The Surprising History and Folklore on Vampires

This class is a historical investigation into the modern myth of the vampire, and its surprising historical precedents -- an exploration your young learner will join !

We begin with a surprising news story in 2021 by Anna Wichmann in the Greek Reporter (see sources for citation):  

"During World War II, Greece suffered the Great Famine, during which 300,000 people starved to death. The sheer number of dead during the time caused cemeteries to overflow, and many people were forced to bury their loved ones outside graveyards, in mass graves.  This caused great distress across the country, as belief in the Vrykolakas [the Greek term for vampires] was so ingrained in many Greeks, some feared that their relatives would become vampires because they were not buried in cemeteries. Tragically, some families were so scared of the horrific transformation that they even beheaded the corpses of their loved ones before burial to avoid them ever becoming vampires."

What explains this superstition?   This is what this class explores with your young learner !

Week 1

We begin with ancient Greek mythology, which present several vampire-like creatures including the Lamia, the Gelloudes, and the tale of Polyphonte and her monstrous sons, Agrius and Oreius, who grew to become murderous cannibals, and were punished for this affront by the Greek gods, who transformed them into winged creatures that cry in the night “with head below and tips of feet above” (bats), becoming the harbingers of ill-omens and war.  Also discussed will be Charon the Ferryman, the psychopomp of the dead, who will also make an appearance in the modern vampire myth in Greece.  

Week 2

The class then turns to the historical precedents in religion, beginning with Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who reasoned that dreaming of deceased loved ones awoke in early humankind a conviction in life after death.  Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) furthered his work by describing the “animism” found in many world religions as a transference of these dreams to a world of spirits coinciding with our own. We then move from theories of religion to two specific examples.  The first is Lilith the Night Demon that originated in Judaic thought.  The second is the transformation of the Charon myth into a Christian morality tale by John Hughes and John Arbuthnot (1719), who present the Ferryman as a judge of the dead, escorting only the morally righteous to heaven, leaving the others to a purgatorial nonexistence between life and death.  

Week 3

Next, we move on the cousins Vlad III, the “Impaler” of Wallachia (d.1476), and Stephen III (d.1504), the Great of Moldavia (Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt).  The story of Vlad "Dracula" is infamous and well-known.  But whereas Dracula is a byword today for evil, menace, and the vampire legend itself, his impaling cousin was canonized by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992, and is the Patron Saint for the nation of Moldavia today.  As a class, we will discuss the history, myths, and historical remembrance of these contrasting cousins as they relate to the modern conception of the vampire and the warriors that fight that evil, respectively.

Week 4

This week we discuss the history of the Vrykolakas over Greek history, including John of Damascus' characterization of the vampire as a lambaste of the Christian eucharist, to a cooption of the myth by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to present the unbaptised dead and the heretic as the vampire, to the prayers for their banishment in Greek canon law (nomocanon).  The work of anthropologists in documenting the folklore concerning the vampire is then presented with respect to their appearance, powers, etc.  This is where Charon makes a re-appearance as a Christianized psychopomp.  Finally, the changes in historical remembrance of the Greek Saint, Demetrius of Thessaloniki, is presented and compared to that of Stephen the Great.  

Where does this investigation lead?  The student decides.  As the teacher, I present all the historical precedents behind the folklore in Greece today.   As scholars of folklore know all too well, tracing the origin of any legend often leads to the impenetrable recesses of obscure antiquity.  Seldom is there a “smoking gun” for scholars to identify a first instance in history.  What’s more, with the case of vampires, it is not so much of finding that ur-myth, but identifying the confluence of many precedents that shaped, over the centuries, the modern understanding of the vampire.  This class is therefore not only about the many and varied precedents to the vampire tale, but also the ways scholars conduct their research.

Class Structure

The class is presented as a university style lecture and seminar, with student interaction with me and other students.  Questions and interaction is encouraged, but listening is learning too.  

No prior knowledge or background knowledge is required.