It’s tempting to start with the modern conception of a vampire, and trace its roots backwards, but inevitably it will be less tangled a route if we begin as far back as we can, to discover the original vampire that gave birth to all others in the Slavic tradition – the father, the Lear of vampires, the prime source, as uncontaminated from associated supernatural figures of folklore as possible. In this way, it will be an easier task to unravel the skein of what noted vampire scholar, Jan L. Perkowski, calls “dæmon contamination” – which occurs in Slavic folklore when their four similar dæmon types are combined or confused in the telling.

First Appearances

It’s nearly a thousand years since a Slavic vampire first appeared – or at least, the oldest extant Slavic manuscript mentioning the term vampire dates from 1047 AD. The work, an East Slavic (Old Russian) manuscript, clearly uses the term as a proper name – Upir’ Lichyj – for a Novgorodian prince. Upir’ is South Slavic vampir, and Lichyj means ‘wicked’, so literally this is a name meaning ‘Wicked Vampire’.¹

However, the concept of a vampire can be found in Slavic writings for the first time in a 13th century Serbian manuscript – a Nomokanon of the year 1262. The creature (a vampire or a werewolf – there’s often some confusion between the two) is referred to by the term vuklodlak, not vampir, and is described as devouring the sun and moon, and chasing clouds. “The pursuers of the clouds were called vlъkodlaci by the peasants. If the moon or the sun is extinguished, they say that the vlъkodlaci have devoured the moon or the sun. But this is all fables and lies.”² This is an important point in pursuing the history of the very concept of vampires in Slavic folklore. Fascinatingly, Baltic Slavs of the period used the terms vampir and vuklodlak synonymously, even though the two terms clearly arose from different sources and have different literal root meanings. We’ll get back to this further below.

What were the appearance, attributes and behaviour of this early vampir? In 1869, we find A. N. Afanas’ev (scholar of folklore) stating that “they are corpses who during their lifetime had been sorcerers, werewolves and, in general, people excommunicated by the church such as: suicides, drunkards, heretics, apostates and those cursed by their parents… At the dead of midnight, leaving their graves where they lie as undecayed corpses, the vampires take on various forms. They … raise Cain and frighten travellers or they enter the peasants’ cottages and suck blood from those sleeping, who always die from it afterwards… The pre-dawn cock’s crow compels the vampire to disappear instantaneously or forces him to the ground blood-stained and completely unconscious.”³