From Vlad the Impaler to count Dracula

Before we start the vast journey through literature, cinematography and art on the footsteps of Dracula - this journey is the objective of this chapter - an explanatory note is necessary. It must be understood who Dracula was. Actually, there were two Dracula.
The existence of one of them is real, certified by documents, the existence of Wallachia's ruler in 1448, 1456-1462, 1476. As you could learn earlier, this ruler was Vlad, the son of Vlad the Devil and the grandson of Mircea the Old. He was nicknamed, on one hand, Tepes (the Impaler) because of the way he used to punish his prisoners and the villains. On the other hand, he got the nickname Dracula, derived from his father's nickname, the Devil (in Romanian: "the Devil"="Dracul"). He was an authoritative ruler and some people would say a cruel man, but, before we all "judge" him, we must consider that he lived in a harsh world that needed harsh punishments, which were actually a custom in that period. Anyway, he wasn't a vampire.
The existence of the second Dracula is purely metaphorical. Met only in books, movies, pictures etc. he was "created" by Abraham Stoker in his book "Dracula". After that, the character of count Dracula brought readers to books and spectators to movies, because his mysterious personality and the crimes that he committed impressed a lot of people. But we will talk later about Bram Stoker and his book.
As you could have learned from the previous chapter, the first books that talked about Dracula were actually historical documents, contemporary with Vlad the Impaler: "The Slavonic tales about Dracula the Voivode" and their German variant.
"The Slavonic tales" present Vlad the Impaler in a favorable manner, understanding his authoritative policy and even naming him "a great ruler". Here is an excerpt from this book that is conclusive in this sense:
"And he hated evil in his country so much that, if anyone committed some harm, theft or robbery or a lye or an injustice, none of those remained alive. Even if he was a great boyar or a priest or a monk or an ordinary man, or even if he had a great fortune, he couldn't pay himself from death."