Arnold Paole

Who was Arnold Paole?

Arnold Paole was a Serbian hajduk who was believed to have become a vampire after his death, initiating an epidemic of supposed vampirism that killed at least 16 people in his native village of Meduegna, located at the Morava river near the town of Paraćin.

Paole's case, similar to that of Petar Blagojevich, became famous because of the direct involvement of the Austrian authorities and the documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires. Their report of the case was distributed in Western Europe and contributed to the spread of vampire belief among educated Europeans. The report and its significance for the subsequent eighteenth century vampire controversy are nowadays explained with the poor understanding of the process of corpse decomposition at the time.

Knowledge of the case is based mostly on the reports of two Austrian military doctors, Glaser and Flückinger, who were successively sent to investigate the case.