Vampires

An Examination of Revenant Vampires in Late Modern Greece and South Slavia

Old skeleton, partially covered in dirt, with a stake embedded in its ribcage.
Thirteenth century skeleton found in Bulgaria with an iron rod driven through its ribs. 
(Ovcharov 2014)

Introduction

“Vampire” is a weighty term, contested in both its meaning and its etymology. As commonly understood, vampires are distinguished from other manifestations of the undead by their desire for blood. However, an examination of vampire folk legends in Greece and South Slavia complicates this understanding. In his 1989 study The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism, professor and author Jan L. Perkowski defines the vampire as a “being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature.”  This sweeping definition proves useful in the study of Eastern European vampire legend, where vampires consume not only blood but flesh and milk. For the purposes of this examination, we will narrow Perkowski’s definition even further. While recognizing that exsaunginator spirit beings appear frequently in Greek and South Slavic folk legends, our research exclusively considers vampires as resuscitated corpses. We assert that the revenant vampire of Eastern Europe is distinguished from other manifestations of the undead not by its want of blood, but by its tendency to attack those with whom it shared intimate relationships with in life. 

Story Map

Historical and cultural contexts prove to alter perceptions of similarly imagined beings. In this StoryMap, you will find information regarding these contexts in terms of Greek and South Slavic vampires. You will find a complex history of the understanding of these beings, as the cultures come into contact.

StoryMap Link

Defense Against Vampires

After gaining insight into the power of these exsanguinators, the prospect of contact with a vampire is particularly horrifying. Download the following guide to belay any fear. This book will provide key details on how to use transfix, incapacitate, and incinerate a revenant vampire. 

Front cover of linked Defense guide.
On DefenseDownload

Glossary of the Undead

Use the links below to jump to additional information on regional  historical context, revenant vampire attributes, and traditional burial practices. 

Vampires in Art

Lacking depictions of Greek and South Slavic revenant vampires in art, the following  pictures illustrate individual elements of the folk legends included in our research. Care Kills the Cat and Hackney Churchyard Is an Aristocratic Feline Rendez-Vous  are both period appropriate prints of felines “passing over” the dead, a violation known in Greece to cause the revivification of corpses. Lamia, Love and Pain, and The Return of John Abney all depict the return of dead or spirit-like lovers. Tombs depicts a group of people preparing at a burial in the Balkan Peninsula, and Grave Robbery shows a group of people prepared to dig up a grave, a practice not uncommon in certain Greek and South Slavic funerary rituals. 

  • Oil painting of a young women, the demon Lamia, kneeling in front of a male armored figure.
    Lamia. John William Waterhouse. 1905.
  • A figure with long red hair holds a man in a suit, pressing her face against his neck.
    Love and Pain. Edvard Munch. 1893
  • Female vampire and black cat crouch over skulls.
    Female Slavic Vampire from A Dictionary of Slavic mythology, 1996.
  • Three shrouded figures stand in a graveyard.
    Tombs. Jules Guérin, 1913.
  • The Return of John Abney. Raymond Potter, 1899.
  • Two men speak while digging a grave. A cat rolls over the grave.
    Care Kills the Cat. 1875
  • One spotted cat crouches on grave over another cat.

    Hackney Churchyard Is an Aristocratic Feline Rendez-Vous  O. Herford, 1904.
  • Three men stand in front of a coffin in a graveyard at night.
    Grave Robbery. Whympr, 1864.

Bibliography

Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, and Death-Folklore and Reality, 26.Vali-Ballou Press, Birmingham, NY, 1988.

Cetinich, Daniel. “Macedonians.” In South Slavs in Michigan, 47-58. Michigan State University Press, 2003. 

Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Du Boulay, Juliette, and Alan Dundes. “The Greek Vampire: A Study of Cyclic Symbolism in Marriage and Death.” In The Vampire: A Casebook, 85-108. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.

Jaworskij, Juljan. “Sudrussische Vampyre.” Zeitschrift Des Vereins Fur Volkskunde, 331-36. 1898.

Jevons, F. B. “Greek Law and Folklore.” The Classical Review 9, no. 5, 247-50. June, 1895.

Levkievskaja, E. E. “”La Mythologie Slave: Problemes De Repartition Dialectale (une Etude De Cas: La Vampire).” Cahiers Slaves, September 1997.

Mates, Lewis H. Encyclopedia of Cremation. Farnham: Routledge. 2005.

McClelland, Bruce A. “Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History.” Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2010.

Melton, Gordon J. “Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.” Canton: Visible Ink Press, 1999.

Mihailov, Ivan. THE TRUE MODEL OF THE UNIQUE CROSS. 1969. 

Perkowski, Jan L. “Darklings: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism.” Michigan: Slavica, 1989.

Righi, Brian. Vampires through the Ages: Lore & Legends of the Worlds Most Notorious Blood Drinkers. Woodbury: Llewellyn Publication, 2012.

Sofia. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, Bulgarian Language Institute, Macedonia, Documents and Materials. 1978.

Tomkinson, John L.  Haunted Greece: Nymphs, Vampires and other Exotika. Athens: Anagnosis, 2004.

Vuković, Народни обичаји, p. 58

 Wright, Dudley. The Book of Vampires (2nd ed.) 49-50. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 2006 (1924). 

Image Bibilography

“Care Kills the Cat,” Rape of the Gamp, Chapter XIX, Harper’s New Monthly Mazazine (March 1875): 506.

Dhwty. “Croatiam Jure Grando.” Ancient Origins. September 13, 2016. https://www.ancient-origins.net/croatiam-jure-grando.

Female Upyr. 1996, A Dictionary of Slavic Mythology. In Vampire Folklore by Region. Available from: Wikimedia Commons: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region#/media/File:Upyr.gif.

Guérin, Jules. “Skirting the Balkan Peninsula from Triest to Constantinople, Sixth Paper: Stamboul, the City of Mosques,” The Century 86 (August 1913): 521.

Hertford, O. “Hackney Churchyard Is an Aristocratic Feline Rendez-Vous ” Pearson’s Magazine 17 (June 1904): 640.

Munch, Edvard.  Love and Pain. 1893, Oil on canvas, 91 x 109 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo Norway. Available from: Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Munch_-_Vampire_(1895)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg (accessed November 4, 2018).

Ovcharov, Nikolai. 2014. Bulgarian Vampire Skeleton. Photograph. Available from Smithsonian Mag: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/vampire-grave-bulgaria-holds-skeleton-stake-through-its-heart-180953004/\

“The Dead,” Home Magazine 7 (January 1856): 49.

Waterhouse, John W. 1905. Lamia. Oil on canvas, 144 x 90 cm. Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand. Available from: Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Munch_-Vampire(1895)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Whymper, Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician, (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1864), 211.

Page written and created by Hannah C., Jordan K., Katie S., and Kayleigh C.

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