10 Most Evil World Leaders To Ever Live
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2024
- Pure evil? You could say that. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down the most brutal, horrific, and despicable world leaders in history. Our countdown of the most evil world leaders of all time includes Saddam Hussein, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, and more! Please share your thoughts on history's most brutal and evil dictators below. Let us reflect together on the somber lessons we can learn from their dark legacies.
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#Evil
#WorldLeaders
#History
#Dictators
#War
#Politics
#Worst
#Horror
#Crime
Let us reflect together on the somber lessons we can learn from their dark legacies.
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and you fheads still put KEANU REEVES AS OVERRATED?
Churchill? 😂 bcz he was british (why hitler is on the top, when Churchill killed people with hunger (intentionally)
And what about American leaders who killed millions in the Middle East?
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
ATTILA.
DICK CHENEY.
CLEOPATRA.
JEFFERSON DAVIS.
RON DESANTIS.
EDWARD I.
FRANCISCO FRANCO.
GENGHIS KHAN.
HENRY VIII.
HERBERT HOOVER.
IVAN IV.
ANDREW JACKSON.
FERNAND MARCOS.
MARY I.
SLOBODAN MILOSOVICH.
BENITO MUSSOLINI.
NERO.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU.
RICHARD NIXON.
JUAN PERON.
POPE ALEXANDER VI.
POPE BENADICT IX.
POPE CLEMENTS VII.
POPE JOHN XII.
POPE LEO X.
POPE STEPHEN VI.
POPE URBAN VI.
VLADIMIR PUTIN.
PAT ROBERTSON.
RAPHAEL TRUJILLO
DONALD TRUMP.
VLAD. III.
GEORGE WALLACE.
Love It WatchMojo.
Where are Lindon Johnson, George Bush and Bill Clinton?
Genghis Khan: Am I a joke to you?
I was gonna ask this same thing. I thought for sure Genghis Khan would be on this list, let alone, be number 1.
Imagine if he’d lived longer, how far could the Empire have spanned?
For sure thought he’d be on here. I have a fish who is a bully and terrorizes everything else in the tank. I named him Genghis Khan because it seemed very fitting.
What evil thing did genghis khan do.
I’m just one battle against China Genghis Khan killed more than a million Chinese and created a wall of corpses and months later the scouts returning said it looked like a snow capped mountain but it was just all bones.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it
Word
Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler's mistake during the war is that they're not equipped in Snowy environment.
And those who do learn from history will be doomed to watch as ignorant idiots repeat it.
What about those who are paranoid and exaggerate that history is already being repeated?
Unfortunately, some learned from history and are using it on other people. (see Gaza conflict.)
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
“Most powerful is he who controls his own power.”
-Moral, “Lair of Grievous,” _Star Wars: The Clone Wars_
and absolute power has a good mustache
- Me
problem
@allen604
Power brings out what is hiding inside. If one in power corrupts, the one in power was always corrupt
When it comes to Adolf Hitler it’s not a story of a man who got the leadership and he got corrupted while he’s drunk by power. He had a corrupted soul since the beginning. He was genocidal and fascist in the first place.
Was also curious why the Roman emperor Nero or Genghis Khan did not make the list, with how ruthless they were, and for an example Nero used the bodies of Christians as torch lamps in his personal garden.
I agree! Genghis Khan killed over 40 million people. He definitely should have been on the list
Because Genghis Khan was a conqueror with brutal tactics but that didn't set out to exterminate... and if collateral casualties are a measure of evil then why not also Napoleon? or Caesar? Marius exterminating the Cimbri and Teutons. You need to dig deeper and find people that set out to exterminate entire populations...
Same
Or Timur whose military campaign was absolutely genocidal as he was responsible for the death of 17 million people which was at that time 5 % of the world's population.
This list is garbage.
Or hubal the moon god who sacrificed children and the quraysh leaders were forcing their citizens to do the same thing they were defeated by prophet Muhammad during islamisation of arabia
You forgot to include my supervisor at work
*Genghis Khan has entered the chat*
History has a way of repeating itself….
Certainly does. We are living it again and if not careful it can be unimaginable. Our nuclear age is scary.
Hitler is number 1? Why am I not suprised?
Yeah, Trump is slithering his way in
@@scottsenatra1193for real we got dark Brandon
@@bountyhunterFett76but he isn't evil?
From Talaat Pasha’s success, Hitler had announced on August 22, 1939 in German parliament, _“After all, who remembers today the _*_extermination_*_ of the Armenians?”_
He gained asylum in Germany but was assassinated in 1921.
He was still such an icon to the Nazis that they repatriated his corpse to Turkey at the latter’s request, where he would be given a formal funeral.
Another Islamist who influenced Hitler was Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini.
Nazi Heinrich Wolf said after meeting with him:
_”The Mufti explained to me today at length that Muslims both within Palestine and without welcome the new regime in Germany and hope for the spread of fascist, anti-democratic forms of government to other countries. Current Jewish economic and political influence is harmful everywhere and has to be combated. In order to be able to hit the standard of living of Jews, Muslims are hoping for Germany to declare a boycott [of “Jewish” goods], which they would then enthusiastically join throughout the Muslim world.”_
He also asked Hitler to declare publicly in a private meeting with the German government, that Germany favoured _“the elimination of the Jewish national home”_ in Palestine.
The mufti also enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazi gov’t to establish the SS unit among Muslims of Bosnia.
now Germany is going through Turkification
ironic
@@jambudvipi A few years ago, it was 1.5-5 million armenians that died during their deportation. Now in the video, he said 1 million, the real figures are waaaay less than that. I hope someday the truth will come to the surface.
@@qalidurut7249 certainly not
Pinochet was horrible, but he doesn't deserve to be put above Hideki fucking Tojo. May I suggest Theoneste Bagosora instead?
Its a list in no order but you're still right
If I hadn't read the title, I would've assumed just by the thumbnail that this was a top 10 video ranking madmen by their mustaches/facial hair.
In my genocide studies course, we actually made a club of sorts for all the dictators with the slogan “Unless it’s Churchill, Lincoln, or MLKjr, don’t trust a politician sporting facial hair.”Sadly, not all of the dictators in the course had facial hair, but we definitely made them honourary members lol. Lightened up the class’s mood for sure
A good compilation! Most of the infamous names are here though many more have been left out.
Amazing video watch mojo of the most evil leaders in human history in the world throughout time ever,fantastic job.
How about Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines? He also committed crimes such as corruption and crimes during his Martial Law.
Interchangeable with duterte
@@markusphilippus1787 but I guess corruption in Ferdinand Marcos is far more worse than Duterte's war on drugs.
@@markusphilippus1787Clearly, that's not interchangeable, and let alone that there are several differences between former president [dictator] Ferdinand Marcos and former president Rodrigo Duterte.
True
@@markusphilippus1787
You people have no idea what you're talking about.
Saddam Hussein, Iraque tyrant whose republican guard slaughtered not only his enemies, but his own people. And he became known as the "Butcher of Baghdad", vs. Pol Pot, the Cambodian dictator whose Khmer Rouge guerilla force committed mass genocide on a quarter of the country's population.
No contest. They were both horrible people
Still wasn't as bad as the war mongoring US presidents.
Saddam Hussein was actually popular and Iraqi people had more rights to firearms than Americans and yall keep falling for lies from mainstream
All under the command of the British !!
North korea Kim family: "😠HEY!! What about US!!!?? 😡😡😡"
They were rating dictators who were dead or deposed.
*Saddam Hussein:* Hey guy, relax. Take a load off there, buddy.
I'm not your guy, buddy
@@MajinK
*Saddam Hussein:* I’m not your buddy, friend.
I flash back to those episodes of South Park.
Ah relax guy.
hey saddam wasn't all bad he was hilarious on south park 😂
He was very funny on South Park
"Hey relax, guy! Trust me."
@@Taka-Kevz brilliant
"Weapons of mass destruction? Nooooo! This is a chocolate chip factory."
Can Rebecca do the 20 most evil kids in history? Please?
I second that. 👍
Isn't there already a list like that on here?? I could of sworn i saw one of those evil kids list here a couple months ago.
True. There is one already but there could easily multiple parts
Or Evil humans under 18 (some just a few yrs ago)
There’s just a top 10 of it from a long time ago.
Hugo Chávez and Nicolas maduro are nowhere to be found.
Could you please do the Top 10 Best Tom Sizemore Performances?
The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself
'Waterloo! I was defeated, you won the war!'
No Putin, Netanyahu, Mussolini, Gaddafi? This needs a part 2.
No zelensky ,Netanyahu,Yahya khan ,Donald trump,Barack Obama ,hubal,hasina I’ve seen everything.Also Putin ain’t a bad leader he is defending Russian culture against stupid organisations and westernisation .
Gaddafi wasn't that bad. That's Western Propaganda
Also every US president ever - the most evil and biggest mafia in history
Dick Cheney should be on here too
Netanyahu??? Why are you so against my religion?? Why are you anti-semitic?? Im extremely offended DELETE THAT COMMENT :'(
#7 is the reason we have System of a Down
Absolutely. This is why they refuse to perform in Turkey.
The fact that this list could be added to so many more times is scary and saddening. 😔
Kim ll Sung should be on the list!
And Kim Jong Il. He's the one behind most of nk's bad laws today
Bush 1 , Bush 2 , Obamà, Bidén should all be in this list. !
This shows how power brings the worst in people.
1. Joesph Stalin (1924-1953) Soviet Union
2. Adolf Hitler (1933-1945) Germany
3. Vladimir Lenin (1917-1924) Soviet Union
4. Francisco Franco (1939- 1975) Spain
5. Ayatollah Khomeini (1979-1989) Iran
6. Manuel Noriega ( 1983- 1989) Panama
7. Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1981) Argentina
8. Ante Pavlic (1941-1945) Croatia
9. Mabuto Sese Seko (1965-1997) Zaire
10. Nicolae Ceausecu (1965-1989) Romania
shit list
What Mao Zedong and King Leopald the 2nd?
Not even close..ghangas khan and Stalin killed double the amount Hitler did
This video is soo politically correct it's makes ne sick..Stalin and Mao killed alot more then Hitler.. but the ppl that own Hollywood make history soo!🎉!e
Adolf Hitler isn't #1. ? WTF!!!!
Very well thought through list. Well done 👍
Adolf Hitler single-handedly destroyed a mustache style 💀
This is why I don't trust people who don't want a limited government
There is s big difference between big government and totalitarianism. But I guess nuance is alien to you libertarians
Well Republicans want to decide whether a woman can have an abortion, they want to go after contraception and they want to choose what books your kids can read. Vote blue 💙
I just don’t trust people period
@@RapFanatic4ever There's a saying "If you think everyone you meet is an asshole, odds are you're the asshole"
@@RapFanatic4everIncluding yourself?
This list should be renamed the last 150 years, because inaccurate.
Missing Benjamin Netanyahu
Missing Bush. Blair. Obama
You know when I hear stuff like this. I never understood how certain leaders or dictators can kill their own people for money and power and just to watch other people Suffer. And none of this is really surprising because there are still dictators and corrupt leaders and government in the system still alive until this very day.
The same of millions of native american wiped from the earth. I think all the top 10 are nonthing comparing to that
@@HeroicKhalid yeah I agree with that
@@HeroicKhalidYeah, cause they were all singing kumbaya and not killing, raping, enslaving and torturing each other before the Europeans showed up right? Anything to shit on America though huh?
No putin?
I know right?
@aemiliacarolphonetube9749 I agree with you! If they are going to do a part 2 they better include Putin.
You would think he is the top 5.
@@gvinnydog5500. Or higher even.
We not gonna name American presidents? Iraq war-bush. Drone wars-Obama
And 'Armageddon Biden?' I'll pop back in 70 or 80 years and see if I was right...😮
@@dave04962 Trumptard detected.
Dude been asking the same thing..thanks for stating this..
They are way better than these guys. And also obama done many great things none of these people done.
Also no butchering of the native Americans?
Even Mao looked like Winnie The Pooh
You guys should do a whole series of this because there's too many evil leaders in history
Mussolini: I feel unwanted😞
Before I watch this I bet, Bush, Obama, & Biden are omitted from this list
We pray for the people who died during their leadership. 🙏🏻😔
Remember winners write history folks...
Timur doesn't even get a dishonorable mention?
I'm glad you redid this video and included Idi Amin. The man isn't talked about enough
I really can't believe that these people actually existed
Tojo is a new one for this area. Would have rarely put him in the top 10 should he only 10 if he was in anyway
No Kahn, no Mussolini, no Franco?
9:14 Of course Dracula is on here.
Reading the book First they killed my father forever changed me in high school. Made me realize there’s so much more as to what just happens in American history that is left untold.
Saddam: "Don't worry, I'll be back in Iran before you know it"
"I thought you were from Iraq"
Saddam: "Iraq, Iran, what's the difference"
After dying: "Even if Heaven is real, what makes you think Saddam would be there"
Bush: "Our intelligence reports that when he died, he did go to hell and engaged a homosexual relationship with Satan. He wouldn't leave Satan alone after braking up, so as punishment he went to Heaven to live with a bunch of Mormons"
Satan: "Saddam, but I killed you"
Saddam: "Where was I going to go, Detroit"
Adolf Hitler was a very naughty man, remember kids, dressing up as Hitler for Halloween isn't cool (Principal Victoria is okay if you dres up like a spooky ghost)
Saw plenty of Kim Jong Il in Team America too
Next:
10 dictators & wannabes alive today
Wannabe dictator? Trump.
Biden top of the list.
Trump without a doubt if wanabe dictators count. @randomxstory
This is why I'm in favor of new faces for both the Republicans and Democrats.
@@randomxstory Only in your empty head
You had better add natendevi and Joe devil to the list!
Be alert - when history stages an encore it never comes at us the same way twice!
What about Gehngis Khan and Napolean?
Relax guys this list is made by Americans
Actually Watch MoJo is Canadian
@@joshuakline1435 Even worse
@@CliveWarren69😂
Same thing...
Any colonizer shud be on this list, but now.. America nearly whiped out a whole race but u dnt see em here
For this list i think it shouldve been a top 20, or add a part 2
Many movie villains would be inspired by Hitler’s actions. The franchise with the most Hitler inspired villains would be the Star Wars Franchise. Count Dooku, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Snoke, all of them.
My dad says that Thrawn is also more like Napoleon
@@bennywark3103 Thrawn’s actor, Lars Mikkelsen is the 10 year older brother of famed villain actor, Mads Mikkelsen, who portrayed a former Nazi named Jürgen Voller in “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” that premiered a few month before Lars debuted as Thrawn in live-action. In a way, the Empire and the Nazis are similar in almost every single way, the Nazis killed thousands of Jews but the Empire killed an entire planet. Even after both ended, Jürgen Voller tried to correct history using Archimedes’ Dial to travel back to 1939 and there are Ex-Imperial Warlords such as Moff Gideon who continued to act as an Empire while Grand Admiral Thrawn led the Shadow Council from unknown locations to the members, prompting Moff Gideon to make a stand and take charge. With Gideon gone now, Thrawn has finally reemerged from exile and now has an army of Night Troopers and three Dathomirian Night Sisters, the Great Mothers and he has plans that has something to do with Dathomir. Grand Admiral Thrawn also has a hint of Dracula mixed in with him.
Lord Voldemort: Hold my Butterbeer.
@@selfan2005🤣
@@williamsummerson1204 I agree! 🤣
How come your team missed Wiston Churchill? He was the reason for deaths of millions of Indians in 1940s
Makes sense why India wanted to leave the British Empire after World War 2
Would you like some tea? I would b/c I'm Winston Churchill!
In North Korea it's actually the entire kim family. Also nothing has changed in North Korea after Kim Jong Ils death unfortunately
I think the former Indonesian dictator Suharto deserves a place in this ladder. He came to place in a military coup in 1965, following which some 500,000 to 1,000,000 Indonesians were murdered. He presided over a deeply corrupt regime that kept thousands of Indonesians as political prisoners, and maintained brutal military occupations of places such as West Papua and Aceh. Most egregiously, his armies invaded the newly independent nation of East Timor in 1975, and in the subsequent 24 years maintained a military occupation that caused the deaths of perhaps a third of the inhabitants.
This is not a worldwide view on who was the most evil world leader. China would say hideki tojo ,he was responsible for unit 731, comfort women , nanjing massacre and more. India would say Winston Churchill, he got 4 million Indians killed during the Bengal famine, he also supported eugenics and was obviously a racist. I'm pretty sure the Palestinians would call netanyahu the most evil world leader. This is just the western view of who is the most evil world leader and it is obviously Hitler.
Why do you hate the West so much? Also, you do realize that Pinochet was backed by the US, right?
The Palestinians would be wrong.
Stalin killed way more people than Hitler. And Netanyahu is just defending his country from antisemitic terrorists.
I know one of the Pinochet refugees and she is an example of strenght, resilience and grace
Ferdinand Marcos Sr.?
Unfortunately, we as a species do not seem to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers. We are quick to forget and forgive the wrongs of one if they whisper empty promises or the better of lesser evils. And by the time we realize the error of our choices, it'll be far too late.
Breaks my heart. Why is power given into the wrong hands?!💔💔😭😭
Whoever said it was given to them? They all took it
@@Barricade379 oh yeah that makes more sense. It wasn’t given but stolen 😞
Kim Joon Un should've made that list
Netanyahu
Anti Semite!
I admittedly thought Genghis Khan would make this list.
Next: top ten best Anime based on Manwha
😨 Truly chilling, these leaders were the worst! 😱
Not as worse as US presidents.
where is George Bush?
Which one? 😂
He didn’t kill so many people as those in video.
This guy, oy...
There are many dictators in some African countries other than Idi Amin that should be on this list too
Don't forget Jefferson Davis
Putin
I thought he'd show up as well.
Henry Kissinger, Nixon, George W. and Cheney should all be on this list.
George W Bush was a strong leader who led his country in a time of fear. Show your respect.
@@DestinyAwaits19 No to a weak leader George W. who had very little respect for our soldiers or Iraqi civilians.
@@dangerman5617 You mean trying to bring democracy to a backward Middle Eastern shit hole? Or fighting a global war on terror?
They were way better than these people.
@@tobikzlobivy3379 Obviously, you don't know history due to your uninformed opinion.
This list is full of evil people.
George bush: am I joke to you?
trump: am i joke to you
The last time I checked he made peace in the Middle East secured borders record unemployment no inflation
@@ahmedmaklad6527repeating it doesn’t make it true. He didn’t do anything regarding peace. In fact he didn’t do anything besides play golf and suck up to dictators
@@rubysoffner4557 he was working nonstop during his first presidency Biden took more vacations than any other president in recent history
@@ahmedmaklad6527hahahahaahahahaahaaha 😂
@@rubysoffner4557 You know nothing. Go watch "The View".
I couldn't see Netanyahu on the list?
Yes his country is the biggest terrorist state of all time
And Biden for Honorable mention
This is a Zionist channel
@@lolololen7389 Biden isn't a wannabe dictator unlike Trump.
Trump was literally quoting Hitler on Veterans Day.
@@mytruecrimelibrary Because Biden is not a dictator he can't even control the country well plus he is a puppet of blackrock.Neither of them are good and if Blackrock counts as a dictator it would probably be Nr 1 cause they were the reason for many wars in the modern world
Why isn’t trump on this list? The way the Democrats talk about him you think he was the most ruthless person in history
Really…?😑
Trump should be on the list!
Some years from now Netanyahu will be no.1 on this list
Where is Ranavalona III
Don't forget Trump and his best friend Putin.
Lol no. Putin yes
LMAO....I scrolled through all the comments figuring someone ignorant schmuck is going to say 'what about Trump'. Not quite snowflake! 🤣
Agreed, they are the worst.
How is Fidel Castro not on this list? Not even a dishonorable mention?
Because people blame the US embargo for Cuba's problems.
Compared to people like Pol Pot and Mao Castro was a saint
9:52 saw that coming
Surprised both Kims weren't in the honorable mentions
Why isn’t the Clinton family on this list?
Where is Ho Chi Minh???
Watchmojo should be named Propagandjo
What hittler did not have the biggest or worst mass murders in history. People clearly haven’t read about what Japan did in Nanking. Nazi souldiers and generals who went there were even traumatized by what the Japanese were doing. They even said that Japan was a “bestial machinery”.
I bet Gaddafi is rolling in his unmarked grave right now.
Was coming here to ask the same thing
Surprising there isnt a single american president
You think the victor will ever make themselves look bad 😂
Not surprizing at all - 1st these lists are super americanist and 2nd - american brainwashing about presidents is almost as high as with dictators
Surprising only if you're historically illiterate.
@@ehicks13WatchMojo is a Canadian channel though. 🤷♂️
@@OriginalGrasshopper or Israeli
Ironically the two evil leaders you featured were enemies.
Saparmurat Niyazov and Oleksandr Lukashenko definitely deserved a spot on this list.
Before we start if George W Bush is not here I am giving this video a thumbs down.
People tend to forget what Spaniard Hernan Cortes did after discovering America. Most native tribes thru out many countries as of these day are non existent after conquering them.
Cortez wasn't a world leader though. He was a conquistador.
He was more of a military commander/explorer, and this list was for world leaders. You could do a whole list on people like that though.
My family has personal experience with #6. In fact, my grandfather’s superior was killed in the coup (or the purges, I don’t remember very well).
Were all deadly leaders-hitler,Stalin,
mussolini
I am joke to you-Emperor lelouch
My president AlAssad had better be here
Stalin was worse than Hitler
No. They were equally as bad.
@@donovanlocust1106 Ok, I respect your opinion but will stay with mine
Yes and no. Stalin was worse in some ways but Stalin never plunged the whole world into madness like Hitler Did. Hitler single handedly started WW2 by invading Poland in 39. What's worse is from a certain pov, Hitler almost won WW2 and conquered all of Continental Europe, N. Africa, etc...thankfully it wasn't so.
@@bber45 the way i see it is Hitler had worse publicity because he was on the opposing side from the get go (winners write the history, remember). And it was all preemptive, Stalin would have done the same (started the war, just for different reasons) if not for murdering 80% of his own highest ranks in the late 1930s.
And by the way, I'm Polish
@marekolchawski7998 I guess you could say 1A) Hitler, 1B) Stalin.
WatchMojo, everything good about this video until we get to one honorable mention: Vlad the Impaler. He doesn't deserve to be on this video, he would rather be on a video that sounds like this: Top 10 World Leaders which sacrificed everything just for the sake of their country. On this list, he is the only world leader that is loved by his nation and remembered as one of the best leaders and a national hero of his country. Simply watch Knowledgia's Vlad The Impaler Campaign. Don't mix the others on this video with him, I will leave this here just in case you're not sure about what I mean (source: Wikipedia):
National hero
The Cantacuzino Chronicle was the first Romanian historical work to record a tale about Vlad the Impaler, narrating the impalement of the old boyars of Târgoviște for the murder of his brother, Dan.[174] The chronicle added that Vlad forced the young boyars and their wives and children to build the Poenari Castle.[174] The legend of the Poenari Castle was mentioned in 1747 by Neofit I, Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, who complemented it with the story of Meșterul Manole, who allegedly walled in his bride to prevent the crumbling of the walls of the castle during the building project.[174][175] In the early 20th century, Constantin Rădulescu-Codin, a teacher in Muscel County where the castle was situated,[175] published a local legend about Vlad's letter of grant "written on rabbit skin" for the villagers who had helped him to escape from Poenari Castle to Transylvania during the Ottoman invasion of Wallachia.[176] In other villages of the region, the donation is attributed to the legendary Radu Negru.[177]
Rădulescu-Codin recorded further local legends,[178] some of which are also known from the German and Slavic stories about Vlad, suggesting that the latter stories preserved oral tradition.[179] For instance, the tales about the burning of the lazy, the poor, and the lame at Vlad's order and the execution of the woman who had made her husband too short a shirt can also be found among the German and Slavic anecdotes.[180] The peasants telling the tales knew that Vlad's sobriquet was connected to the frequent impalements during his reign, but they said only such cruel acts could secure public order in Wallachia.[181]
Most Romanian artists have regarded Vlad as a just ruler and a realistic tyrant who punished criminals and executed unpatriotic boyars to strengthen the central government.[182] Ion Budai-Deleanu wrote the first Romanian epic poem focusing on him.[182] Deleanu's Țiganiada (Gypsy Epic) (which was published only in 1875, almost a century after its composition) presented Vlad as a hero fighting against the boyars, Ottomans, strigoi (or vampires), and other evil spirits at the head of an army of gypsies and angels.[183] The poet Dimitrie Bolintineanu emphasized Vlad's triumphs in his Battles of the Romanians in the middle of the 19th century.[184] He regarded Vlad as a reformer whose acts of violence were necessary to prevent the despotism of the boyars.[185] One of the greatest Romanian poets, Mihai Eminescu, dedicated a historic ballad, The Third Letter, to the valiant princes of Wallachia, including Vlad.[186] He urges Vlad to return from the grave and to annihilate the enemies of the Romanian nation:[186]
You must come, O dread Impaler, confound them to your care.
Split them in two partitions, here the fools, the rascals there;
Shove them into two enclosures from the broad daylight enisle 'em,
Then set fire to the prison and the lunatic asylum.
- Mihai Eminescu: The Third Letter[186]
In the early 1860s, the painter Theodor Aman depicted the meeting of Vlad and the Ottoman envoys, showing the envoys' fear of the Wallachian ruler.[187]
Since the middle of the 19th century, Romanian historians have treated Vlad as one of the greatest Romanian rulers, emphasizing his fight for the independence of the Romanian lands.[184][188] Even Vlad's acts of cruelty were often represented as rational acts serving national interest.[189] Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol was one of the first historians to emphasize that Vlad could only stop the internal fights of the boyar parties through his acts of terror.[185] Constantin C. Giurescu remarked, "The tortures and executions which [Vlad] ordered were not out of caprice, but always had a reason, and very often a reason of state".[189] Ioan Bogdan was one of the few Romanian historians who did not accept this heroic image.[190] In his work published in 1896, Vlad Țepeș and the German and Russian Narratives, he concluded that the Romanians should be ashamed of Vlad, instead of presenting him as "a model of courage and patriotism".[185] According to an opinion poll conducted in 1999, 4.1% of the participants chose Vlad the Impaler as one of "the most important historical personalities who have influenced the destiny of the Romanians for the better".
easy top pick to guess