WEBVTT - Part One: Nicolae Ceaușescu: The Dracula of Being A Dick 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:05.440 Welcome to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:09.399 people in all of history and also at the same 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:14.120 time a podcast where I explore my Boston accent and 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.079 see how much better I can make it, and and 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.360 and to help me, today we have professional Boston coach 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.520 Jeff May. Jeff, welcome to the program. Hey, their kid, 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:31.080 what's going on? Wow? Incredible? Of course? Yeah, yeah, I 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.400 I prefer I prefer to do my accent a little 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:35.120 bit more authentic. Let me let me run this one 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:41.519 by a Jeff boy croiy Aim from Boston. That's more 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:47.680 of a North Shore accent, like yeah, yeah, no, that 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.239 that's that's very much. If you were to go up 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:51.800 to like, you know, like Malden or something like, really 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.680 get up there, Um, that's where you have so regional 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.640 dialect is wild out there? Critical question, Brock part of 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:05.800 Boston or not? Yeah? Of course, I mean, all right, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.520 that's great. So that you're on Jamie. You're on Jamie's 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:10.440 side of this. How much is she paying you? But 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:18.399 let me Jamie. But here's the thing is that I 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:21.280 lived three thousand miles away from my hometown, right, so 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.600 if where I am now when people ask where I'm 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.000 from I tell them Boston. In reality, I'm from a 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:31.720 small farming hamlet in central Massachusetts called Charlton, regionally related 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.160 to Worcester, Massachusetts. So it's hard for me when people 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.440 are like, Jeff's from Boston and I'm like yeah, And 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.560 then when someone presses me a little bit, I'm like, Okay, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.319 not really though, um, but I've always counted. I mean 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.880 because Brockton. Brockton is like the sort of heart of 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.640 fighting in Boston, which is something that I did. Makes sense, 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.600 that makes sense, So I relate that and often once 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.560 and I did want to fight somebody. Everyone would have 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.320 fought you there, jeffs a Boston accent was so much 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.480 better than yours. Robert, I'm sorry. His was really strong. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.120 It was strong. It wasn't regionalized well, but it was strong. 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:12.280 Yours was very marky Mark MACKI Mack freaking Walberg. You 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.840 should do an episode on him. The only people that 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.840 like the Walberg with the people that are related to 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.720 the Walburg. Have you ever eaten at a wall Burgers? 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.680 I would rather fucking die. Is that a real place? 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.200 I don't want to be mean, but it is the 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.200 worst burger I've ever had in my life. Well, so 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.880 you know, I think Mark Wahlberg getting a burger chain 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.960 is evidence of one of the many crimes of capitalism. 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:44.760 And you know who hated capitalism, Donnie Wallburg. That might 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:49.000 be true, but also the subject of today's episode, Nikolai 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.800 Chauchco Dictator of Romania. We just start doing an entire 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.480 thing about the wall Berg family and never get to 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:57.800 the actual topic. That wouldn't put that could do it, 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.279 I could do, I could do an hour I related bastards. 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.880 I mean, we are talking about one corrupt family and 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.480 another corrupt family. So the chow Chesscus and the Wallbergs. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.880 Who's who has caused more death and destruction? So Robert, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.880 I need you to say, welcome to and you're ready 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:26.120 for go behind the Bastards. Welcome to Behind the Bastards. No, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.440 that's not it. That was you nailed it. Thank you, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.639 Thank you. Jeff. I gotta be like I thought that 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.360 you had just replayed what I said back to me. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.960 I've been practicing my mimicry, like whatever kind of bird 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:45.760 mimics things. You're like, yeah, yeah, something like that. Jeff, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.920 what do you know about nikolaicha chessco I try to 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.680 not know as much as I can about Romanian people. 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.440 I know that he was a lot of Nylon sweatsuits. Uh, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.320 he had a lot of cologne on. Yeah. I mean, 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.600 look if you want, because Romania is kind of like 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.560 edge of the Balkans, right, sometimes it's considered part of 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.240 the Balkans. Some people be like, na, Eastern Europe is 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.760 not really in the whatever, This is not the place 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.479 to litigate that. But what you can say, what I 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.039 can say about Romanians, which I can also say about 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.720 Serbians and Bosnians and um Um a number of other 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.000 people in that area, is that their track suit game 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:32.520 is incredibly strong, unbelievable. It's like they're like, yeah, it's amazing. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.240 If you want to if you've gotten a good Adida's 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.359 track suit in that part of the world, you're basically 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:42.080 a king. Um just squatting and smoking cigarettes. It rules. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.960 Romania is an interesting country, um and Nikolai Chauchesco is 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.080 interesting because you know, we've got all these like communist 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.080 dictators like Stalin Um who There are a lot of 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.680 folks today, particularly on the Internet, who will defend these guys. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.400 A lot of like weird authoritarian communists who who have 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.640 never met a dictator they don't like. And one of 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.599 the things that's interesting about our subject today, Cchessco, is 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.400 that he is the one that no one will defend. 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:11.280 I mean, I'm sure you can find a couple of 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.839 Cichessco stands out there, but they're almost nobody will back 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.320 this guy up because he sucked so comprehensively. It's funny. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.080 It's funny when, yeah, when you look at the old 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.120 Soviet Block and you look at like some of the 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.680 dictators they had, and you look at the old the 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.400 like the older people that lived through it, and like, well, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.000 you know, sometimes you have to make hard decisions and 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.440 it's like hard got killed like a hundred thousand people, 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.440 and like, well, you know, the ruling is difficult. Uh. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.720 It is very interesting to see the apologists of like 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.000 the really terrible people in in Russia. They're just like 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:50.159 sometimes you set I like. What I do like is 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.360 that he his fate was sealed on I believe if 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.479 I recall correctly, yes, Christmas, Yeah, he was. Him being 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.760 murdered was a Christmas present for the whole Romanian and 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:02.960 really the world. But we're getting ahead of ourselves a 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.480 little bit. So we're gonna talk about Nikolai Cichescu, but 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:08.760 we're also going to have to talk about Romania and 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.240 give some history because I don't think most Americans know 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.919 a lot about Romania. Um it's a part of the 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.080 world that you know. It's interesting because, like, there was 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.160 a period of time where Cichesco was kind of like 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:28.240 the good communist. He was very close friends with Richard Nixon. Um. 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.320 He was spoken up positively by by Ronald Reagan. It's amazing. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.680 He's like a scholarist who Nixon loved, and Reagan was like, 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.080 he's a good guy. It's wild stuff. Those are two 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:44.920 people whose endorsements I could go without. Yeah yeah, um so, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.360 But before we get into how he came to power 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:49.120 and what he did, we're gonna have to talk a 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.479 little bit of history because there's some there's some context 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.040 that is important if you're going to understand how would 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.000 guy like what do you know that he was when 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:03.000 he was younger? He was extremely hot that we can discuss. Sophie. Um. 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.839 I I definitely don't see that because he looks like 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:12.120 a muppet as he gets older, like up, yeah, yeah, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.200 it's the land of the muppets. UM. Well, it was 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.320 known as Dacia uh d A c I A back 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.920 in the day and like the classical period um. If 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.520 you've ever seen, like read a book about the Roman 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.800 Empire and it talks about them fighting the Dacians and 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:33.040 conquering the Dactions. That's Romania prior to Roman contact. Um. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.960 Dacia is like one of the last provinces that gets 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:37.720 conquered by the Roman Empire, and it's one of the 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.640 first they abandoned, so they're only only hang around there 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.520 for a little bit less than three hundred years and 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:47.280 then they leave into b C. This energy that they 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.480 bring to living in Romania, it's too dark, too many 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.720 mountains because like vampires, they're gonna be a thing here. Yeah, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.960 they're like, we conquered a lemon, We're gonna get the 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.480 hell out of here. Yeah. Well they kind of get 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.720 out of here obviously, like we talk about, oh, the 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.480 Roman Empire conquers this place, who leaves this place to 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.720 b C. When the Roman Empire leaves, most people living 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.360 in the region probably would not have noticed much of 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.680 a change, because, for one thing, they're still trading with 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.480 the Romans. There's still a lot of Roman soldiers in 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.560 the region, and in fact, the reason that we call 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.320 it Romania now is because the like Roman soldiers who 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.680 were stationed there like bread with the local population, and 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.200 this is something they're they're pretty proud of, like the Romania. 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.440 Like the name Romania is kind of hearkening back to 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.959 the fact that there is a lot of Roman ancestry 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.480 in the area. Now, this ties back to for everyone 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.920 that took like seventh and eighth grade languages. Remember when 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.360 you would take like an introduction to like Spanish or 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.640 French or Latin or whatever, and they would say, you know, 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.440 whatever language you're learning, Spanish or French, they're like, they're 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.200 one of the five Romance language is that's my That's 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.880 where I'm from in Massachusetts. That's the accent. And it's 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:05.680 like you hear Spana, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian and 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.480 when they say Romanian, you're like what, like why, like 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.319 why why them? That doesn't make sense on a map 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.360 that that would be the language. Yeah, yeah, it is weird, 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.360 especially since again if you're in that region and further 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.679 into the Balkans, the language they're speaking is very different, right, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.760 But but in Romania it is this kind of like 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:33.520 latinized tongue. Um, so that's cool. Um, Roman romance. Uh, 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.640 there's nothing as sexy as a as a man making 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.760 a pizza and doing violent hand gestures. I mean you're 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.760 not wrong about that. Yeah. Um, the center of Roman 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.840 Asia is a place that is known today as Transylvania. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.680 That's actually like the province that the Romans conquered. So again, 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.400 when I say they left because of Dracula, that's that 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:57.079 is historically true. Um, although Dracula dude didn't exist yet. Yeah, 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:58.640 we're gonna talk about him for just a little bit. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.760 Did you do have you done for yet? No? No? No, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.839 Well we are kind of doing a little bit of 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.160 Lad Tepis right now. Um let me tell you real quick. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:08.960 I know you're about to do that. But as somebody 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.040 who taught about the Middle Ages and I used to 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.280 do for my literacy classes, I would have them write 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.600 a research paper, and I'm like, you can pick anybody. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:21.720 I'm so I got so burnt out reading term papers 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.880 from eighth graders about Vlad Tepis. And it's not that 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.480 he's not interesting, it's just that it's boring when you 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:32.120 read the same paper thirty times a year. Well, Well, Jeff, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.080 I'm gonna try to give you a little bit different 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.680 of a paper because we're gonna be focusing on a 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:41.760 slightly an aspect of lads time running Romania, um that 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:43.800 people don't tend to talk about as much. Obviously, the 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.880 thing everyone knows about Vlad Tepez flat the Impaler, is 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.840 that he impaled a bunch of people, specifically a bunch 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.160 of Ottoman soldiers. And if you like hang out and 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.559 read sort of the weird right wing kind of retellings 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.360 of of medieval history, a lot of them will focus 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.440 on him as like the Shield of the West, and 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.880 this is something that like within the Romanian right wing, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.480 it gets talked about a lot that like Romania was 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.679 the what protected you know, Christendom from the Ottoman Empire, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.200 and and Vlad Tepez, you know, was this was this 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.280 heroic figure who was hard enough in order to like 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:22.480 keep the Muslims out. Yeah, this is not accurate to 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.560 the actual history. Pieces of it are accurate, but the 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:30.800 broad picture is wrong. Um. So, first off, his name 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.199 was legitimately Vlad Dracula because his his dad was Dracule, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.320 which was a name he got when he got given 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.800 an award by the holy Roman Empire emperor. I think 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:44.040 it was sigismund um and Dracula means son of the dragon, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.280 because Dracule means the dragon um. But it also at 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.280 the same time means son of the devil, which is 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.760 why the guy who wrote the Dracula book thought he 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.640 was he was a good pick for a horrible monster character. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.720 Name like the guy like he like his name isn't 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.040 yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that dude, what's his name? Bram 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.880 the Dracula guy, but not Dracula. Sharon Lewis the the 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:13.720 guy who yeah, yeah, yeah, shitty vampire book the first Twilight, 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.000 we could say, the the yeah, the the prelude to 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.040 Twilight before we we really figured out what we wanted 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:25.760 from our vampires. Um sparkles and chizzled abs. M m, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.480 that's right, that's right. No cum gutters on the original Dracula, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.240 probably because he was he was riddled with various diseases. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.800 So Gary oldman have like a huge six pack in 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.679 that movie with that stupid little hair do. But he's 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.360 just like the check out my rippling abs. This is 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.560 the thing we should be using that AI shipped to 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.319 do is go back and go back to like movies 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.760 that were made decades ago and give the male leads 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.960 back then who didn't have access to modern fitness technology, 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.080 just unbelievably shredded cum gutters, like go back to to 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.360 uh gone with the wind and and throw some cum 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.680 gutters in uh in uh in in red and throw 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.520 some throw some cum gutters on that guy who dies 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.800 to you know, the Confederate boy soldier. I would like 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.240 to come gutters all of them. The rock in to 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.800 kill a mocking bird, like the rock to kill a 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.240 rocking bird. Yeah, where he actually just kills everybody in 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.040 town in order to stop that guy from getting the 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:30.439 rock bottom as they're trying to out. M hm m hmm. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.200 I think that's a good idea. Also, put stone Cold 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.400 Steve Austin in uh in that that that uh the 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.760 oh ship now I've you've gone rails, Citizen Kane. We 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.720 could do that. No, no, no, the movie in the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.559 movie where that guy goes to Washington, DC. Mr Smith 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.360 goes to Washington, goes to Washington, throw stone Cold Steve 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.800 Austin and Mr Smith goes to Washington and have them 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:57.840 do a stone cold stunner and all those old Congress 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.559 fools Stone Cold Smith goes to, uh, what does this 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.240 have to do with our script? Very very very little. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.520 So the actual historical Dracula, who is kind of your 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.679 first like he's often seen as like one of kind 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.959 of the founding figures of Romania in like Romanian nationalist 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.680 discourse because he's kind of this this first figure on 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.360 the scene. And this is back when Romania is called Wallachia. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.160 Who becomes super famous. Um and he becomes famous yeah 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.000 for the impaling people. Um lad Tepez is the ruler 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.160 of Wallachia on three non consecutive occasions, which happens a 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.040 lot actually in in their history. At this point, they've 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.600 got this weird system that by which they pick who 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.080 their ruler is going to be, where you have these 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.960 basically this group of nobles who gets to vote on 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.760 who's going to run things, and it leads to a 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.120 shipload to turnover. From fourteen eighteen to fourteen seventy six, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.240 Wallachia has eleven princes who are in power for about 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.280 five years each. So he gets into power, gets thrown 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.560 out of power, comes back into power several times. Um 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.760 and yeah. Common in Europe um, but in Romania it 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.280 is a particularly like violence system and This makes sense 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.960 when you look at just kind of where Romania is located, right, 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.000 Not only are they right next to the Ottoman Empire, 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.720 but they're right next to Hungary UH and the Holy 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.240 Roman Empire, and there's just they are just constantly dealing 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:28.160 with different groups coming in and trying to basically run things. Um. 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.720 So it's not only the the Ottomans that they're fighting, 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:36.320 And repeatedly Romanian leaders will side with the Ottomans in 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.760 order to protect themselves against the Hungarians or whatever. Like 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.880 this is a common thing. So so Dracula, like actual 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.640 Lad Dracula, spends a decent chunk of his career fighting 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.240 alongside the Ottomans. He also, for a point of it, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.280 when he's technically a vassal to the Ottomans, is leading 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.560 like an illegal underground war against them. All this stuff 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.200 is going on. But I think what's more to the 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.520 point is that rather than kind of being a shield 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.480 against like the Muslim world who was defending Christendom, Vlad 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.920 is more concerned with maintaining his relative independence from an 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.560 ocean of surrounding threats. Who covet Transylvania UM and the 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.280 rest of Romania um Transylvania, specifically the area that the 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.160 Romanians fight with the Hungarians over a lot, and it 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.520 changes hands all the time. And he is a pretty 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.960 brutal vlad Draculus a pretty brutal ruler to his own people. 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:30.960 And this is the thing that gets discussed less we 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.240 talk about the impaling of all of these uh, these 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.560 Ottoman soldiers as he's trying to like throw back this 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:37.800 invasion from the Sultan. And I want to quote now 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.080 from the wonderful book Children of the Night by Paul Kenyon, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.200 because this was a little piece of dracula history that 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.600 I hadn't heard. It was around this time, during the 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.040 first couple of years of Dracula's rule, that he organized 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.800 a notorious feast for all the beggars of targo Viste. 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.040 The event appeared to be a great humanitarian gesture. The 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.560 hall was hired and tables were filled with food and wine. 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.880 Invitations were put out around the city to the cripples, 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.920 the blind, that diseased in the destitute. They all concreated 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.520 in a large wooden hall toasting Dracula's generosity. But towards 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.640 the end of the meal, someone noticed smoke coming from 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.520 the walls. They ran to the door, only to find 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.000 Draculus troops had locked it from the outside and set 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.040 the place ablaze. Many hundreds were trapped, and a bonfire 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.960 of souls was left burning into the dark Wallachian sky. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.240 The Bonfire of the Beggars, as it became known, was 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.840 a warning becking would not be tolerated. It was a 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.240 drain on the finances of the most decent and generous 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.000 and society, said Dracula, a crime as evil as theft. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.480 While Achians were an easy It was one thing killing 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.520 the rich, but to massacre the poor in such violent circumstances. 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.399 On the other hand, draculus tactics did seem to be working, 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.280 and crime fell. It was said that Draculus guards would 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.480 test the townsfolk by leaving a purse full of gold 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.399 coins in a busy marketplace. When the guards came to 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:46.840 collect it in the evening, the purse was always left untouched. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.200 The admiration for authoritarian solutions would also resonate down the centuries. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.080 So that is this is kind of like, yeah, that's 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.400 gonna be effective because you know of the murder. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.280 when you murder enough people, um, you you can decrease 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.959 the crime rate. Um, that that is, that is and 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.280 this is a lesson that no Romanian leader is ever 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.000 going to forget. And it kind of like he Vlad 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.159 is sort of setting the tone here for an awful 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.320 lot of their history, right down to the fact that 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.719 you've got this kind of peasant population that is getting 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.320 mistreated by its leaves enough that many people are starving 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.160 in the streets, and so the solution of the ruler is, well, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.560 what if we just light those people on fire? This 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:32.240 would be this is like a Facebook comments section gone 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.000 to life, like this is this is what a lot 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.480 of people from my hometown would like to do. Oh, 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.840 Matt Walsh is totally down for this. Yeah. Yeah. The 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.479 Daily Wire is already writing a think piece on how 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.560 Vlad Dracula had the right how literal Dracula had the 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.080 right idea on improving our our civic spaces. The New 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.160 York Times is going to post an editorial that says, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.960 are there too many poor people? Yeah? What if we 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.040 just light them on fire? You know? Um? And I 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.240 think you know, this is one of those areas where 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.520 my my moral sort of uh compass is at odds 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.720 with the intellectual side of me, because on a moral level. 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.040 I think it's always okay to set fires, but clearly 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.960 sometimes fires can be bad, and this is something I'm 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.480 still grappling with. Jeff. Yeah, I mean, well, fires can 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.840 have disastrous results, but fire itself is awesome. Like I 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.520 keep I keep fire with me when I'm recording. At 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.360 all times, I have to have an open flame near 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.120 me or else. What's the point. What if wolves came 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.840 in while I was recording. You're not gonna keep the 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:39.960 wolves away if you don't have a fire. Like I'm 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.880 in San Francisco right now as we record this, and 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.480 I have a fire on me at all times, because famously, 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.720 San Francisco is a city with a wonderful history of 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.159 fires that I want to celebrate. You know, all of 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.639 the good fires, San Francisco. It's called knowing your history. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.720 That's right, That's right. Um. So Romania in the years 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:05.120 after Dracula, who gets who gets murdered? Uh before he's 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.560 very old again, none of these Romanian princes last all 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.560 that long. So Romania spends a lot of most of 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.600 the medieval period as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire um. 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.760 And this actually, this state of affairs last until pretty recently. Um, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.439 the country does not get its independence until the Russo 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.800 Turkish War of eighteen seventy seven to eighteen seventy eight. Um, 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.160 it becomes an independent kingdom with a hohensall learned regent. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.919 So you know whenever they have these because this happens 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.680 a lot where you're you're having these chunks of Europe 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.680 become independent from either their former masters or from the 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.600 Ottomans or whatever, and they all need kings, right because 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:44.960 it's still the attitude in the eighteen hundreds that every 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.320 new country ought to have some sort of kings. So 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.960 there there's this kind of like constant It causes a 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:51.480 lot of conflict. This is a lot of what sets 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.880 up World War One. But um, Romania, because of how 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:56.919 close it is to Germany, winds up with a hawns 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.720 all learned region, which which, like theoretic lee should mean 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.120 that they're going to side with the Germans on everything. Um, 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.760 that's actually not what happens in practice, but that's certainly 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.680 what the Germans think when when they make sure Romania 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:17.439 gets this uh this guy who's related to the Kaiser. Um. Yeah, well, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.320 I mean it's also the mess that by the time 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.760 World War one rules around, like the country has this 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.480 hahns all learned king, but it also has a queen 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.919 who's one of Queen Victoria's grandchildren, which is also super common, Right, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:34.480 everybody's got one of Victoria's kids or grandkids somewhere in 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:40.560 their fucking royal family. They're collecting pokemon, yeah, exactly, um, 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.760 and the hohans all learns have caught at least one. 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.800 And she's actually, she's actually kind of rad um. They 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.679 have this horrible war um in like nineteen twelve nineteen 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.919 thirteen where Romania tries because when Romania becomes independent, they 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:58.840 don't have Transylvania, right, Transylvania is still property of the Hungarians. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.280 So at one point they invade aid Hungary right before 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.800 World War One, and it goes just absolutely terribly. But 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:09.399 Queen Mary, who's this um victorious grandkid, winds up like 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:12.520 working as a combat nurse in this front line position 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.199 and it it really she becomes very beloved by the 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:17.960 Romanian people, and she seems to be legitimately the only 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.960 royal in Europe during this period of time who doesn't 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.040 completely suck because while the rest of them are starting 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.000 a series of of wars that will kill ten civilians. 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.520 She's just sort of like working as a trauma nurse 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:33.159 the entire time's like trying to do good. Yeah, she 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.680 seems dope. Actually, the Hungarians, I don't know if you've 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:39.600