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20f8922
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It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.
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dark
dracula
european
fiction
historian
historical
horror
moody
vampire
vlad-the-impaler
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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847f0a8
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I felt sure, glaring at the children as they settled onto the sand with their shovels, that these creatures were never threatened by the grimness of history, either. Then, looking down on their glossy heads, I realized that they were indeed threatened; they were simply unaware of it. We were all vulnerable.
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dracula
history
vlad-the-impaler
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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575e408
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The thing that haunted me that day, however, as I closed my notebook and put my coat on to go home, was not my ghostly image of Dracula, or the description of impalement, but the fact that these things had- apparently- actually occurred. If I listened too closely, I thought, I would hear the screams of the boys, of the 'large family' dying together. For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you've seen that truth-really seen it-you can't look away.
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history
history-as-a-guide
truth
vlad-the-impaler
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Elizabeth Kostova |
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8a35bcc
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...The strange thing, you know, is that Stalin openly admired Ivan the Terrible. Two leaders who were willing to crush and kill their own people-to do anything necessary- in order to consolidate their power...Can you imagine a world in which Stalin could live for five hundred years...or perhaps forever?
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ivan-the-terrible
political-power
stalin
vlad-the-impaler
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Elizabeth Kostova |