upiór

thumb|302x302px|Burning the exhumed body of a person believed to be a vampire – Vampire, aut. R. de Moraine, 1864 thumb|Fight with an upiór – Maciej Sieńczyk Upiór is a demonic being from Slavic and Turkic folklore, a prototype of the vampire. It is suggested that the () belief spread across the Eurasian steppes through the migrations of the Kipchak-Cuman people, after having its origins in the regions surrounding the Volga (İtil) River and the Pontic steppes. The modern word "vampire" derives from the Old Slavic and Turkic form "" (), with the addition of the sound "v-" before a large nasal vowel (on), characteristic of Old Bulgarian, as evidenced by the traditional Bulgarian form "" (). Other names include , , , , and .

== Etymology == The exact etymology is unclear. Among the proposed Proto-Slavic forms are and . Another theory is that the Slavic languages have borrowed the word from a Turkic term for or 'witch, vampire, hortdan'. Czech linguist Václav Machek proposes the Slovak verb ('stick to, thrust into'), or its hypothetical anagram (in Czech, the archaic verb means 'to thrust violently') as an etymological background, and thus translates as 'someone who thrusts, bites'.