Tamerlane did not necessarily care for the trappings of power, as long as he had the real thing, and therefore he continued to rule as emir while a puppet leader held the title of khan. Secure in his control over the khanate, he set about turning Samarkand into a glorious capital, building palaces and forts. He also supported the arts in his city, which became a cultural center for the region; but Tamerlane, who was most interested in the art of war, did not stay around to enjoy his city's cultural offerings.
In the 1380s, he set out to conquer neighboring lands, including what is now Afghanistan, much of Persia (modern Iran), Azerbaijan, and Kurdistan, a mountainous region that runs from Turkey to Iran in the north. He was methodical in building his empire: in each new region, he would demand that the local rulers submit, and if they refused, he would deal them such a severe blow that they eventually relented.
Vlad Tepes
Depending on what side one happened to be on, Tamerlane was either a great hero or a criminal and a murderer. To an even greater extent, this was true of Vlad Tepes (VLAHD TSEH-pesh; c. 1431-1476), sometimes known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was the prince of Walachia (wuh-LAYK-ee-uh) in what is now Romania, and his father was a man so cruel he was nicknamed "the Devil," or Vlad Dracul (drah-KOOL). Together the two formed the basis for the Dracula legend, popularized by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, and by countless movies.
Caught in the middle of a struggle between Hungarian and Turkish forces, Vlad Tepes at first aligned himself with the Turks before changing sides to support the Hungarians in 1456. His actions over the next six years earned him a reputation as a dedicated freedom fighter in some quarters; more people, however, chose to view him as what in modern times would be called a homicidal maniac.
Declaring war on the Germans, also a force in the region, Vlad set out on a campaign of wholesale slaughter in which thousands of men, women, and children in the region of Transylvania died. Vlad's chosen instruments of murder were long stakes with which he and his soldiers skewered, or impaled, the bodies of their victims; hence his nickname.
By 1462, his own nobles had had enough of Vlad, and they deposed him. He escaped to Hungary, where his former allies—no doubt afraid of what he might do to them—placed him under house arrest. He lived that way for twelve years; then he returned to Walachia, only to be killed shortly afterward in battle. After his death, legends of his cruelty circulated, and as the tale changed hands, newer and more ghastly dimensions were added, including tales that Vlad drank blood. In time the myth would obscure the reality of Vlad's actual career, which was gruesome enough.
World History
