Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Vampire Was Right

There is a great scene in the novel "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova where the famed vampire Dracula (Vlad III of Wallachia) is ruminating on the Fall of Constantinople which occurred today in 1453 (OS). He refers to it as the worst day in the history of the world. He was right.

P.S. I don't read a lot of fiction and horror is not my usual genre, but the novel really was pretty entertaining.

3 comments:

Steve said...

What I find particularly alarming about the sack of Constantinople is that a very large segment of the marauding army was in fact Christian, drawn from the Christian vassal states of the Ottoman Empire, and enthused by the prospect of armfuls of treasure that was theirs for the taking.

Heracleides said...

After half-a-millennium, I hardly think Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, qualifies as being occupied. If we focused more on spreading the gospel and less on futile attempts to reclaim past glories, we'd all be better off.

Visibilium said...

Contrary to popular belief, Vlad wasn't consigned to the realm of the Undead because of his cruelty, but because of his apostasy from Orthodoxy to Latinism.