Jan Perkokowski "Vampire Lore" - Preface

The origins of the Dracula are based in Slavic Vampire Folklore, yet are rarely given credit for such iv. Perkowski was told by a Slavic immigrant to Canada - in the 1960s - that he is a vampire v. In the west the image of a vampire is romanticized and terrible, "the symbol of pure evil" he is much more "nuanced and ambiguaous" in the Slavic folklore v. P's evidence of a Slavic source for vampirism has been slowly recognized, and with resistance in the west, because of the reliance on a 19th century literary/metaphorical basis in the Gothic and Romantic traditions vi. The literary/film and folkloric traditons for vampirism are quite different. The literary according to Marx is centered around capitalism, whereas the folkoric traditons are based in a religious, agrarian, broad realm that includes people's beliefs in life and death and the afterlife vi. One of the reasons why the understanding of the vampire is unclear in the West is because of the geographical and historical differences between the Catholic/Protostant and the Orthodox/Islamic worlds vii. The folkloric vampire is not static and there is much that is contradictory and confusing vii. Vampirism seems to be dying out in Eastern Europe because the traditional agrarian society upon which it depends is giving way to urbanization and globalization. The Western idea of the Vampire is coming to these areas and is taking over viii.