The Vampire: A Casebook

East European Vampires

FELIX OIN AS East European Vampires Although most scholars tend to be limited to one particular culture or linguistic group, there are some whose breadth ofknowledge allows them to encompass a crosscultural perspective. For example, two ofthe most comprehensive surveys of the vampire were written by Montague Summers. The Vampire (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1928) and The Vampire in Europe, published by the samepublisher in 1929, are stillwell worth reading, although one must keep in mind that Summers himselfbelieved in the actual existence ofvampires. Felix Oinas, professor emeritus ofSlavic languages and literatures and ofUralic andAltaicstudiesat Indiana University, certainly qualifies assuch a broadscholar. An Estonian by birth, Professor Oinas' expertise includes Estonian, Finnish, Russian , and east European folklore. The following briefsurvey draws on traditions from a variety ofsuch cultures. For a sample ofhis research in Balticfolklore, see Studies in Finnic Folklore (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1985). For a more extensive survey of east European vampire folklore, see Dagmar Burkhart, "Vampirglaube und Vampirsage aufdem Balkan," in Beitrage zur Siidosteuropa-Forschung, ed. AloisSchmaus (Munich: Rudolf Trofenik, 1966), 211-252. The vampire is defined by Jan Perkowski as "a being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature."l More commonly, however, the term vampire is used in a more restricted sense to denote a type of the dead or, actually, undead. It is a living corpse or soulless body that emerges from its grave and drinks the blood of the living. Belief in vampires is found all over the world, in India, China, Malaya, Indonesia, and elsewhere, but especially in eastern Europe-among the Slavs and their neighbors: the Greeks, Romanians, Albanians, and others. Among the East Slavs, the vampire is well known to the Ukrainians. The Russians knew it by its name in former times (from the eleventh to the fifteenth century). The vampire tradition is well documented among the West Reprinted from the Journal ofPopular Culture 16 (1982): 108-114. 47 Felix Oinas cut the tendons under the knees. In more serious cases itis desirable to strike off the head with a single stroke and to place it between the legs, or to hack the body to pieces. Some of these measures are, however, not completely foolproof; cases have been reported of an exhumed vampire who had been pierced byastake, buthad pulled the stake out. The surestmethod ofdisposing ofvampires is to completely annihilate the body by burning it and scattering the ashes. Some of these acts correspond closely to the punishments meted out, especially in the Orient, for particularly heinous murders.7 The killing ofa vampire or any other dangerous person is accomplished in such a way as to make it impossible for the soul to avenge itself. During the vampire epidemic in Europe, and even in the United States, from the eighteenth to well into the nineteenth century, numerous cases of the mishandling ofcorpses believed to be vampires have become known.8 In 1889 in Russia, the corpse of an old man who was suspected of being a vampire was dug up, and many of those present maintained that they saw a tail attached to its back. In Rhode Island, a father in 1874 exhumed the body ofhis own daughter and burned her heart, in the beliefthat she was endangering the lives of the other members of the family. In 1899, Romanian peasants in Krasova dug up no fewer than thirty corpses and tore them to pieces, expecting to stop an epidemic ofdiphtheria. Further instances have been reported from Hungary, Bucharest, Transylvania, and so on. A tragic event, entitled "Immigrant's Fears ofVampires Led to Death,"9 was reported in the Times of London as late as January 9, 1973. Mr. Myiciura, a Polish immigrant in Stoke on Trent, sixty-eight years ofage, a retired pottery worker who had lived twenty-five years in England, was found dead in his bed. He had died from choking on a piece ofgarlic, which he had placed in his mouth before going to bed. The police officer explained at the inquest: "In his room was a ritual distribution ofobjects as antidotes to vampires. There was a bag of salt at the dead man's face, one between his legs and other containers scattered around the room. Saltwas also sprinkled on his blankets. Outside his window was a washing-up-bowl containing cloves of garlic. There was garlic even in the keyhole of his lodgings." The dead man...