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Radu Cel Frumos (1435? - 1475?)
"Dracula's gay brother" may sound like the title of a soporific straight-to-video comedy film, or an equally cheesy gay porno, but if the reports about the relationship between him and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and the hints made about him by Dracula historians Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu are correct (and there is no evidence that they are not), the phrase could very well be an apt biographical dictionary definition of Radu the Handsome, aka Radu III, aka Radu Cel Frumos, aka Radu Draculea, younger brother of Vlad III Tepes Draculea, the brutal and bloodthirsty Rumanian tyrant who inspired Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. Details about Radu are few, and most of these are contained in biographies of his more famous, and infamous, brother. Radu is generally believed to have been born in 1435 in Schassburg (now Sighisoara), a Transylvanian town founded and inhabited by German Saxon merchants, to Vlad Dracul and Cneajna, a Moldavian princess. He spent his first few years living in a surprisingly modest house together with his older brother Vlad and their mother. Some claim that Radu was in fact born much earlier and was actually Vlad's older brother, but they appear to be confusing him with Vlad Dracul's oldest son, Mircea. Radu was born into one of two branches of the Wallachian House of Bassarab which were now fighting with each other over control of the Wallachian throne. His father was now living in exile in the neighboring state of Transylvania while the head of the rival branch ruled Wallachia as Dan II. Four years previously, Vlad Dracul had been inducted by King Sigismund of Luxembourg into the Order of the Dragon, pledged to fight the growing menace of the Turks. From this came his surname Dracul, which in Rumanian means "dragon." In time the younger Vlad and Radu would both bear the surname Draculea, "Son of the Dragon." The first hints of Radu's homosexuality are evidenced in descriptions of Vlad Dracul's sons as boys. Mircea and Vlad Draculea were both trained from an early age in the skills of a warrior, and were highly aggressive and rough players. Radu, though also trained to fight, was softer in appearance and manner. Shy and quiet, he preferred less rugged forms of play and generally kept with boys more like himself. The contempt with which the society of the time held such qualities was probably the source of Radu being described throughout his life as "weak" or even "weak-minded," even though he seems to have been adequately fit, both physically and mentally. Even as a boy, Radu was described as beautiful, with soft features and brilliantly blue eyes, as opposed to the more angular, even crueler features of his father and brothers. One year after Radu's birth, his father succeeded in securing the throne of Wallachia by killing his half-brother Alexandru Aldea, who had succeeded Dan II only to become allied with the Turks. Investitured as Prince (or Vovoide) of Wallachia, Vlad again pledged his allegiance to Sigismund. In time however, Vlad soon began paying tribute to the Ottoman Sultan Murad II. On one visit to pay tribute to Murad, the younger Vlad and Radu were taken hostage and Vlad Dracul was forced to sign a pact of non-aggression with the Turks. Two years later, however, Dracul joined the Hungarian prince John Hunyadi in a campaign against the Turks which drove them from the Transylvanian border. While the children of other nobles who had broken their treaties with Murad were killed, Radu and his brother were mercifully spared, though both were flogged. This may have been because of a budding friendship between Radu and Murad's son and heir, Mehmed. During their time with the Ottomans, first at Egrigoz and then Adrianople, Radu and his brother were trained to be members of the Janissary corps, a branch of the army consisting of young Christian boys and men who were given in tribute to the Turks and trained not only in soldiery but in every aspect of Turkish culture. Radu appears to have acclimated perfectly to the experience, adopting Turkish dress, tastes, and manners, and perhaps even converting to Islam, as was expected for recruits into the corps. Vlad remained contemptuous of the Turks and stubbornly held to his Greek Orthodox faith, though he soon became fascinated with the methods of torture and execution employed by his captors, especially impalement. By the age of thirteen, Radu's friendship with Mehmed seems to have developed into a sexual relationship, with Radu as the passive partner. When Dracul was killed and Mircea buried alive by boyar nobles allied with rival Vladislav II and Dracul's former ally John Hunyadi, Murad gave the seventeen year old Vlad permission to go to Wallachia and avenge his father. Radu remained at the Turkish court in the royal service of Murad and sexual service of Mehmed. While Vlad lived in exile in Moldavia after seizing and holding the throne of Wallachia for only two months, Murad died in 1451 and was succeeded by Mehmed, who had much greater military ambitions then his father. The Turks had already conquered most of the old Byzantine empire, with only Constantinople and a few areas of the Greek coast remaining in Byzantine hands. Over two years Mehmed began conquering the rest of the old empire, eventually capturing and sacking Constantinople in 1453. Radu was more than likely at his side as the city was burned, the churches looted, and the city leaders beheaded. Three years later, Vlad regained the throne of Wallachia as a vassal and ally of Hunyadi, and his now legendary reign of mass torture, beheadings, and impalements ensued. Six years later, Radu accompanied Mehmed in an invasion of Wallachia, during which Vlad used scorched earth tactics and guerilla warfare to fight the invaders, who outnumbered the Wallachian army three to one. In one daring raid, Vlad came close to killing Mehmed and presumably also Radu, but the two escaped for the border, only to be confronted with a forest of 20,000 Turkish prisoners, all impaled. Mehmed returned to Constantinople, while Radu remained behind to stir up rebellion against his brother. There had never been much love lost between the siblings, perhaps becuase of cruel teasing Radu most likely received from his obviously sadistic brother as a youth. Radu's plan succeeded, and a mass rebellion by peasants and boyars who had suffered long enough under Vlad forced the Impaler to flee to Hungary, where he was promptly placed under house arrest by King Matthias. Over the next twelve years, Radu ruled Wallachia as Mehmed's puppet. Though he had promised his subjects an end to Turkish aggression if they supported him, Radu passively allowed Mehmed's armies to march through Wallachia, raping and pillaging along the way, to engage in raids on Transylvania and Moldavia. Because of this, Radu spent these twelve years alternately losing and regaining the throne to Basarab Cel Batrin Laiota("Basarab the Old"), a member of the rival branch of the family who opposed both the Draculs and the Turks. Like his older brother, Radu is recorded as having founded, endowed, and restored numerous churches and monasteries, but doesn't seem to have done much else beyond looking the other way as his former lover raided his kingdom and those of his neighbors. Radu eventually died in 1475, either being finally deposed and killed by Basarab the Old or dying from syphilis, depending on which source is consulted, and believed. His brother Vlad, having gained the trust of King Matthias of Hungary, soon took the Wallachian throne a third time with the aid of Hungary, Transylvania, and Moldavia, only to be killed and beheaded a few months later by Turkish forces near Bucharest. Soon after, Wallachia came completely under Ottoman control. In 2000, USA Networks produced a televised dramatization of the life of Vlad Tepes, entitled Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula. Typical of such Hollywood treatments, the film presented Radu as simply "envious" of his older brother, and gave no hint as to his homosexuality. In the e-novel Andy Warhol's Dracula, a fictional treatment of the pop artist as a vampire, Kim Newman alludes to a fictitious film Warhol is alleged to have made entitled The Death of Radu the Handsome, with Ondine playing the gay Wallachian monarch. Links: Vlad the Impaler: Dracula's Real-Life Persona The Complete Factual History of Vampires Polovragi Monastery, built by Radu Internet Movie Database -Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula Kim Newman's "Andy Warhol's Dracula"
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