Who was the first vampire in history? There are many legends claiming to be the first. And one of them is said to be the Croatian Jure Grando, who terrorized his village for over a decade before they took measures to vanquish this štrigon.
In the dimly lit annals of European folklore, few figures loom as ominous as Jure Grando, a 17th-century peasant from the small Istrian village of Kringa — in what is today Croatia. His story, still whispered in the shadowy streets of Kringa, marks one of the earliest and most documented accounts of vampirism in European history.
Jure Grando’s name is forever bound to the ancient Slavic concept of the štrigon — a revenant, or vampire, who rises from the grave to torment the living. And his tale is a particularly chilling one. The tale of Jure Grando is notably recorded by Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, a 17th-century Slovenian historian, in his 1689 work The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. Valvasor’s account lends the story a degree of historical credibility, as he was a reputable chronicler of the customs, folklore, and strange happenings of the region.
The Death and Unholy Return of Jure Grando
According to local legend, Jure Grando Alilović, born in 1579, was a stonemason who lived in Kringa together with his wife and two daughters according to town records named Ana and Nicola. Not much is known about his life, some say he was just an ordinary man doing his best, some say that he was an awful character. Some say that to become a strigoi, you were actually dabbling in dark arts and feeding on the blood of children when alive.
Some say that he was actually a good man and more of a tragic figure. He was in love with Ivana, or Rose in some variations, and was planning to marry her in a time where the “jus primae noctis” rule was in place. This was a law and custom where the lord of the land has the right to have the first night with the bride, and all the maritals “duties” that entailed. Jure opposed this, defying the monks of St. Paulines who controlled Kringa.
The monks feared others would follow suit by his example, and got the leader of the town, Miho Radetić to kill him. Although he hit him with a hammer, it only knocked him unconscious. People thought he was dead and buried him. When he woke up, he started shouting for help. To cover their tracks they claimed he was a vampire and killed him, properly this time.
It’s a fanciful story, perhaps not true at all. He did however die in 1656 and it could even have been natural causes as he was getting quite old by some of the sources. But unlike other villagers, his death did not mark the end of his story.
For 16 years after his burial, it is said that Grando would rise from his grave at night, prowling the narrow paths of Kringa. He would walk and sometimes he stopped in front of doors, knocking on it, waiting for those inside. It was believed that if he knocked on your door, someone would die in the house in the following days.
Villagers reported seeing his pale, grinning face in their windows. They started to call him a štrigon, a variant of the Slavic myth of a blood sucking entity closely knit with the vampire lore. With its close ties to Venetian word strìga, meaning witch. The case of Jure Grando was one of the first real people described as such.
He would even come back to haunt his widow, Ivana. With a grotesque smile permanently fixed on his face he was standing outside looking in. According to what she told the authorities, he also climbed inside. Sometimes, he would even attack and rape her.
The hauntings became so unbearable that the villagers, driven to the brink of hysteria, sought help from the local priest, Father Giorgio. Some say that Father Georgio was actually one of the monks of the order and had his own encounter with the vampire.
Juro had appeared before Father Giorgio when he held a mass at his graveside. Some say that he was actually hunting down the vampire to put a stop to his terror. He had panicked and put a crucifix in Jure’s face and shouted at him to stop terrorizing the villagers. It seemed to work and Jure turned and ran back to the graveyard. County Prefect Miho Radetić was also there and tried to stake him with a hawthorne, but it simply bounced off his chest. A much more heroic character in the other version of Juro’s death.
Gathering a group of nine brave men, armed with tools, stakes, and crosses, the villagers including County Prefect Miho Radetić and Father Giorgio, marched to Grando’s grave under cover of darkness in 1672.
The Vampire Hunt
Upon opening his tomb, the men reportedly found Grando’s body unnaturally preserved — his face serene and blushed, with a sinister smile upon his lips. Shocked and terrified, the priest attempted to banish the evil with holy water and prayers, but it had no effect.
The villagers then attempted to pierce his heart with a wooden stake, but even this effort reportedly failed until one man present in the vampire hunt, Stipan Milašić, decapitated the corpse with a saw or an axe. A horrible howl came from the grave and the vampire reportedly started thrashing and twitching in its grave before being vanquished.
It is said that peace was restored, but the world was rattled. His children fled the city their father had terrorized for years and went to Italy according to some sources.
How True is the Story of Jure Grando?
Now, how true was this story actually? By all accounts, Juro Grande has been treated as an actual person. And although there are in depth details, names, dates and the legend is very well known, there are still a lack of primary sources.
About the other legend of him being a victim of the monk order trying to uphold the law of a jus primae noctis, there is still something that seems to be rooted in a fanciful story than an actual account as well.
By monk order, this probably means The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, commonly called the Paulines or Pauline Fathers, a monastic order of the Catholic Church founded in Hungary in the 13th century and held much power in Istria. How much they controlled the Kringa area and had anything to say in a law of “jus primae noctis” is dubious. But it is true they were a powerful order throughout Europe, especially in Istria.
The claim of “jus primae noctis” being a law was certainly a popular tale and perhaps to an extent a tradition throughout the world. But, scholars don’t think it was as widespread or lawfully right as the myths and anecdotal stories about it were. With that said, who really does now, it is perhaps more easy to believe than in a vampire legend?
Legacy in Kringa and Beyond
Today, the village of Kringa openly embraces its morbid history. It’s a small place with around 300 people living there today. In this typical Istrian village, consisting of a church, stone houses, ancient Roman dry-stone walls. Today, it is believed that his grave is located under a stone path behind the church, near the current cemetery in Kringa and that the church has more information that they are willing to share.
Visitors can find bars and shops playing upon the vampire theme, and tales of Jure Grando’s nocturnal wanderings continue to fascinate those drawn to Europe’s darker legends.
Some say that the story of Jure Grando could have contributed in inspiring John William Polidori to create the vampire archetype in his story „The Vampire“. Even if it wasn’t a true story, it certainly seems like it inspired real people.
Some still claim that it really was a true account, and he might have been one of the first true vampire accounts we have. And in the quiet cemeteries of Istria, some still claim that when the wind howls just right, you can hear the knock of a long-dead hand upon your door.
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References:
Vampire of Kringa – Secret Dalmatia Blog – Travel Experiences in Croatia
Croatian ‘Dracula’ revived to lure tourists – The Mail & Guardian
