Nosferatu (word)

Nosferatu is the legendary name of an alleged particular species of vampires in Romania. In actual Romanian vampire faith such a being does not exist.

Emergence of the term

The name was first used by the Scottish travel writer Emily Gerard in her book The Land Beyond the Forest. Facts and Fancies from Transsilvania (Edinburgh and New York, 1888) mentioned and translated undead. Just three years earlier, she had reported in a magazine about the popular beliefs of the inhabitants of Transylvania. Your descriptions were used by Bram Stoker for his novel Dracula as a source of information. In the 18th chapter of the novel, the name of Abraham Van Helsing is used. Due to the adaptation of the novel entitled Nosferatu by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1922 ) the term was well known, even though he hardly plays a role in the film. Since the vampire boom of the 1990s, the alleged vampire Nosferatu type vampire appears in various handbooks and encyclopedias vampire and seems to have been enriched by some authors retrospectively with all sorts of imaginative properties. Surprisingly, the specialist authors know ( in chronological order: Summers, Senn, Perkowski and Kreuter ) this variety of the vampire, not because he does not appear in the Romanian folk mythology. Also in the etymological dictionaries of the Romanian is the term not found.

Emily Gerard was married to an officer of the imperial and royal cavalry of Polish or Slovak origin who was stationed in Timisoara. Therefore, the author often called the Laszowska. As she was interested in the land and people, she made frequent trips to neighboring Transylvania, also known as Transylvania. Given their lack of knowledge of the Romanian (some of the locals ) and the Hungarian ( Habsburg Monarchy ) she used an interpreter, who probably did not translate the statements of the respondents according to their folk beliefs Romanians verbatim. It can be assumed that the author turned to the educated among the Romanians, ie at the Greek Orthodox clergy. From them she learned well from the belief in a demonic being whose name they recorded as Nosferatu and with the vampire faith, as they interpreted it, and brought into connection, namely as a particular brand of bloodsucker. Where Emily Gerard has taken the individual components of their portrayal of Nosferatu is unclear. It seems that they merged several fragments, which they had collected into a vampire image that Romanian beliefs corresponded to only a very limited extent. She wanted to write a bestseller, no ethnographic treatise, and to this end she was forced to use the contemporary reader taste. For travel reports about peoples who were civilization far from the European point of view - both in the peripheral areas of Europe as well as overseas - the audience awaited the description of whimsical or frightening customs and beliefs, and presented by Emily Gerard portrayal of a crazy vampire faith corresponded to the image which wanted to make the British the "land beyond the forests ".

Origin of the term

The word component no- reminiscent of Latin prefixes, let Emily Gerard assume that the translation, must ' be Un - Dead. However, the correct Romanian prefix, as in Latin, NE.

• On the one hand, one can assume that this is the Nosferatu to the demon Nosophoros, Plaguebearer ' the Greek folk mythology. Gordon Melton assumes that the term has come by the Orthodox Church in Romania for distribution and was transformed into nesufur'atu, there were widespread among clerics knowledge of the Greek language.

• Linguistically, more likely is the explanation that the term Nosferatu has come through a misunderstanding due to a lack of Romanian language skills on the part of Emily Gerard's about. In the former Romanian Transylvania Nesuferitu was a euphemism for the devil ( literal that is not to yield end / obnoxious / close AVOID '), composed of the prefix Ne - not ' and suferit ( infinitive: a suferi bear ',' stand '). In the modern Romanian language, the term is still in use when he no longer needs to be brought necessarily with the devil for today, but also can only stand for a cursed person.

The Nosferatu in other cultures

The Nosferatu has with the vampire of the Romanian folk belief (Romanian: strigoi ) only property common to spread plagues, because in contrast to the widespread outside the Balkan region image of the vampire whose injurious driving is not limited to blood eyes and the creation of new vampires. Other properties that are attributed to the Nosferatu are not sprung from the Romanian folklore, but the imagination of European and American authors who have contributed substantially to the overall image of Nosferatu in Western culture.

The image shown in most media of Nosferatu was greatly influenced by the movie role models Max Schreck in Nosferatu - influenced Phantom of the night and found mainly in role-playing games, especially in the now-defunct games Vampire - A Symphony of Horror and Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu: The Masquerade or Vampire from the Old World by the company White Wolf, but also the successor publication Vampire: The Requiem, use. In other publications it is said: " The Nosferatu differs externally in many things from the 'normal' vampire. Unlike the vampire, who is dressed elegantly and eloquently, is the Nosferatu dressed in rags, is bald, hunchbacked, ugly and can hardly speak. It is also striking that he possesses as, biting teeth ' not enlarged canines, but sharpened incisors top and bottom ( rodent -like). Accordingly, his symbolic animal not the wolf, but the rat, which connects to his capacity as a bringer of the plague " This characterization - including description of ." True "Vampire - but exists in this form in the South-East European folk beliefs not.