Erzebet in History’s Monsters: Simon Sebag Montefiore
with John Bew and Martyn Frampton. New
York: Metro Books, 2008.
I am disappointed by Montefiore’s book; his history is not
often up to date. Born just in 1965, he
has studied at Cambridge
university and has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper., and
Marsh Biography prize (Catherine the
Great) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. (Young Stalin) He won the LA Times Book Prize for Best
Biography and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Political literature. (Young Stalin). He has written books on Catherine the Great & Potemkin
[about another ruthless European female ruler], and Young Stalin, which won in addition to the above prizes for
biography and political literature, won the Costa Biography Prize.
He also writes fiction and is a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Literature. For more, go to
simonsebagmontefiore.com.
His fell authors are also Cambridge scholars and prize winning writers
in history.
Granted, this is an anthology, and not as detailed as
individual works on these figures might be, but his few pages on Erzebet are
clearly based on the usual myths written about her, and largely created by a 19th
c. Catholic priest. The book is also a
hodge podge, with listings for Al Capone, Pancho Villa, Zapata, Osama Bin Laden, Rasputin, Shaka Zulu, Eliza
Lynch and Dr. Crippen. Some of these
figures, and the many others listed, are more “monstrous” than others.
While he lists her alleged sensational crimes, he leaves out
the fact that King Mathias owed her money that she tried to collect, that one
of her 27 or more estates was confiscated by the Crown and not returned, that
other widows in her situation shared her fate and were accused of witchcraft and
stripped of their wealth.
Instead, he makes reference to the “blood baths” and blood
drinking yet neither confirms nor denies them.
Also, he states that her “penchant for acts of sadism
developed into a full scale passion for torture and murder. Left o her own devices, in the absence of her
husband, the dark side of countess’ character ran amok” (147). He has no citation for his allegations, but
is merely repeating historical hearsay proved false in work by Kimberly Craft
and Tony Thorne. See Infamous Lady and other works by Craft
including a compilation of Erzebet’s letters, and Countess Dracula by Thorne.
He claims Elizabeth did not have a trial, but other
historical accounts state that she did, but she was either banned from it by
Thurzo and his cronies, or she refused to attend in protest, much as Catharine
of Aragon protested the proceedings Henry VIII brought against her.
He writes of bodies
“thrown from the Castle ramparts in full view of horrified villagers” but
again, cites not source. He claims an
“witness” testified at her trial (147)
that even when she was ill and bedridden, she had girls brought to her so she
could bite them, it them, “tearing flesh” (148). Some one bedridden, especially with the types
of ailments Erzebet herself complains of in her letters, cannot accomplish
these types of injuries. These accounts
are almost verbatim those repeated by McNally in Dracula was a Woman and other
accounts of Erzebet that have been discredited.
Again, there are no intext citations or foot notes, and no endnotes.
In fact, there is no bibliography at all for the book, just
a list of references to acknowledge the numerous illustrations used.
Montefiore repeats that the legend of Erzebet may have
influenced Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula, but his history of her is
inaccurate and derivative. He also makes not mention of the religious
differences she dealt with, e.g., her own Calvinist/Lutheran upbringing and the
Catholics, or the Islamic faith of the Ottomans infiltrating parts of her
domain.
