Comrade Mick Smithski journeys in old Czechoslovakia and finds some sites that could become pilgrimages for vampire lovers.

" I wanna see some historeee" - 'Holidays in the sun' by the Sex Pistols.

The Czech language must be a winner for a person keen on the game Scrabble. The word 'Czech' on its own gives a word score of 21 and if you were lumbered with the letters which make up the word 'Zmrzlina', you will get 28 as that is the word for ice-cream. Recent events have split the country into two different republics, Slovakia in the east, and in the less romantically named Czech Republic in the west. Such changes are typical events in the history of central Europe.

Our reason for visiting there this summer was that we were on our very own Gothic history mini tour, with a view to checking out the possibilities of a bigger group trip for the LVG and Vampyre Enterprises. Since sagas in magazines like this describing 'my holiday' can tend to be pretentious, I will get on with the issues.

What could so easily become a Mecca for Goths is the Ossuary (bones) we saw at a church in Sedlice , which is a suburb of Kutna Hora (word score of 16) just 30km east of Prague. In the thirteenth century some soil from Golgotha in the Holy Land was brought back to this church and it was spread around the cemetery. As a consequence, all the good Christians wished to be interred there and by the nineteenth century there were tens of thousands of corpses buried in the grounds. To make room for more, the skeletons were dug up and used to decorate the church. These include chalices, crosses, chandeliers and a coat of arms. For us this was a photo opportunity and our zeal was a bit of a surprise to the large party of Polish tourists there. The place certainly would have been spooky with less people around, and I had been told that the crypt did have a very strange atmosphere. We did not get to visit this as our enquiries showed that it had been closed since 1936.

We later found out that a large number of corpses were plague victims, but this may be a rumour to stop people poking about. If you want to know more without going there, this place actually has its own web site, but you will need to search for it. On to Slovakia and one main reason for the journey. You may know about Countess Erszebet Bathory from either reading the book by Raymond T. McNally 'Dracula was a woman' or from the Hammer film 'Countess Dracula' with the inimitable Ingrid Pitt in the title role. She is reputed to have killed a large number of young women (possibly as many as six hundred) in order to bathe in their blood, this having the power to preserve or restore her youthful beauty. Whether she actually drank their blood appears to be in question, so were we on the trail of a vampyre?

Three recently published or re-released books may help with the answer. 'The Bloody Countess' which we discovered in the 'True Crimes' section of 'Books, etc.'gives a very graphical portrayal of Erszebet's life and crimes and is quite speculative about what the Countess was all about. It contains much description of the tortures used and attempts a psychological portrait of the woman. In comparison, 'The Bloody Countess' which tells the story as a part of a contemporary novel makes less attempts at accuracy and in its attempts to be innovative, it probably becomes tedious. This book we found cheap in a budget book shop and is the least serious of the three. Best of all is 'Countess Dracula' by Tony Thorne, which has the most historical analysis and does make a serious attempt to place the whole story into perspective. My main criticism is that the book concentrates on the context and you need to know the contents of the story from elsewhere. Several realisations come over about the conditions in the sixteenth century:

* The times were cruel and harsh treatment was to be expected, especially when it came to dealing with the members of the lower orders.
* How you were to be punished depended on your rank. If you were upper class you could get away with a lot provided it was not active rebellion.
* Life was very "political" in the sense that there were many religious and nationalistic changes constantly occurring. Borders and language would alter and the region we were looking at was in constant turmoil. People might speak German, Hungarian, Slovak and official records were usually Latin.

The story of Erszebet Bathory seems to be that, as a result of marriage, she was part of one of the most powerful families in Transylvania. This meant that she had political power, was difficult to undermine and had a lot of desirable property. When her soldier husband died, she was more vulnerable and so her activities were open to scrutiny. The actual evidence against her is in the form of anecdotes and the testimonies presented to her trial, which were likely to have been given under torture.

What is probably true is that she did have a sadistic obsession with harming the young women in her domestic staff using burning, cutting, freezing, and a whole variety of torture instruments. Deaths would occur and efforts would be made to get replacements, and, even though the Bathory household had achieved a frightening reputation, the young girls would still be sent to work for the Countess, as "times were hard". Erszebet's mistake was to begin hiring daughters of nobles and then her activities went under greater scrutiny. Eventually she was stopped and taken to trial, the chief investigator being Count George Thurzo, who having the powers of the Palatine (a sort of deputy King), was keen to undermine the Countess and most certainly had designs on her properties once she was out of the way. There followed a short show trial in which Erszebet was found guilty, the irony being that her accomplices were sentenced to painful deaths, whereas she was left alive. Social rank was important. The story ends with, according to some, the Countess being bricked up in a room in Cachtice Castle, but it is more than likely that she was really only held under house arrest until she died four years later.

Was she a vampyre drinking the blood of virgins? It is likely that she experienced a thrill from torturing young women, in some cases resulting in her being drenched in their blood. It is said that she had special machines to crush girls, from which she could be showered with blood by standing underneath. This was a woman with a deadly fetish and young girls were chosen because their deaths could be explained as natural events and few would miss them. Did she drink their blood or use it as a skin restorer? Maybe on occasions, but this was not her main motive. The real story is not clear from the evidence against her and Thorne's book points out her trial would hardly be regarded as fair today. You have to read the evidence yourself and make up your own mind. Myself, as one who has sympathy with the aims of the French revolution, I am not so worried about the framing up and disposing of tyrants.

What remains? Well her castle is still at Cachtice, a bit of a walk from the village and a bit tumbled down. We spent some time trying to identify the room that she may have been walled up in, and perhaps you can find it. In the village itself is a museum, which held the portrait of Erszebet Bathory, but this was pinched in 1992 (just which of you has that picture?) and a copy remains. Some of her castles are in a better condition such as Beckov, perched on a hill, and Trencin is almost fully restored. There are others to see. For the Slovakians, the Bathories are a small part of their history, but they do get a regular mention.

If you are interested in history and it is cool for Gothics to be that way, then Slovakia has loads for you. Try to get there soon.

And now for your reading list:
'Dracula was a Woman' by Raymond T. McNally ISBN 09-09-936880-3.
'The Bloody Countess - the Crimes of Erszebet Bathory' by Valentine Penrose ISBN 1- 871592-64-X.
'The Blood Countess' by Andrei Codrescu ISBN 0-7043-8011-0.
'Countess Dracula' by Tony Thorne ISBN 0-7475-2900-0 (Reviewed in Chronicles 5).