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11 Brumaire CCXIII (November 1, 2004)

(Linkage) Bush, Kerry, and… Vlad the Impaler?

Some days truth really is stranger than fiction; so I can thank Dmitrii for sending me this link that shows the relationship between George W. Bush, John Kerry, and the "Son of the Dragon" himself, Vlad Ţepeş (aka Vlad the Impaler, but better known as Vlad III Dracula).

There are, however, several errors that I can immediately spot.  The first being that the main tree page identifies Vlad III as Vlad the Monk, a title that doesn't belong to him, but rather to his brother, Vlad Călugărul. The second is that the page linking Vlad to the House of Windsor lists Vlad II Dracul as "Vlad II, Dracul the Dragon"; in other words: Vlad II, the Dragon the Dragon. Basically, nothing terribly major (at least, nothing a couple of lists of Romanian rulers won't help you sort out), but errors nonetheless.  I also can't find where they came up with Mircea Ciobanul (Mircea the Shepherd) being Mircea III, as he was at least the 4th Mircea to become Prince of Wallachia. (The others before him being:

  • Mircea cel Băn (Mircea the old), father of Vlad II Dracul
  • Mircea, son of Vlad II Dracul and brother of Vlad III Dracula
  • Around 1488 a Mircea was Prince of Wallachia whom I can't quite identify. Vlad III Dracula's brother was murdered in 1447, according to all accounts, yet the Romanian site claims that this Mircea was him.  It's unlikely to be the grandson of Vlad III Dracula, as his son, Mihnea cel Rau (Mihnea the Evil), hadn't even come to power yet; likewise with Mircea Ciobanul's father, Radu cel Mare (Radu the Great).
  • Mircea, son of Mihnea cel Rau and grandson of Vlad III Dracula.)
Radu cel Mare is, however, the fourth Radu, so that part is right.

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Addendum:  Interestingly enough (or, at least, interesting to me), while the title Voivode Vlad (also found on the House of Windsor page) is technically correct, it's much like saying 'King George' without specifying which George you're talking about.  (Voivode was the title given to the ruler of various provinces, including Wallachia. Therefore Vlad Dracul, Vlad the Monk, Radu the Great, and Mircea the Shepherd should all also have the title Voivode attatched their names.)

On an unrelated note: I finally upgraded to MT3 over the weekend, a change brought about by the recent lack of updates to the MT master blacklist (which MT-Blacklist 2.x relies on to a lesser extent than MT-Blacklist 1.x) and due to the fact that a free 5 User Commercial license (normal cost: $199.95USD) is available to anyone who signs up for the Six Apart Professional Network.  I haven't spotted any problems yet, but I also haven't tested all of my plugins.  Any problems anyone encounters should obviously be reported to me.

Posted by g026r at 12:03
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