THE BLOOD COUNTESS

A feminist debunking of the myth of a monstrous Renaissance noblewoman.

Countess Báthory Erzsébet—or Elizabeth Bathory, as she’s referred to in English and throughout this book—was, until recently, the Guinness Book of World Records champion of serial killers, with 650 possible victims, all virginal young women and girls allegedly dispatched to provide the blood that Bathory bathed in to sustain her youth. Her legend inspired horror films, and a Swedish death metal band borrowed her surname as a sign of its extreme badass-ness. But since the 1980s, scholars have taken a closer look at the historical evidence to uncover a story unlikely to satisfy the bloodlust of a true crime or horror fan. Through close reading of Bathory’s many letters and various contemporary accounts, poet and writer Puhak uncovers a thoroughly pre-modern Renaissance woman, well bred and well read, from a distinguished ancient family. Unusually, for a woman of that time, when her war-hero husband apparently died of the plague, Bathory assumed her husband’s political roles in the counties where their vast estate lay and in the national parliament in Bratislava, all while maintaining her traditional tasks as lady of the manor and ward of a finishing school for noblewomen and courtiers-to-be. She was known for her keen interest in what the Hungarians call igazság. “This refers to truth and justice in the broadest sense,” Puhak writes. Elizabeth was considered “someone with a strong ethical sense…who would fight for what was morally right and not just politically expedient.” How did she wind up with such a ghastly reputation? It’s a complicated story involving Machiavellian intrigue between Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Lutherans, Hungarians and Germans, Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and, of course, powerful men stymied by a strong woman.

Admirably clear-eyed history related in crystalline prose.