Vamparazzi

The vampire epidemics of Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century are a documented historic event, though I have added fictional dimensions (i.e. actual vampires) in this novel. In reality, the problem was serious enough to require official government investigations just as, in this story, it requires the intervention of Dr. Maximillian Zadok and Lithuanian vampire hunters.

But why (I hear you ask) was there a sudden outbreak of rampant vampirism?

Actually, such incidents had probably been occurring for centuries in that region. But by the early eighteenth century, imperial wars and treaties resulted in the Ottoman Empire losing much of its Eastern European territory to the Habsburg monarchy of Austria. Upon hearing about vampire epidemics for the first time, a few years after taking over control of the region, the Austrian government’s reaction was (I paraphrase): “Whoa, they’re doing what in those provinces?” Followed by: “We need to send someone to investigate this and find out what’s going on.”

Two particular vampire cases of that era created considerable interest in their time and are generally credited with introducing Eastern European vampire folklore to Western European culture: the separate and unrelated cases of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnod Paole. After each man died, in their respective Serbian villages of Kisilova and Medvegia, the local mortality rate increased. As a result, Plogojowitz and Paole were accused (in absentia) of being vampires and starting vampire epidemics. Panic and paranoia quickly spread—as did gruesome antivampire activities.

In the early 1730s, the authorities who were assigned to investigate these incidents wrote detailed accounts of strange phenomena for which they had no explanation. And thus the folklore of Slavic villages took hold of the imagination of Western Europe—including that of Dr. John Polidori, who wrote “The Vampyre” almost a century later. However, Polidori’s suavely seductive Lord Ruthven is wholly unlike the grotesque, mindless creatures of folklore—the same creatures which Max encountered during his sojourn as a vampire hunter.

So what really happened in Serbia—and other provinces experiencing vampire outbreaks—all those years ago?

The two typical features of historical vampire epidemics were (1) a rash of mysterious deaths and (2) the exhumation of corpses that looked ruddy and well-fed, and which often had blood dribbling from their mouths.

Well, a wave of unexplained deaths in peasant villages wasn’t actually mysterious if you consider the conditions in those communities. Disease was spreading through a vulnerable population that didn’t understand epidemiology. Various fatal contagions, including the plague, were often blamed on vampires in the good old days. (For example, tuberculosis is considered the likely culprit of a vampire scare in New England in the nineteenth century.)

And the hysteria provoked by digging up plump, ruddy-looking corpses with bloody lips was based entirely on not understanding the stages of decomposition. As were all the other “classic” signs of vampirism, such as clawlike fingernails and strange noises coming from the corpses. What the living were seeing in those unearthed graves was, unbeknownst to them, the normal appearance of the decomposing dead. (For an explicit example, see a fascinating National Geographic documentary called Forensic Vampires. My fervent advice: Don’t watch it while you’re eating.)

Moreover, even well-trained doctors (which some of the Austrian investigators were) in the eighteenth century had a level of medical knowledge that wouldn’t earn them so much as a Boy Scout merit badge today. Although the written reports of the Austrian officials demonstrate an ability (and, indeed, a Teutonic determination) to observe, investigate, and record strange phenomena with precision and detachment, they simply didn’t understand what they were encountering in their vampire investigations.

This misunderstanding of disease and decomposition was at the heart of Eastern European vampire folklore, and also at the heart of Western Europe’s fascination with it for generations before novelist Bram Stoker created his own enduringly iconic version of the undead.

Meanwhile, on another subject, there are indeed miles of tunnels, drains, chambers, and interesting structures beneath the streets of New York City (though the tunnel which connects to the Hamburg is, like the theater itself, strictly an invention of this novel). In fact, I used to eat regularly at a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan wherein the bathroom was accessed via a tunnel that ran underneath the street.

I also once spent a night with a group of urban explorers in some of New York’s most famous underground tunnels and chambers. I was invited out one evening (I thought we were going to dinner), and before I knew it, I was being outfitted with rubber boots and a headlamp, and walking through the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park at night (which was just as stupid of me as you might suppose). Upon reaching our destination somewhere in the dark, we shimmied beneath a large, rusty metal door, via a wet gutter full of used syringes and entered the famous Croton Aqueduct, the abandoned underground tunnel system that was built in 1842 to supply Manhattan with water from upstate. We explored the tunnels and caverns most of the night, saw amazing wonders, and bumped into another group of explorers doing the same thing. It was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life, and I knew then that someday I’d have to use New York’s underground world in a book.