Original scientific paper
THE SYMBOLIC CONSTRUCTION OF THE MONSTROUS – THE ELIZABETH BATHORY STORY
László Kürti
; University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary
Abstract
This article analyzes several kinds of monsters in western popular
culture today: werewolves, vampires, morlaks, the blood-countess and other creatures of the underworld. By utilizing the notion of the
monstrous, it seeks to return to the most fundamental misconception of ethnocentrism: the prevailing nodes of western superiority in which tropes seem to satisfy curiosities and fantasies of citizens who should know better but in fact they do not. The monstrous became staples in western popular cultural production and not only there if we take into account the extremely fashionable Japanese and Chinese vampire andwerewolf fantasy genre as well. In the history of East European monstrosities, the story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory has a prominent place. Proclaimed to be the most prolific murderess of mankind, she is accused of torturing young virgins, tearing the flesh from their living bodies with her teeth and bathing in their blood in her quest for eternal youth. The rise and popularity of the Blood Countess (Blutgräfin), one of the most famous of all historical vampires, is described in detail. In the concluding section, examples are provided how biology also uses
vampirism and the monstrous in taxonomy and classification.
Keywords
scholarship; monstrosity; vampirism; blood-countess; Elizabeth Bathory
Hrčak ID:
39159
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2009.
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