about what other places are ‘like’.
In some cases these ideas may so strong that a distinct place ‘myth’ develops. In this paper I focus on
the Western place myth of Transylvania. In the Western imagination this region has come to be
constructed as a remote, backward, sinister place on the very edge of Europe, where vampires and the
supernatural reign unchecked. I examine the historical development of this place myth in the West with
particular reference to the role of popular culture in reproducing and circulating this myth on a global
scale. I also seek to situate this place myth in its broader historical, political and social contexts.

Key words: Imaginative Geographies, Place myth, Transylvania, Romania, Dracula

Introduction geography is about more than the visible, material

world. Of perhaps equal importance are the
Geography is a subject that has long been firmly geographies that exist in our heads. We all have
grounded in the material world. It has a reputation knowledge about what other places, landscapes and
for focussing on what is visible and tangible – the environments are ‘like’ even though we have no
‘real’ world. We study landscapes that we can see, direct first-hand experience of them. It may be
touch, smell, walk over – and, if necessary, tempting to dismiss such ‘mental geographies’ as
measure. Geographers are known as people who trivial and insignificant. However there has long
engage with the world, rather than distancing been recognition that the way we think or ‘feel’
themselves from it (Driver 2005). To investigate about other places is a big influence on our behavior
places and landscapes we need to get ‘out there’ and in the material world. The most obvious illustration
experience them for ourselves. It is for this reason is tourism. The whole act of holiday-making is
that geographers regard fieldwork as so important to about travel to a place that we have not previously
the teaching of Geography. We want our students to been to. It is underpinned by mental ideas or
see for themselves the places, landscapes and pictures of the destination held by tourists. When
environments that we teach them about. And our tourists believe that a destination offers them
students frequently take it for granted that interest, excitement or relaxation they will choose to
geographical ‘knowledge’ is confined to an make a visit to that destination. On the other hand,
observable ‘real’ world: material places and tourists will shun places believed to be uninteresting
landscapes. (or even dangerous).
However, within Anglo-American human Within Anglo-American human geography such
geography there has long been a recognition that mental ideas or pictures about other places and
Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 7

landscapes are known as ‘imaginative geographies’ they have already visited New Zealand; to date, not
(after Said 1995). At this stage it is important to a single student has done so. This demonstrates the
clarify what is meant by ‘imaginative’. In everyday way in which young people in the United Kingdom
usage the term ‘imagination’ is frequently are forming pictures in their minds about what New
associated with creativity, particularly artistic Zealand is ‘like’ and that these pictures are
creativity (Driver 2005). For example, we might talk predominantly positive and favourable.
about a particular writer as having a powerful
imagination. However the word also has other When considering imaginative geographies it is

meanings. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines important to recognise that such mental geographies

imagination as “a mental faculty forming images or are as much collective as they are individual – as the

concepts of external objects not present to the New Zealand example above clearly demonstrates.

senses”. This refers to the ability of the human mind An acknowledgement of the collective nature of

to form mental ideas about objects, events, people – imaginative geographies is an important difference

and places - that we have not experienced directly. from earlier attempts to investigate geographies of

Similarly, the term ‘imaginative’ refers to the ability the mind such as behavioural geography, which

to use the imagination in this way – which is focused on individual mental images or maps (Gold

essential in enabling us to understand the world 1980, Walmsley and Lewis 1984). While people

(Light and Dumbrăveanu 2004). clearly do form ideas and images about other places
on an individual basis, this process is also situated

The study of imaginative geographies focuses on within a broader political, economic, social and

the ways that we form geographical knowledge cultural context and it was the failure to take

about places, whether these are within our own account of these broader influences that was one of

country or in other parts of the world. On one hand the major criticisms of behavioural geography.

we all gain knowledge about some places through

Central to the study of imaginative geographies is
direct personal experience (for example, by growing
the importance of ‘representation’ – defined as “the
up there or visiting for a holiday). However, we also
cultural practices and forms by which human
gain a vast amount of knowledge about places that
societies interpret and portray the world around
we have not been to and experienced for ourselves. I
them” (Cloke et al 2005: 610). Places are
can illustrate this with a simple example from my
represented in a huge variety of ways – from novels,
first year teaching. For the past 10 years I have
newspapers, magazines, films, television programmes
given students a list of countries and asked them to
and tourist brochures to name just a few.
choose the one they would most like to visit on a Experiencing (or consuming) such representations is
holiday. The actual list varies from year to year but crucial for the way in which we construct mental
the one constant is New Zealand. And every year, pictures of other places. Moreover, many of these
regardless of what other countries are on the list, the representations are transmitted through ‘popular’ (or
most popular choice (of around two-thirds of the everyday) culture. Such representations of places are
group) is New Zealand. Then I ask these students if frequently ‘embedded’ in other media that are
8 Duncan LIGHT

intended for entertainment (such as films or novels). In this paper I focus on one place myth that has

As a result we may absorb information about places developed an extraordinary resonance within the
without being aware that we are doing so and Western world: the place myth of Transylvania. In
without reflecting on the representations that we particular I consider what Transylvania has come to
have experienced. However, representations of symbolise or represent in the Western imagination.
places are always selective and partial: no place can My approach is interdisciplinary and I use
be represented in its entirety. As a result we may perspectives from cultural geography, literary
construct imaginative geographies of other places criticism and cultural studies to examine the
that are incomplete, inaccurate, exaggerated or historical development of this place myth from the
based on clichés or stereotypes (Shields 1991). The late nineteenth century onwards. I pay particular
ideas and pictures that we have in our minds about
attention to the role of Western popular culture in
other places may be vastly different from what that
circulating, propagating and reproducing a particular
place is ‘really’ like but if we do not have first hand
‘idea’ of Transylvania in the collective imagination.
experience of that place we are not in a position to
judge this.
The Early Development of the Transylvania
In some cases, the way in which we imagine other Place Myth
places may be vague, uncertain and poorly defined.
We may have only the most superficial impressions Up to the late nineteenth century Transylvania
was almost unknown in the West. There had been
about what that place is like. But in other cases we
occasional earlier references to the region in English
may develop very specific, clear and detailed
literature (Miller 1997, Andras 1999). For example,
imaginative geographies of that place. Moreover,
Transylvania is briefly mentioned in Shakespeare’s
there are certain places that acquire a strong
Pericles while, in Robert Browning’s poem The
reputation in the collective imagination. Such places
Pied Piper of Hamelin (1842), the children of
can be the focus of a powerful set of shared ideas,
Hamelin taken underground by the piper emerge in
beliefs, meanings and values and the place can come
Transylvania. During the second half of the
to represent or ‘stand for’ something more. Such a nineteenth century a number of travel narratives
collection of ideas has been termed a ‘place myth’ from Central/Eastern Europe were published, some
(Shields 1991; Urry 1995). The term myth in this of included Transylvania (for example, Boner 1865,
context refers to a form of belief (Johns and Clarke Crosse 1878, Johnson 1885). These universally
2001), in this case about the nature and character of portray the region as quaint (even slightly exotic)
a place. The key point about myths is that, whether but backward and undeveloped. If they had heard of
or not there is a factual basis for them, they are it at all, most people in the West knew Transylvania
believed to be true and these beliefs are ways of as just one part of the little-known and distant
interpreting and explaining reality. Thus, place Eastern periphery of Europe.
myths are enduring ideas about what a place is
However, towards the end of the nineteenth
‘like’, regardless of whether these ideas actually
century a particular place myth started to be
bear any relationship with that place in ‘reality’.
Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 9

attached to Transylvania: the region came to be untouched by Western rationality and science, so
associated with the supernatural and with beliefs that supernatural and mythical creatures that no
and practices that had all but disappeared from longer had any place in Western Europe were able
Western Europe. The first such portrayal was by to find safe refuge in Transylvania. Moreover,
Emily Gerard, a Scottish novelist who was married superstition, and fear of the supernatural are
to an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who was presented as an essential part of the fabric of
based in Transylvania. Gerard took a particular everyday life for rural Romanians. For a reader in
interest in Transylvanian customs and folklore and the West such an account would firmly construct
in 1885 she published an article in London entitled Transylvania as strange, ‘different’ and decidedly
‘Transylvania Superstitions’. She claimed: Other.

“Transylvania might well be termed the land A few years later, Transylvania was portrayed in a
of superstition, for nowhere else does this very similar way, this time in the French language.
curious crooked plant of delusion flourish as In 1893 Jules Verne published Le Château des
persistently and in such bewildering variety. It
Carpathes (The Castle of the Carpathians).
would almost seem as though the whole
Transylvania is repeatedly portrayed as being
species of demons, pixies, witches and
hobgoblins, driven from the rest of Europe by remote, backward and far removed from the
the want of science, had taken refuge within ‘civilisation’ of Western Europe. For example:
this mountain rampart, well aware that here
they would find secure lurking-places, “Civilisation is like air or water. Wherever
whence they might defy their persecutors yet there is a passage, be it only a fissure, it will
awhile” (1885: 130). penetrate and modify the conditions of a
country. But it must be admitted that no
Gerard followed her article with a book entitled
fissure has yet been found through this
The Land Beyond the Forest (1888) in which southern portion of the Carpathians” (p. 33).
Transylvania is linked for the first time with
vampires. She wrote: “Most decidedly evil is the Like Gerard, Verne portrayed the people of
nosferatu or vampire, in which every Roumanian Transylvania as superstitious and fearful of the
peasant believed as firmly as he does in heaven or supernatural. For example, Transylvania is
hell” (1888: 185). The source of her observation is described as one of the most superstitious countries
unclear since the word nosferatu does not exist in of Europe and as being “still much attached to the
Romanian (or any other language) and, in any case, superstitions of the early ages” (p. 1). Although
vampires are unknown in Transylvanian folklore. Verne had probably not read Gerard’s accounts the
similarity between them in the way that they situate
There are a number of significant elements of Transylvania in ‘another Europe’ is striking.
Gerard’s account of Transylvania. First the region is
presented as a remote and almost unknown place However, the most significant contribution to the
(the ‘land beyond the forest’) on the very edge of development of the Transylvania place myth was, of
Europe. It is also clearly portrayed as somewhere course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in 1897.
10 Duncan LIGHT

Stoker had never visited Transylvania and when he superstition in the world is gathered into the
started his novel in 1890 he probably knew next to horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre
nothing about the region. Indeed, his working notes of some sort of imaginative whirlpool” (Stoker
indicate that, following the established conventions 1997: 10). Later he is told: “It is the eve of St
of Gothic fiction, he had originally intended to George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when
locate Dracula in an area of Eastern Austria known the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the
as Styria (Leatherdale 1985). However, in the course world will have full sway?”. The population of
of writing the novel Stoker decided to move the Transylvania are represented as exotic, rustic but
action to Transylvania. He is known to have read essentially harmless: they are also “very, very
Gerard’s (1885) article about Transylvanian superstitious” (p. 312). Finally, even the physical
superstitions and given that he was writing a landscape of Transylvania is presented as being
vampire novel, it undoubtedly made sense to locate strange and demonic, a place that does not obey the
the action in a remote part of Europe where, normal laws of science:
according to Gerard, belief in vampires was
widespread. Stoker subsequently gained more “The very place, where ha have been alive,
Un-dead for all these centuries, is full of
information about Transylvania through reading
strangeness of the geologic and chemical
travellers’ accounts of the region (Miller 1997,
world. There are deep caverns and fissures
2000). that reach none know whither. There have
been volcanoes, some of whose openings still
In Dracula, Stoker painted a vivid picture of send out waters of strange properties, and
Transylvania. It is presented as a remote and sinister gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless,
place on the very margins of Europe. Thus, Jonathan there is something magnetic or electric in
Harker (the novel’s early narrator) describes the some of these combinations of occult forces
which work for physical life in strange way”
region as “one of the wildest and least known
(p. 278)
portions of Europe” (Stoker 1997: 10). Count
Dracula himself remarks: “We are in Transylvania; Bram Stoker was not describing Transylvania;
and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not instead he was effectively inventing it. His account
your ways, and there will be to you many strange of Transylvania owed more to his imagination than
things” (pp. 26-27). Transylvania is also portrayed to any first-hand experience of the region. His novel
as emphatically Eastern. On leaving Budapest was about a sinister, predatory vampire – Count
Harker notes: “The impression I had was that we Dracula – that terrorises his own land and is set on
were leaving the West and entering the East” (p. 9). expanding his ‘territory’ by invading England.
He later remarks: “It seems to me that the further Therefore Stoker needed a believable home for his
East you go the more unpunctual are the trains” (p. vampire. It had to be a sinister, terrifying place
11). Moreover, following Gerard, Stoker presents where the supernatural reigns supreme; a place that
Transylvania as a place ruled by the occult and the represented threat and menace. But Transylvania
supernatural. Harker notes: “I read that every known also had to be just recognisable enough to be
Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 11

European (Dracula himself is a Hungarian However, for all the self-confidence of late
aristocrat), but located far from the ‘civilised’ West. Victoria Britain, there was, paradoxically, also a
Transylvania suited Stoker’s purpose perfectly. The national mood of uncertainty, doubt and fear, which
very name Transylvania –‘ the land beyond the is expressed in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. At the end
forest’ – immediately evokes somewhere remote, of a century that had witnessed unprecedented
strange and timeless. Stoker could also take change, prosperity and imperial expansion some
advantage of the fact that hardly anybody in Victorians were “uneasily aware of the fragility of
Victorian England knew what or where their sophisticated civilization” (Auerbach and Skal
Transylvania was. In effect, Stoker appropriated 1997: x). Moreover, Britain at the end of the
Transylvania to suit his purposes. As such, Dracula nineteenth century was gripped by a perception of
is one example of Western Europe’s ‘imaginative political and economic decline (Arata 1990) and a
colonisation’ of South East Europe (Goldsworthy sense that its ‘greatness’ was now over. In this
1998: 2) to supply its literary and entertainment context Victorians were apprehensive that their
industry. ‘civilized’ country was vulnerable to attack and
invasion from ‘savage’ and ‘barbarian’ forces from

To understand better the significance of the outside Europe (Arata 1990; Andras 1999). Indeed,

Transylvania place myth we need to look at the this theme was so common in late Victorian

broader context in which Dracula was written. For a literature that Dracula appeared commonplace as an

start, the novel was published in Victorian Britain, a adventure story that pitted Englishmen against

country that was a major political and economic foreign monsters (Auerbach and Skal 1997). In the

power. As such, Stoker’s writing is infused with an British colonial imagination the closest source of

imperial and colonial geographical imagination (cf. ‘foreign’ invaders and ‘barbarians’ was to be found

Pile 2005) which places Britain firmly at the centre on the Eastern and Southern fringes of Europe. In

of the developed and ‘civilised’ world. As a result Dracula this British anguish about the ‘East’ is

there is a tendency to treat the more peripheral and projected onto Transylvania – a place that few

under-developed parts of Europe with a certain people in Britain knew of, but which they were

amount of imperial condescension (cf. Goldsworthy prepared to believe represented “an indistinct danger

1998). Thus readers of Dracula would have had which might menace Western civilization” (Andras

little difficulty in believing in the existence of 1999). It is perhaps for this reason that Wall

Transylvania as a backward and under-developed (1984:20) describes Transylvania as “Europe’s

periphery of Europe, stalked by vampires and other unconscious”.

supernatural creatures. Indeed, in the Victorian

While the representation of Transylvania in
imagination the belief in ‘barbarian’ places (such as
Dracula reveals much about specifically British
Transylvania) was a way of affirming Britain’s self-
attitudes and fears at the end of the nineteenth
appointed place at the pinnacle of Western
century it also expresses and articulates much
‘civilisation’ (cf. Said 1995).
broader Western ideas about the nature and
12 Duncan LIGHT

boundaries of Europe itself (Wolff 1994, Todorova buildings, transport, food and drink, clothing and
1997; Dittmer 2002/2003). In particular, since the religion – that it shares with the West of Europe.
seventeenth century, the West has treated Europe as But at the same time there is much about
being divided into two halves, West and East Transylvania that is ‘different’ from the West. This
(Wolff 1994). Western Europe has defined itself as is “a distinctly eastern portion of Europe where the
being the centre of the Modern world, characterised laws and customs of the West do not apply”
by civilisation, development, rationality and (Wasson 1966: 24). It is an area where the
progress. However, in the Western mind these population is mostly rural; where Western
qualities were thought to be absent or under- Modernity has barely penetrated, where local people
developed in the East of Europe which came to be are fearful and superstitious; and where the
viewed instead as a backward, static, under- supernatural reigns unchecked. In short Dracula
developed and less civilised periphery of Europe. presents Transylvania as sufficiently different from
Over time it came to be taken for granted in the the West to be menacing, sinister and dangerous. It
West that Europe was divided between a ‘civilised’ is an entirely plausible home for a monster intent on
West and a more primitive ‘East’. Hence, Eastern invading and colonising the civilised West.
Europe came to be constructed as the counterpart,
opposite or ‘Other’ of the West. It is somewhere that The Transylvania Place Myth in the Twentieth
the West often evokes as an ambiguous and and Twenty-First Centuries
transitional space, neither fully European nor fully
Asian (Dittmer 2002/2003). As Todorova (1997: Had Dracula enjoyed the same success as Bram
188) argues, this region is “geographically Stoker’s other novels it would have been all but
inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed unknown today. In such a case Transylvania would
as “the other” within”. For the West it is an be known not as an ominous place haunted by
unpredictable space, viewed with uncertainty and vampires and the supernatural but simply as a

suspicion. mountainous region of contemporary Romania.

Indeed, the word ‘Transylvania’ would probably be

Again, these ideas about the Eastern margins of as little known in the West as Wallachia, Ruthenia
or Slavonia. However, Dracula has enjoyed an
Europe are clearly expressed in Dracula. The novel
extraordinary popularity. It has been reprinted
presents Transylvania as identifiably part of Europe.
numerous times (and has never been out of print)
It was, after all, a part of the Austro-Hungarian
and has also been translated into more than 25 other
Empire when the novel was written. It is connected
languages. In addition, the novel has been adapted
to the rest of Europe through a modern (if slow) rail
for a range of other media including stage and
network. German – Europe’s language of trade
screen. As a result, Bram Stoker’s portrayal of
(Kittler 1989) – is widely spoken in Transylvania.
Transylvania has circulated among a global audience.
The region also has its own, recognisably European,
aristocracy (Dracula is, after all, a Count). And there Cinema has played a crucial role in the
are other features of Stoker’s Transylvania – reproduction and circulation of the Transylvania
Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 13

place myth. The first film based on Dracula was the Latin American market so that the myth of
F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, made in Germany in Transylvania also circulated in the Spanish-speaking
1922. The central character is Count Orlok (clearly world. Universal went on to make a number of
based on Count Dracula) a sinister, rat-like vampire. further films featuring Count Dracula during the
Orlok’s home is Transylvania, described in the film 1930s and 1940s.
as a land of ghosts and robbers, and represented
visually as a barren, mountainous wasteland. The Indeed, by the time of the Second World War
film was well regarded, but its circulation was Count Dracula had become a recognisable cinematic
limited: most copies were destroyed as a result of monster, a figure of both hate and fear. This was
legal action for infringement of copyright by Bram demonstrated by an American propaganda poster
Stoker’s widow. which showed the image of a German soldier onto
which had been added exposed canine teeth dripping
A far more influential film was Universal’s 1931 blood in the style of Dracula (Ronay 1972;
version of Dracula, directed by Tod Browning and Leatherdale 1985). In this interpretation Dracula
starring the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi. Described now represented the enemy of the West. Indeed,
as the most influential of all vampire films (Melton Count Dracula proved a highly adaptable enemy.
1999) this version of Dracula was a huge During the Cold War, Dracula came to symbolise
commercial success. It also popularised a defining the threat posed by Soviet Communism to the
image for Count Dracula as a suave but sinister capitalist, democratic West. Understood in this way,
European aristocrat with black cape, piercing eyes, Dracula represented “those forces in Eastern Europe
sleek black hair and a strong Eastern European which seek to overthrow, through violence and
accent (Skal 1990). The film was also notable for its subversion, the more progressive democratic
portrayal of Transylvania, where the first 17 minutes civilization of the West” (Wasson 1966: 24).
(of a total of 75) of the film are set. All the elements Dracula – like the Soviet Union – was an enemy to
of the Transylvania place myth are present: rugged, be feared and watched. Such an interpretation had
mist-shrouded mountains; Dracula’s sinister castle additional resonance in that Transylvania, part of the
on a mountain peak; and superstitious peasants Socialist Republic of Romania, was now situated
living in fear of vampires and supernatural forces. firmly behind the Iron Curtain, further adding to the
This portrayal of Transylvania also has a distinctly mystery and alterity of the region in the Western
Hungarian feel to it (perhaps as a result of Lugosi’s imagination.
influence). For example, the peasants in the Borgo
Pass are speaking Hungarian while the signs outside Meanwhile, the popularity of Dracula continued to
a local inn are written in Hungarian. Overall this increase throughout the post-War period. The
film played a key role in constructing Transylvania Dracula myth was reinvigorated by Hammer Studios
as a strange and distant land in the American in Britain which produced a collection of further
popular imagination. In addition, Universal made a Dracula films between 1958 and 1973. Christopher
parallel version of the film in Spanish, largely for Lee in the title role portrayed the Count as a
14 Duncan LIGHT

ferocious and menacing predator from Eastern 1995) as a broader vampire sub-culture emerged that
Europe. Further cinematic versions of Dracula were took its inspiration from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
made in America in 1973 and 1979. But Dracula Thus there was a big increase in vampire cinema,
films were not confined to the English-speaking while a new genre of vampire fiction emerged,
world. In the 1960s and 1970s films featuring inspired initially by Anne Rich’s Interview with a
Dracula were also produced in France, Germany, Vampire. Much of this new wave of vampire cinema
Italy, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Portugal, Spain and fiction eagerly adopted Stoker’s portrayal of
and Switzerland (Skal 1996). By now, Count Transylvania: the region continued to represent a
Dracula was an internationally known cinematic convenient (and seemingly natural) home for
villain, with the result that the Transylvania place vampires and other supernatural creatures. Indeed,
myth continued to gain momentum and extend its by this time Transylvania had become inseparable
circulation. from vampires, Gothic horror and the supernatural
in the Western imagination. This is apparent in the
Public interest in Dracula received an additional following quote from a book published in America
stimulus with the publication in America of a book for Dracula enthusiasts:
entitled In Search of Dracula (McNally and
Florescu 1972). The authors claimed that there was “What other land calls up such mystical
a factual basis for Count Dracula. They argued that, visions of shrouded, misty forests; of driverless
coaches pounding up treacherous, uncharted
in writing Dracula, Bram Stoker had unearthed the
trails to hidden castles; of black-cloaked
life and deeds of Vlad Ţepes and had used the
figures stalking across moonlit cemeteries in
voievode as the inspiration for his vampire. In the chill of night?… Transylvania lies in that
Search of Dracula is unequivocal in presenting Vlad “twilight zone” of the mind – a place that just
Ţepeş as a tyrant and psychopath. For good measure might exist” (Brokaw 1976: 12-13).
it also claimed that vampires were an integral part of
Transylvanian folklore: indeed, after Stoker’s novel Such was the mystery, allure and appeal of
itself, In Search of Dracula has probably played the Transylvania that, from the late 1960s onwards,
decisive role in constructing Transylvania as a land Western tourists travelled to Romania in increasing
of vampires in the Western (especially American) numbers on their own searches for Dracula,
popular imagination. The book has subsequently vampires and the supernatural in Transylvania
been the subject of a vigorous critique (Miller 1997, (Light 2007). Given that vampires are unknown in
2000) which has challenged many of its claims and Transylvanian folklore and that socialist Romania
conclusions. Nevertheless, in the early 1970s In had little inclination to cater for Western visitors in
Search of Dracula successfully caught the public search of the supernatural, many of these tourists
mood in America seeming to confer an additional must have returned home disappointed.
authenticity and legitimacy on Count Dracula. Nevertheless, such were the expectations of

Indeed, during the 1970s vampires were at the Transylvania that Western tourists were able to

height of their popularity in America (Auerbach make it into what they wanted it to be. The best
Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 15

example is the transformation of Bran Castle into contributing to its continued resonance in the
“Dracula’s Castle”. Although the building has no Western imagination.
connection with either Stoker’s fictional vampire or
By the late twentieth century Transylvania had
with Vlad Ţepeş, Western tourists projected all their
become virtually synonymous with vampires and
expectations of Transylvania onto it. In this sense,
the supernatural. However, such was Transylvania’s
renaming Bran as “Dracula’s Castle” was an act of
reputation that the region became a form of generic
appropriation by those visitors who wanted (or
home for everything that was strange or wonderful
needed) to encounter Dracula in some form during a
within Western popular culture. As Skal (1996: 194)
visit to Transylvania (ibid).
dryly observes Transylvania has become “a pop
Indeed, tourism has been another medium for culture dumping ground for just about every
through which the Transylvania place myth has monster under the sun – not just vampires, but just
been reproduced. Romania’s tourist planners have as frequently Frankensteins, mummies, werewolves”.
consistently been reluctant to exploit the The best recent illustration is the 2004 film Van
Transylvania place myth in order to promote Helsing (directed by Stephen Sommers) in which
tourism in Romania and create a recognisable brand Transylvania is home not only to Count Dracula, but
for the country. However, Western holiday also Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man and
operators have had few such reservations. Instead, various werewolves. In the Western imagination,
they have been eager to exploit Western myths of Transylvania has become a recognisable and
Transylvania as means of selling holiday packages plausible home for every type of evil, predatory or
to Romania. Take, for example, this quote from a supernatural creature that can be imagined.
British holiday brochure:

Conclusion
“Transylvania! The very word conjures up
romantic images of a mysterious land where
Geography does not deal only with the physical,
myths and legends are closely woven into the
fabric of everyday life. Wooded forests line material world. We also have extensive
the slopes of the Carpathians mountains – geographical knowledge in our heads - in the forms
home, rumour, has it, to werewolves and of ideas, beliefs and stereotypes about what other
vampires. Towering castles with fairytale
places are ‘like’. Within the Anglo-American
turrets grace the skyline…And is Count
geographical tradition such knowledge is known as
Dracula man or myth – we’ll let you decide”.
(Shearings Holidays 2001: 127) ‘imaginative geographies’. Such mental geographies
are individual constructions but they are also formed
The description of Transylvania in this way collectively within a particular political, economic
mobilises the existing place myth as means of and social context. Thus, we form collective ideas
selling holidays to those tourists who are attracted to about the nature of places that most of us have not
this idea of Transylvania. But at the same time it is been to. In some cases these ideas are so powerful
reproducing and reinforcing this idea or myth and and clearly-defined that they can be identified as
16 Duncan LIGHT

constituting a ‘place myth’: a set of beliefs about a different groups of people. As such, a place may be
place that may not have any correspondence with the focus of multiple place myths. For example,
what that place is like in ‘reality’, but which Romanians do not identify at all with the Western
nevertheless have a wider meaning and significance place myth of Transylvania. For them, Transylvania
in the collective imagination. means something entirely different: it is a place that
is the cradle of their political and cultural identity.
In this paper I have examined the place-myth of And, of course, the Hungarian place myth of
Transylvania in the Western popular imagination Transylvania will be completely different from the
and I have paid particular attention to the role of Western and Romanian versions.
popular culture in creating, circulating and
reproducing this myth. A decisive role was played This exploration of the Transylvania place myth
by one late nineteenth century novel, Dracula. Bram also illustrates how imaginative geographies are
Stoker’s portrayal of Transylvania was almost linked to wider issues of power and inequality. It
entirely an imaginative construct but nevertheless it goes without saying that Romanians vigorously
connected with deep-rooted apprehensions in fin de reject the Western place myth of Transylvania and
siècle Britain about national decline and fear of the do not accept that the region is the home of
‘East’. For readers of Dracula, Transylvania was a vampires and the supernatural. Moreover, since
place that they could believe in: a mysterious and 1989 Romania has been striving to remake itself as
menacing Eastern realm that was home to a modern, democratic, developed European country
supernatural creatures and practices that had and to present itself to the EU in these terms. Yet
disappeared from Western Europe. This myth of this project is frustrated by Western imaginative
Transylvania was eagerly exploited by cinema, geographies of Transylvania – and Romania more
which was instrumental in introducing it to a global generally – as a backward, undeveloped and sinister
audience. And with the rise of a much broader place that menaces the West. Clearly, Romania is
vampire and horror sub-culture within Western not represented in the way that it would choose to
societies Transylvania has been appropriated as a represent itself but instead in the way that the West
generic home of all that is strange, magical and chooses to represent it (cf Morgan and Pritchard
sinister. As Gelder (1994) notes, a real place has 1998). Yet, relatively speaking, Romania has less
been turned into a fantasy. Almost everybody in the cultural power than the West so that it has had little
West has heard of Transylvania but not all realise success (to date) in countering the Western
that it is a real place. portrayals of Transylvania. As such, Transylvania
can be identified as a site of cultural struggle
In this paper I have focused on just one place between Western representations of the region as the
myth of Transylvania: that which exists in the West. home of the strange and the supernatural and
However, places can be interpreted in many Romania’s efforts to define itself in its own way and
different ways and can mean different things to on its own terms.
 Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘place myth’ 17

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