The Slovaks and Gypsies of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Vampires in Human Flesh

• Published in: English literature in transition, 1880-1920 Vol. 58; no. 4; pp. 523 - 535
• Main Author: Tchaprazov, Stoyan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Greensboro ELT Press 01.01.2015
• Subjects: 19th century; Fear & phobias; Imperialism; Romani people; Said, Edward; Stoker, Bram (1847-1912); Vampires; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 0013-8339; 1559-2715

To Stoker, the Slovaks and Gypsies, as well as their native land, Transylvania, are unconditionally available for literary exploitation, for feeding his text's largely xenophobic and imperialist ambitions: to preserve the "purity" of British identity and culture constantly threatened by external (from the colonies) and internal (within Britain itself) foreign elements, as well as to propagate British cultural norms and geopolitical interests. Since Stoker never went to Transylvania, most of his information about its diverse population came from nineteenth-century travel narratives that were mainly written by British officials who had spent time in the area, such as soldiers, administrators, or members of their families.7 Stoker's image of the Slovaks is almost surely taken from Major E. C. Johnson's On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from the Piraeus to Pesth (1885). According to Leatherdale, the Gypsies figure in three of the sources listed in Stoker's research notes for Dracula: Johnson's On the Track of the Crescent (1885), William Wilkinson's An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Related to Them (1820), and Gerard's "Transylvanian Superstitions" (1885). Harker also insists on specifying that his knowledge of the Transylvanian Szgany16 is based on research he conducted back home in the British Museum. Because of their exclusively British origin, Harker's notes from home must be read as a trustworthy, accurate source, which consequently allows him to magnify the scope of his claim-to make generalizations not only about the Gypsies in Transylvania, but about all the Gypsies in the world.17 After this short introduction, like the Slovaks the Gypsies disappear from the text until its final chapters, when they come back to escort the Count's box back to his Transylvanian castle. [...]no less important, as the only Slavs in Transylvania's diverse racial makeup, the Slovaks offer what other ethnic groups in this region otherwise virtually unknown to the Britons cannot: a familiar threat.