Background

Raymond McNally was born on May 15, 1931, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Education

Raymond McNally received a Jesuit education at Saint Ignatius High School, where he distinguished himself as a musician and student. After earning his bachelor's degree from Fordham University in 1953, Raymond finished his Doctor of Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin in 1956. Also, he attended the University of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg State University) for postdoctoral studies in 1961.

Career

Raymond McNally's first academic position was as an instructor in history at John Carroll University from 1956 to 1958. He spent the rest of his career at Boston College, where he became a professor of history in 1970. In addition to his roles as professor and mentor, McNally founded in 1964 and headed the Russian and East European Center at Boston College. Also, in 1995, with the Donald Carlisle, Raymond established the Balkan Studies Institute, also housed at Boston College. Raymond retired in 2001.

Raymond McNally was interested in East European cultures throughout his life, became fascinated by Dracula after reading the Bram Stoker novel. He suggested that the character may have based on an actual person, and together with colleague Radu Florescu, McNally wrote about his ideas in books In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends and Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, 1431-1476. He also coauthored Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times, and edited two other books about the Dracula legend. After his initial theories about Vlad were published, McNally heard about a Hungarian woman named Elizabeth Bathory who tortured and killed young girls and then bathed in their blood to preserve her youth. It prompted McNally to write Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania. He also released a compact disc on the subject called Dracula: Truth or Terror. These books caused McNally to become a hero among fans of vampire books, and he was often invited to their conventions (he organized one himself in 1997). He enjoyed wearing a black cape and swooping into rooms dramatically. However, McNally was always a serious scholar. In addition to his books about Dracula, he was the author of two books about writer and philosopher Peter Chaadayev, In Search of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which proposed that the Robert Louis Stevenson character was based on a real person, William Deacon Brodie.

Achievements

• Raymond McNally was known as an educator and writer. As a colorful and dynamic teacher, he acquired a broad following among students, both for his mainstream courses on Russian and European history and his more deliberately popular courses on Terror and Horror. Raymond's seminar in Russian intellectual history and his thesis direction enriched the preparation of several graduate students who went on to make significant contributions to the field. Also, in 1964, he founded the Russian and East European Center at Boston College, and in 1995, with Donald Carlisle, he established the Balkan Studies Institute.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dracula, Prince of Many Faces

    (Dreaded by his enemies, emulated by later rulers like Iva...)

    1989
  • In Search of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

    (In this fascinating, well-researched narrative, the autho...)

    2000
  • Dracula Was a Woman

    (An unusual investigation into the bizarre life of Elizabe...)

    1983
  • In Search of Dracula

    (The true story behind the legend of Dracula - a biography...)

    1994
  • Chaadayev and his friends 1971
  • Dracula 1974
  • A Clutch of Vampires 1976
  • The Essential Dracula 1980

Politics

An outspoken opponent of the war in Vietnam and the military dictatorship in Greece, Raymond McNally served for 12 years on the town of Brookline school committee and the Democratic State Committee of Massachusetts.

Views

Raymond McNally began his odyssey as he was reading 'Dracula,' by Bram Stoker, and noticed that many places in the book were real. Because Transylvania and Borgo Pass existed and the train schedules in the book were accurate down to the minute, he reasoned that Dracula might have based on a real person. He headed for Transylvania, part of present-day Romania, talked to peasants in the mountains, and studied monastery records, Russian tales, and Byzantine manuscripts. The result was his contention, still a matter of debate among academics but heartily endorsed by Romanian tourism officials, that a 15th-century nobleman, Vlad Tepes, was the basis for the fictional Dracula. On his own, McNally served up another bloodthirsty figure he contended was also a source for Stoker. She was Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian known as the Blood Countess. She was responsible for torturing and killing several hundred girls and bathing in their blood.

Quotations: ''I do not wish to take the life's blood from any human.''

Personality

Raymond McNally possessed a keen sense of humor and an ebullient personality.

Interests

• Writers

  Bram Stoker

Connections

Raymond McNally had a wife, Carol. They had three children: Catherine, Michael, and Patrick.

colleague:

Radu Florescu

Radu Florescu was an American academic, Emeritus Professor of History at Boston College, philanthropist, and an adviser to Edward Kennedy on Balkan and Eastern European affairs.

Wife:

Carol McNally

Daughter:

Catherine McNally

Son:

Michael McNally

Son:

Patrick McNally

colleague:

Donald Carlisle

Professor Donald Carlisle was a co-founder of the Balkan Studies Institute in 1995.