More than 400 years after her death, the truth about the “Blood Countess,” a Hungarian noblewoman accused of being the greatest female serial killer of all time, remains anonymous.
From her castle atop a rugged hill in present-day Čachtice in western Slovakia, Elizabeth Bathory was accused of torturing and murdering up to 650 young women and girls, sparking horror stories. It was said that she was happy to bathe in the blood of her victims. This will help him retain his youth.
Rumors of Báthory's cruelty spread throughout the Kingdom of Hungary in the early 17th century, and after a royal inquest, four of her servants were convicted of the murders and brutally executed. The Blood Countess was arrested and confined to her castle walls until her death in 1614.
Báthory's abominable story has captivated the imagination for centuries, and has invited speculation, books, films, television series and local folklore, but some researchers have expressed doubts as to whether she actually committed the alleged atrocity. was responsible for and suggests that as a wealthy and powerful woman in late Renaissance Europe, she may have been a victim herself.
“Was Báthory a serial killer who tortured and tortured 650 young women for nothing more than his own pleasure?” asked Anochka Bailey, a British author and academic who recently published a novel about a rich countess. “I am very sure it is, as we have it in England, a sewing-work.”
Bailey, author of “The Blood Countess” and associate professor of arts and creatives at Cambridge University, says the popular narrative of Bathory as a serial killer relies on a “woman as monster” trope that is not supported by available evidence. It happens.
Rather than an assassin, he argues, Bathory was perhaps a subversive figure who posed a threat to the kingdom's power structure, especially given the evidence that she taught many young women to read and may have That she own a printing press – radical actions during this period. in which she lived.
“You have to remember, these were the years of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation where people were being staked for their heretical beliefs. The printing press, which was flourishing all over Europe, gave people wider access to information. were providing access, and it was seen as very dangerous,” Bailey said.
“I've got enough to go, wow, wait a minute. Let's stop here and investigate.”
Báthory, born into an aristocratic family in 1560, married a Hungarian nobleman, Ferenc Nádasdy, in 1575, and the couple controlled great wealth and lands throughout the kingdom. Nadasdi was a distinguished soldier and a key figure in regaining control of many Hungarian lands held by the Ottoman Empire.
But after Nadasdi's sudden death in 1604, Bathory inherited his lands and wealth and commanded “Jeff Bezos-style colossal wealth,” according to Bailey.
It was this position of fortune and power that Bailey and other scholars point to as a possible motive for other powerful figures of the time to destroy Bathory and seize its wealth.
Bayley said that Báthory's refusal to remarry after her husband's death, and her activities in educating young women “would raise alarm bells for anyone in power.”
Doubts over Báthory's guilt are not limited to academia – the question can still be polarized in the Slovakian village of Čachtice where the atrocity was said to have taken place. Uncertainty over where Bathory is buried has also led to speculation. He is believed to have been buried in a crypt beneath the local church, but there are rumors that his body was later moved, and the church has not authorized an exhumation.
A local museum dedicated to the countess in Čachtice, and groups of tourists and villagers climbing the rocky hills to the castle above the town, are testaments to the power that still resides in its legendary territory.
But Ivan Pesca, a local farmer, said the power of Bathory's story may be waning as generations pass.
“There are anecdotes about Elizabeth Bathory, relatively bloodthirsty about the young girls she tortured and then killed,” he said. “Older people believe in these stories, but younger people know a little less about them.”
Bayley believes that popular culture over the centuries has had an undue focus on gruesome and violent narratives, and that history has often stigmatized powerful women.
With a “counter-narrative” to Bathory's story, she said, she hopes to provide a measure of justice for herself and all others who have been unfairly condemned by history.
“She deserves better, we all deserve better,” Bailey said. “Is justice for Báthory 500 years later, 'she didn't do it'? Or is justice for Báthory actually the extermination of the monster for all women and all men?”