The subject of this paper is the vampire myth and its origin and development. The thesis is that the vampire is a symptom of culture and society, their peculiar reflection in a certain time. The paper begins with depictions of the folklore vampire who has always embodied everything that was unknown, inexplicable and different. Bad living conditions in Eastern Europe fueled the vampire epidemic and moved vampires from oral traditions and folklore to the pages of tracts, and then to literature. Polidori is the first to introduce a vampire into high society, and thus the vampire becomes a polished aristocrat. Le Fanu cultivates a new model of vampire, but adds to it an even stronger sexual appetite. Stoker's vampire represents the fear of racial and ethnic Otherness, that is, the fear of possible colonization. The vampire thus becomes a place where social anxiety settles, and its appearance awakens in us an uncanny feeling, because our repressed fears and desires are both close and foreign to us at the same time. At the end of the 20th century, the vampire is no longer a threatening Otherness from the margins of the world, but, in Anne Rice, that Otherness addresses us directly. Since then, the vampire more and more resembles a man, sharing more and more traits with him. This tendency will culminate with the appearance of the Twilight Saga, in which the vampire loses all of its previous characteristics as well as its symbolic potential.