Little in their history has given Romanians cause for celebration. They frequently suffered at the hands of a succession of invaders (invadatori) and have lived for long periods under foreign rule (stăpânire). About the year 1000 Transylvania was conquered by the King of Hungary and, except for a brief period (perioadă) in the sixteenth century, remained under Hungarian control (autoritate) until 1918. Moldovia and Wallachia were created in the 1400țs and both were ruled by Romanian princes (domnitori). The best known of these are remembered by the Romanians for their attempts to defend their domains against invaders from the north (nord) and south (sud) such as the Poles (polonezi) and Turks (turci). Stephen The Great (Ștefan Cel Mare), prince of Moldovia, defeated the Turks on several occasions and managed to keep Moldovia independent until his death (moarte) in 1504. In recognition of his exploits Stephen was called The Athlete of Christ by the Pope (papă).

The most celebrated or, rather, notorious ruler of Wallachia is Vlad Dracula the Impaler (Vlad Țepeș). Like his contemporary Stephen the Great, he fought against the Turks to keep Wallachia independent. Contemporaries wrote of his extreme cruelty towards prisoners, whom he punished by impaling them on wooden stakes. His notoriety led the nineteenth-century novelist Bram Stoker to borrow the name of Dracula for the principal charachter in his horror story of the same name.

Tags: dracula, Language Lesson, prince of wallachia, vlad tepes

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