Vlad I of Wallachia
Romanian ruler of Wallachia
Vlad I (? – 1396/97?) known as Uzurpatorul (the Usurper), was a ruler of Wallachia in what later became Romania. He usurped the throne from Mircea I of Wallachia. His rule lasted barely three years, from October/November 1394 to January 1397, while others suggest that the accurate ruling period was from May 1395 to December 1396.
Early life
There are disagreements about Vlad I's origins. He was either a nobleman or the son of Dan I and brother of Dan II. Other scholars have reservations about establishing any degree of kinship between Vlad I and Mircea the Elder due to the lack of supporting documents.
Reign
Vlad I of Wallachia supposedly took the throne after the great Ottoman offensive in the fall of 1394, during the Battle of Rovine (dated by several Serbian chronicles to 10 October 1394). However, according to Serbian historian Radoslav Radojičić, Vlad I actually took the throne on 17 May 1395. This theory has been accepted by Romanian historians such as Anca Iancu. At the end of 1395, Sigismund of Luxembourg mentioned that Vlad I was sovereign of Wallachia, referring to his pro-Ottoman policy.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vlad I of Wallachia” as romanian ruler of Wallachia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as romanian ruler of Wallachia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1047298. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1396, 1394, 1397 and 1395.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vlad I of Wallachia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.