lthough it can vary from culture to culture, the above given definition of a vampire is a nearly perfect one. The vampire, also referred to as the undead, can be seen in nearly every society since the beginning of history. The shapes of the habits may change in every local myth but the basic idea of returning from the dead and sucking blood can be traced in each individual story. However the main body of the myth is the blood that is sucked from the victim which has many anthropological explanations.

The first explanation of the vampire phenomena is the human ritual sacrifices which were extremely common in the pagan religions. The offering of the blood of the sacrificed person is usually considered to add new energy to the power of the deity the sacrifice was offered. The Irish Celts made sacrifices to Cromm, the Aztecs made offerings of human hearts to their idols. As it is well known, blood is considered as the main source of energy, usually referred to as "the life-force". The second explanation is directly related to blood sacrifice however, it concerns the consuming of the flesh of the victim. Cannibalism is also considered as a form of unification; the sacrificer thus, by eating the flesh absorbs the power of the victim, who is most commonly a captured enemy warrior, which means that he is a brave man. The third point in explaining the vampire legend is a fact of life which shows the tendency to become a supernatural element. The name "catalepsy" is used to explain the situation in which the presumed dead person who is actually in a comatose state wakes up in the coffin after the burial, which is a premature one, and tries to get out. Such noises of the struggle in the grave normally created a superstitious belief of the dead man trying to leave the grave to bring malice on the living people.

The popular belief in vampires is so widespread that it can be observed in every culture, from Indian to Latin America. from Chinese to Viking, however, the main source for today's popular vampire belief seems to have originated in Transylvania, the home of Vlad the Impaler. This mountain range is the place where Dracula takes place. There are two main reasons for the place to become the origin of these stories. The first one is that, the country is very thinly populated and the villagers are still, even today, very superstitious. The second one is, Transylvania is the country where VIad had reigned. The mixture of these two reasons are strengthened by various other tales like that of Countess Bathory who used to bathe in the blood of virgins to stay young forever, which reflects another kind of vampirism.

Vlad Tepes, the ruler of Carpatia is a historical figure who is very well known in Turkey for his atrocities against the Ottoman Turks. These conflicts are told by the count in the novel, his obsession to use long stakes to have prisoners impaled, earned him the infamous name "Vlad the Impaler" or "Kazıklı Voyvoda" in Turkish. He is famous for having the fezzes of the Ottoman ambassadors nailed on to their heads, also for having lunch in front of a thousand impaled and slowly dying prisoners. Although an incurable Turk hater. Vlad Tepes showed no mercy for the Rumanian peasants either. Dracula means "the son of the Devil' which is Dracul in Romanian. The coat of arms of the Dracula family is a dragon and it will not be far-fetched to relate the flying serpent. with the original one in the Garden of Eden, the Devil. He also became an inspiration Bram Stoker to write Dracula. Dracula was a real person unlike the fictional Golem, werewolf or Frankenstein and the places he lived or ruled like the Borgo Pass, Snagov, Tirgoviste where he watched the majority of the impalings or Visergrad where he was prisoned can be found on any map of Romania. This is the main reason for his immense effect on the public, also the transformation from the ruler to the evil bloodsucker can be explained easily. The main source is Bram Stoker's book but before that the tales of Vlad the Impaler travelled throughout Europe, spreading with the refugees and merchants, but his fame as a tyrant was overshadowed by the vampire figure. The majority today comprehend Dracula as the vampire not as Vlad Tepes, the Son of the Devil, the murderer of Turks.

Although Dracula is the most famous vampire story, it is neither the first nor the most interesting one. The history of the genre can be taken as far as Philostratus' The Life of Apollonius of Tyana in which the hero nearly marries a "lamia" the Greek vampire, but the first publicly recognized vampire story was written on the same night as Frankenstein. in Villa Diodati by the Lake Geneva by Doctor Polidori. It is called The Vampyre and it was attributed to Lord Byron first, however. Lord Byron wrote a completely different fragment of a novel that night which was not published until the end of the 19th century. The Vampyre was published in 1819 and carries the title of the first English vampire story. The following work became the first vampiric bestseller. Varney the Vampyre was written in 1845 by James Malcolm Rymer in one hundred and nine parts and continued for two years in the magazines and it was twice reprinted. By the time Sheridon Le Fanu's novel Carmilla was written in 1872, the vampire image was carved in the minds of the Gothic novel reading public. Dracula followed in 1897.

After the turn of the century, and with the tremendous effect of Dracula the vampire became a cult image and works on vampires came out by the dozens in every decade. This happened not only in Great Britain but also in the United States, in France and even in Russia where Gogol wrote Viy. One of the works that must be referred is F. Marion Crawford's story For the Blood Is the Life which was written in 1911. The very name of the story was taken from the original Dracula and "for the blood is the life" was said again and again by the Count's slave, Renfield. (Stoker 1971:108).

Blood is the energy to run the complicated machinery in human body, and also it is directly related to the condition of being undead. The undead situation, which is being neither dead nor alive is the situation of the fetus in the womb which can also be considered as undead. For both the fetus and the Vampire depend on the blood of another to survive; they both need the native soil to sleep in, the womb and the coffin both promising security. The child when born, is released from the limbo but the vampire's freedom is only death. This will to die is expressed by the Count as "Oh, how wonderful it must be to be really dead" (Stoker 1971: 87) so it is understood that the vampire is caught in a vicious circle, killing to live but longing to die, which is truly a sad situation.

The latest contribution to the genre is Anne Rice's The Vampire Trilogy. Together with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro who wrote The St. Germain Trilogy, Rice created a new type of vampire who was exactly the opposite of the earlier examples of the genre. Yarbro's Count Saint Germain and Rice's Lestat and other French oriented undead in the both trilogies are very handsome, chic, dashing and debonair in contrast to the ugly, blood-shot eyed, cold creatures.

Another interesting point about the new wave of the vampires is that they are Europeans, not of Slavonic origin like Dracula or Nosferatu. This shows a changing tendency in vampire literature. The vulgar. Uneducated or even barbaric vampire leaves his place to a well-read, theatre going and gentle creature. This change becomes very clear when Lestat meets the animal-like Romanian vampires of the old guard in Transylvania in Interview with the Vampire. The disgust a vampire feels towards his brethren is promising because the traditional vampire moves with the changes of the time and becomes more up-to-date.

There are two books on Dracula in Turkish. One was written by Alt Rıza Seyfi, Kazıklı Voyvoda, which is an adaptation of Dracula but instead of going to London, the Count comes to Istanbul. The other novel deals with the historical Dracula written by Turhan Tan and its title is Akından Akına. It is only normal for the Turkish people to be interested in the old enemy as an evil being. The extreme case of this interest is a film called Drakula İstanbul'da in which, as it can be understood from the name, Dracula comes to Istanbul and the original heroes like Jonathan Harker take Turkish names (Floresen 1973: 160).

However, even in the age of science fiction, vampires like those in The Space Vampires of Cohn Wilson, the basic differences that separate the undead from the mortals remain. The first and the most important deference is that the vampire is undead but not alive. He carries the coldness of a dead body and he is dead pale. He is scientifically dead. He generally sleeps in a coffin filled with homeland soil, which is nearly always Transylvanian. Every vampire provides his own homeland soil. Sunrays in some cases are fatal. This fact is true for the old type of vampires. In some recent novels like The Queen of the Dammed or The Vampire Lestat both by Anne Rice, the vampires can stand the light. The destruction brought by the light is disintegration into dust but such a destructino is not always the end because if blood is poured on the remains, the vampiric body will take its original form, so, to avoid this, the remains must be scattered into running water, for, running water is deadly for a vampire. It is also impossible for a vampire to cross a river.

The only reliable method to destroy the vampire is to put a stake through the heart, to cut the head and bury both separately. In some novels it is observed that garlic can also be put in the mouth. Garlic is one of he ways to keep a vampire away. The other instruments that can be used are the sign of the cross, holy water and occasionally a silver knife. All these ways can be used together to ward off the vampire or they can be used as seals to keep the vampire out of the premises. As in Dracula the popular belief is that the vampire ought to be invited into the house by one of the members of the house hold. The use of the cross in always discussed because of the possibilities of meeting a Jewish or a Moslem vampire, on which the cross will have no effect whatsoever because of religious beliefs*

Count Dracula has all the qualities of a classical nineteenth century vampire. When Jonathan Harker first sees him he senses an aura of evil around the Count although he welcomes Harker in a very warm and gentlemanly manner. This aura mainly originated from the looks of the Count;

* This subject is very much discussed in the Vampire Societies. In the clubs and in the occult circles however a proper explanation or an answer is not found yet.