Frederick the Great post links
Sep. 18th, 2019 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnMore Frederick the Great (henceforth "Fritz") and surrounding spinoffs history! Clearly my purpose in life is now revealed: it is to encourage mildred_of_midgard and selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:
* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history
* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."
Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the moviesbecause still mainlining Nirvana in Fire):
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments
ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!
mildred_of_midgard and selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history
* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."
Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the movies
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments
ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-19 11:53 pm (UTC)3) If we *did* develop this AU, you know what fortress FW has to end up in. :P I hear Küstrin was his favorite. See how *he* likes it from the inside! Mwahahaha.
ETA: Btw, I think we need a new Fritz post. I don't know if anyone else is having problems, but my phone can no longer expand all comments so I can search for a thread, and even my computer takes several seconds. DW says we're having too much fun! I say no such thing. :P
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-20 03:44 am (UTC)Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-20 03:47 am (UTC)It occurred to me that they'll be opening the Yuletide tag set soon, and maybe that would make a good post for you to talk about Fritz as well as advertise our fandom?
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-20 03:50 am (UTC)(I was highly entertained by seeing you on the evidence post. What with that and all, I feel like you can TOTALLY make your Silesian case for being a participant and therefore free to nominate.)
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-20 04:34 am (UTC)And haha, yes, that's what I was thinking! I'm helping out with Yuletide. Also, this is *totally* the year for royals and their favorites:
Edward II and Piers Gaveston
Richard II and Richard de Vere
James VI/I and Robert Carr
Alexander and Hephaistion <3
Fritz and Katte, Keith, and Fredersdorf (and I only didn't nominate Algarotti because I ran out of slots)
And those are only the ones we know about! I hope we get some good fic out of this. *gleeful hand-rubby* And man, I wish James' other favorites had been nominated, especially Buckingham.
Oh! You probably don't know this. But James was known for his favorites that contemporaries said he carried on with like a lover with his mistress (the thing someone said about Fritz and Katte while Katte was still alive), and we gossipy sensationalists argue about "did they or didn't they?" :P Well, we'll never know, but it was recently discovered that in one of his palaces, there was a secret passage connecting James' bedroom with Buckhingham's bedroom. Now, men could share a bed in the 17th century without it being assumed to be sexual, but if that's all that's going on, why do you need the secret passage, I ask you???
Also, did you notice we're approaching 700 comments to your Fritz posts? o.O
Also, random Fritz fact time:
In the course of working on one my fics, I was googling "Non soli cedit" just to double check that it was FW who came up with it. It literally means, "he does not yield to the sun" and, as FW's motto for Prussia, was a political statement that "Prussia does not acknowledge any cultural superiority of France aka the Sun King Louis XIV." So my memory was right about that. But then German Wikipedia had more to tell me.
So Fritz comes to power and is slightly more favorably disposed toward the French, at least culturally and linguistically, and he changes the motto to "Pro Gloria et Patria" ("For glory and the fatherland") aka "Let's all invade Silesia so I get famous and Prussia gets rich!"
Then Fritz, who as we all know is not exactly a Francophile in terms of the eighteenth-century political entity, ditches his French allies in the War of the Austrian Succession, then when they get mad at him and join the Seven Years' War coalition against him, he kicks their asses at places like Rossbach1 (which was less of a lost military battle than a really embarrassing rout for the French), and finally wins the war. Then he triumphantly puts "Non soli cedit"2 on one of his palaces, no doubt feeling he's earned it.
Fritz, you magnificent bastard, I read your book! (I did, actually, read two of his books, back in the day. ;) I need to get my hands on translations of his memoirs. Although what I really want is a scan of Heinrich's annotated copies of his brother's memoirs, because apparently his copies are full of "Lies!" and "WTF!" in the margins. :P)
1 After Napoleon kicks the Prussian army's ass, takes Berlin, pays his respects at Fritz's tomb, and takes some Fritz memorabilia home, he, or some other Frenchman, I forget, announces that Rossbach has been avenged, and all of France can finally heave a huge sigh of relief and hold their heads up again, 50 years later.
2 He actually puts "Nec soli cedit," a slight variation which may be best translated "Are you watching, Dad?" ("Are you proud of me yet, Dad?" "Have I surpassed you yet, Dad?" "Are we at the point where you're going to be remembered as Frederick the Great's father and not me as the Soldier King's son yet, Dad?")
Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd
Date: 2019-10-21 12:01 am (UTC)Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd
Date: 2019-10-21 03:02 am (UTC)Fontane also mentions the Austrian money Fritz got via Seckendorff well until 1736 - and also that Seckendorff left him in no doubt that this wasn‘t him, S, as a private person doing the crown prince a favour but Karl VI (aka MT‘s Dad) it‘s from, and tongue-in-cheekily (for a Prussian writer a hundred years later writing about the national idol) adds he wonders whether since Fritz ever paid MT (as her father‘s heir) back, since post-Silesia it‘s not like he was lacking for funds and revenues...
But really, Cahn, we need a new post, so I can tell you all about MT being unimpressed with her civil service asking for vacations when she‘s back to work in the cabinet just a few days after giving birth and her favourite daughter, Maria Christine, aka Mimi, carrying on a passionate love affair with Joseph‘s first wife Isabella of Parma (we have Isabella‘s love letters; in the 19th century this was passed off as a platonic romantic friendship entirely and just in the spirit of the emo age, but they had to edit out the raunchier bits to do so).
Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd
Date: 2019-10-21 03:33 am (UTC)Thank you for the instructive potato links and everything while you were at the conference! You're very dedicated. (If I were Fritz, I would question why you were at the conference in the first place and how it could possibly be more important than answering my questions, but since I'm not, I'll just say I'm glad it was a great conference. ;) The best ones are time-consuming and exhausting.)
I actually had missed that anecdote, but it surprises me not at all. Actually, the part that surprises me is how the hell this guy hadn't already been kidnapped. Since when did refusing to join the army keep you out of the army? Especially if you were tall? Especially at Neuruppin?? It barely worked outside of Prussia!
*moment of silence for all the shepherds and their ilk who just wanted to stay home*
Mind you, I had some distant family member who oral history says dodged being drafted (I want to say by the Wehrmacht in WWII) by hiding in trees and having the kids tell the soldiers at the door that Dad had gone off to war long ago. Whether this was post-War "I was never a Nazi!" history-rewriting, I do not know.
he wonders whether since Fritz ever paid MT (as her father‘s heir) back, since post-Silesia it‘s not like he was lacking for funds and revenues...
Lol, I would be *astonished*. The man periodically would do the hard right thing rather than the "this benefits me" thing (e.g. refusing to negotiate a subsidy with Britain until he could do so on more equal terms, saying he didn't want to be a burden to his allies), but my impression of the terms of his debts as Crown Prince to foreign courts was that he was trading not promises of specific amounts of money but generally being well-disposed toward their state in his future foreign policy, and well, that ship sailed in December 1740. :P I could be wrong; maybe he agreed to repay specific amounts of money, but I've read otherwise. (Mind you, I treat all biographies as novels and only believe things where I know what the evidence is, so this could be totally made up.)
And I'm also astonished there was a tall shepherd left at Neuruppin to be kidnapped, so impossible things are happening every day, as Rodgers and Hammerstein would say.
Oh, man, given what 18th century letters were like, I want to know how raunchy stuff had to get before it had to be edited out!
Maria Theresia Trivia
Date: 2019-10-21 07:20 am (UTC)So, random Maria Theresia related trivia and background stuff, with an eye to parallels and differences to certain Prussian siblings, or just because I found it interesting:
- like most royals and nobles in her century, her actual raising was done by nurses, governesses and later teachers; she had a respectful though distant relationship to both her parents, whereas she adored her nanny, Frau von Fuchs, whom she called "Mami" (which, yes, means Mom in German) and at times referred to as Füchsin, in a pun on her name (which means fox). As with Wilhelmine's Fräulein von Sonsfeld (aka "Sonsine"), "Mami" remained with MT for the rest of her life. MT had her buried in the Habsburg crypt, the sole non-Habsburg to be so. IF MT, the occasional temper outburst throughout her life, depression in old age and bigotry in same not withstanding, was emotionally balanced most of the time, this woman clearly deserves the credit.
- it's worth noting that neither MT (of course not, because ruler, but also because 18th century) nor Wilhelmine raised their daughters, either. When Friederike, Wilhelmine's daughter, is about to make her illfated marriage to Karl Eugen of Württemberg, Wilhelmine writers she's sad "because I have just begun to know her, and we were starting to get close". MT saw her kids four times a week on avarage during their childhood and early adolescence, which was regarded as sensationally much by the court. (In addition, she sat in on Joseph's school lessons and examinations every two months, but then he was the future emperor.)
- speaking of the Habsburg crypt - the famous "Kapuzinergruft" - , the tomb MT had comissioned for Franz Stefan and herself takes a common trope - the dead couple lying next to each other - and gives it a twist: both figures are turned towards each other, not towards heaven, and are looking at each other:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Wien_-_Kapuzinergruft%2C_Maria-Theresia-Gruft_%281%29.JPG/1024px-Wien_-_Kapuzinergruft%2C_Maria-Theresia-Gruft_%281%29.JPG
- the intimacy in this depiction also echoes another exception: MT and Franz Stefan shared a bedroom. The usual practice were separate bedrooms, sex ensued in one of them, and afterwards the husband (usually) buggered off, no pun intended. MT and Franz Stefan did have separate bedrooms but also a shared bedroom in between, which they used most of the time when both present. MT's advice (by letter) to her daughter Marie Antoinette was to share a bedroom and a bed with her husband as well, not just for sex but to sleep in together. This, she wrote, was one of the few ways to be truly alone together and outside of everyone's view, and it also created familiarity and a relationship. To her disappointment, Marie Antoinette didn't listen (or young Louis truly wouldn't go for it, which was Antoinette's explanation, because her mother could hardly blame her for obeying her husband); the French court, of course, found the mere idea of actually sleeping (as in sleep, not sex) together terribly degoutant and ridiculous.
- while we're talking sex, on the downside, one of MT's characteristics alienating both her contemporaries and posterity about her was that she tried to police everyone else's sex lives in a way not seen since Octavian/Augustus made adultery a crime in ancient Rome. (This had not been the case previously, when her father ruled, who otherwise had been more formal and old fashioned than her , more about this later. The Vienna MT grew up in was in fact famous for its sexual license. And would be again, because Joseph got rid of these laws as soon as she was dead.) Extramarital sex was strictly illegal, the police were encouraged to spy on offenders. This, of course, did not stop anyone. Contemporaries and biographers weren't slow to speculate the reason for this were less her religion and more projected resentment for Franz Stefan cheating on her which she couldn't direct at him. It's worth noting, though, that she honored his wishes regarding the most prominent of his mistresses after his death and gave her a pension (of the same amount as requested) instead of mistreating or just cutting the woman off. Her anti-extramarital-sex laws got worse after his death, though.
- on the other hand, MT also made an interesting exception for illegitimate mothers. This was because she could quickly see that if a woman was severely punished for unlicensed sex, and getting pregnant was the most glaring proof this had happened, it lead to either abortion or infanticide of newborn babies. So midwives and priests were indeed encouraged by law to keep the confidence of pregnant unmarried mothers and help them instead of reporting them.
- less successful was her attempt to end prostitution by putting prostitutes into work houses instead. The idea had been to give them "honest work" so they wouldn't starve once their job was illegal, but predictably (from our pov), this ended up with the women being terribly exploited as cheap labour. Joseph, all credit to him, during his many tours through his empire as a young co-ruler inspected enough of these places to come back with horrified reports and absolutely and passionately insisted the practice had to stop. This was one of the few times he won an argument with his mother.
- back to young MT: her first year or so in office when first Fritz and then everyone else invaded resulted in a lot of quite obscene caricatures, usually printed in the Netherlands, depicting a young woman getting stripped by a couple of men tearing her clothes from her (in national costumes indicating who represented which nation) , as more or less an overt gang rape, with verses to match. This was not done in sympathy for MT, mind, but as part of the general "well, it's a woman on the throne, she clearly needs to be fucked in every sense" feeling. However, once MT had persuaded the Hungarians to accept her as their Queen and fight for her, the fortunes of war changed to the point that Bavaria was counterinvaded which robbed her rival - the Wittelsbach Emperor - of his home base and later allowed her to blackmail his son Maximilian into not trying to succeed his father and instead voting for Franz Stefan as Emperor- the metaphor in caricatures was turned around; now MT (fully dressed) was depicted stealing the Wittelsbach Emperor's pants and wearing them.
- amazingly enough, her closest royal friend and pen pal was Maximilian's sister Antonia of Bavaria, later married to August the Strong's son and thus ruling Saxony, which put Antonia in a relatively good position for reporting on Fritz (a next door neighbour in terms of how close Saxony and Prussia were)
- even more amazingly, Franz Stefan, who'd met Fritz while doing his two year Grand Tour through Europe (he was present on Fritz' official engagement party, for example, not that this was a joyful occasion to our antihero), had actually be charmed by him (though when Fritz wrote his "dear FS, I'm totally respecting your (and your girl's) right on the Austrian heartlands and will vote for you as Emperor if you hand over Silesia, which by the time you're getting this letter I'm actually invading" message, he was horrified and told the Prussian ambassador so) and later periodically made attempts to persuade MT to maybe consider a reconciliation with Prussia over a French alliance (not least because he had an ongoing grudge against the French for first accepting his duchy Lorraine as a bribe to accept the Pragmatic Sanction, which meant he married MT essentially as a beggar, and then invading anyway), which were all met with a resounding "No, Franzl, NO".
- MT really was a hardcore worker, getting up around 4 am, 5 at the latest, while going to bed around 11 pm (going to bed here means removing herself from public sight, as we know these times from ambassadors reporting to their various masters; who knows whether she actually slept). As mentioned elsewhere, civil servants asking for more vacation time were met by an unsympathetic reminder she was up and about two days after childbirth, so what were they moaning about?
- this being said, she didn't just shrug off those births. After child No. 10, she wrote to Antonia - Marie Antoinette's godmother, btw - that she'd be grateful if that was it, because it pregnancy and birth was draining, she was getting fat and short of breath, and enough was enough (the dynasty was secure). As to why man-of-the-world Franz Stefan didn't have sex with her in a way that did not lead to more procreation and thus children 11 - 16? Neither of them ever said anything, but you can always speculate that it was for religious reasons on her part. After all, this is the woman who insisted on performing all the kneeling on a Good Friday when seven months pregnant, when every priest would have happily absolved her (not least because the health of the monarch and her unborn child were not a private matter).
- she had a keen sense of the performative part of being a monarch, all the more so because she needed to prove herself, a female ruler on the throne being unprecedented in the German speaking territories, and she was good in turning what was regarded as a weakness at the start - her being a wife and mother (if women per se were "the weaker vessel", you can imagine what a pregnant woman was at an age where a lot of them died in childbirth, not to mention that the traditional role of a wife obeying her husband directly conflicted with the idea of her as her husband's social superior) - as a strength: when she made her appeal to the Hungarian parliament, she emphasized her motherhood (though she did not, as legend would have it, newborn Joseph in her arms, Madonna fashion, during the appeal itself; she did have him brought to Hungary, though, since her finally having given birth to a son was a big plus in her favour) and turned into a "you brave and knightly men surely will protect me" thing, all flowing robes, tears in eyes and feminitity written all over her. (It worked.) Otoh, when the actual Hungarian coronation ceremony demanded for her to be on a horse (astride, male fashion), raising a sword (a real, heavy one) and turning thus, sword raised, with the horse in four directions, she did that, too. (MT turned out to be a good equestrarian in general and used the famous riding hall in Vienna for an all female big event in which solely women performed daring riding stunts not long after. Even the French, at the time still hoping their Bavarian ally would make it, were grudgingly impressed by the sheer spectacle.)
- but then, she had already started performing as a child (singing and dancing) at court events. (This was not unusual in the 18th century for royalty. No one had forgotten Le Roi Soleil and his ballet dancing. The nineteenth century had every different ideas about royal dignity, of course (more in line with FW's), but the first depiction we have of child Marie Antoinette is ballet dancing at a court event together with her sisters as well.)
- on the other end of the scale, MT's father Karl had been the ruler during whose lifetime the Habsburgs lost Spain to the Bourbons. After the last Spanish Habsburg (the famously inbred Charles) had died, the Austrian Habsburgs totally expected to inherit, but Louis XIV had other ideas (and put his grandson on the throne). Karl for a while held Northern Spain, though, and he was the Habsburg to bring Spanish Court Etiquette to the Austrian court. This meant, among other things, that anyone being presented to the Emperor or the Empress had to kneel down three times before approaching them, and then they had to kiss their hand. The other German princes resented that a lot. MT cut it down to one time kneeling down and one time hand kissing, and Joseph dispensed with the kneeling altogether. (His nephew Franz II, the reactionary, reintroduced it.) I'm still mulling whether or not MT would have been likely to demand it from Wilhelmine on her Bayreuth visit or whether she'd have been diplomatic and skipped it (knowing how much especially the Protestant German Princes resented it). She'd definitely demand it from Fritz on the fictional summit, though!
The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina
Date: 2019-10-21 09:35 am (UTC)Censored bit: for example a rare German sentence in an otherwise French correspondance: "Ich küsse dein erzenglisches Arscherl", "I kiss your arch angelic arse". "Englisch" here in the sense of "angelic", not in the sense of "English". Erz is arch, as in arch duchess, Maria Christina's title. Except for one, all the 200 plus letters still existing are Isabella's.
It's a sad story for everyone concerned, other than Maria Christina, aka Mimi, who was MT's favourite daughter and after Isabella's death became the only one of MT's children to be allowed to marry for love, not politics, the man of her choice. (BTW, in the two Marie Antoinette novels I've read that include her pre-France chldhood, MC is a villain because the rest of the kids, not blind to the favouritism, resented her. Antoinette didn't allow MC to visit her at her personal refugee, the Petit Trianon when MC visited Paris with her husband later, she only received her in the main palace of Versailles.) The Isabella/Joseph match was, like Marie Antoinette/Louis meant to strengthen the new Austria/France alliance. (Isabella being a Bourbon.) The future couple were incredibly nervous going into the match, as we know from their letters. Joseph, unlike his father, was still a virgin when marrying, and a shy, slightly stammering one. Isabella was more outwardly confident, but she also had inherited marriage trauma. Her mother had been a child bride, only 14 years old at the time of Isabella's birth, and said "I turn to ice every time he touches me" about her husband, whom she loathed. She also died when only in her 30s. Moreover, and most importantly, without "no homo" blinders of older biographers it's pretty clear that Isabella just didn't like men and preferred women. She wrote those 200 plus letters while being mostly in the same city with Maria Christina, whom she had corresponded with even before meeting her in person, and pretty much adored her on sight. And vice versa.
Meanwhile, Joseph also fell for his bride on sight, nervous or not. As well he might. On the surface, he'd hit the jackpot of arranged marriages. She was beautiful, smart, and very musical - she played the violin, which as you'll recall from Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara, was considered a bit scandalous for a woman at least by non-royalty. He remained smitten, and when she died only three years later, he'd nursed her through her painful illness, the smallpox, likelihood of infection be damned. (Maria Theresia was also present at Isabella's sick bed a lot; Isabella was the sole family member whom she never as much as mildly critisized but only had praise for. Maria Christina, otoh, was not there, but she may not have been allowed to, being yet unmarried, and a smallpox infection even if she'd survived it would have ruined her marriage chances. Remember, this was before MT allowed her to marry for love.)
If Joseph ever figured out she never loved him, and had in fact loved his sister, passionately, we don't have any evidence to go with it. And emotionally, she barely tolerated and not even respected him. In the letters to MC, he's ridiculed for not noticing she much prefers his sister, and Isabella wrote a pamphlet called "On the nature of men" which can be summed up with "men are scum, led by their dicks, never as much as noticing we don't want to have sex with them, and incapable of higher feelings". Don't get me wrong, being in an enforced sexual relationship is awful, legally licensed rape, and she wasn't obliged to feel anything for him. But it's still sad that not even friendship on her part was possible, because he did adore her, and was also a devoted father to their daughter instead of doing the period thing of being disappointed for her not being a son. (Who turned out to be his only child, and she died before growing up.)
(Joseph's second marriage was also a disaster but for oppposite reasons. He didn't want to marry again in the first place, since Isabella's death had devasteded him, but both his parents - Franz Stefan was still alive then - insisted, because dynastic duty. And then he pulled a Fritz on the princess he did end up with, going out of his way to avoid her, and being in her presence in the few years they were married mere hours. When she died as well, he stuck to his guns and refused to marry till the rest of his admittedly none too long life, which is why brother Leopold became Emperor after him.)
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-22 01:34 am (UTC)TAG SET IS OUT
THERE ARE 14 CHARACTERS!!
ALGAROTTI IS IN!
I think the 14th is Stanisław August Poniatowski? I don't remember him being discussed in our 12.
I am just all gleeful that there is a fourth person we have in our fandom! :D
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-22 02:21 am (UTC)Huh. I kind of wonder where they're going with Poniatowski. Are they a) using our fandom to get Catherine the Great fic in? (although they could have used "18th Century CE Russian Royalty RPF" if so) b) interested in fic about the first Polish partition? c) aware of Fritz/Poniatowski interactions that I am not? (always possible, perhaps
Also, yep, looks like "Ekatarina" got misspelled. Cannot believe it took me this long to notice, and after I proofread your tag list and all. *hangs head in shame* Oh, well.
OUR FANDOM HAS 14 CHARACTERS \O/
*eagerly awaiting your post*
ETA: Oh, possible 4th option, they nominated Catherine and Poniatowski under a different fandom name, and because we also had Catherine, the mods slotted both under our fandom? Maybe we should ask about that, because if that's the case, it should definitely either go under Russian royalty, or, even better, historical royals and their favorites.
...I'm going to ask.
Re: The Ballad of Isabella and Maria Christina
Date: 2019-10-22 04:28 am (UTC)Wow, those letters! That is amazing. (And it's really interesting to see a F/F relationship in this time period with textual support, demonstrably not platonic romantic friendship.)
This makes me awfully sad for everyone involved. Maybe not so much Joseph if he never realized it (which if Isabella is writing that "they don't notice we don't want to have sex with them," maybe he didn't??) -- but I don't know, maybe it makes it even sadder -- and then his second marriage :(
And I guess at least Isabella and MC found love. For a short while :(
It seems like rather a relief that at least MC was able to marry for love later on :( Way to be a hypocrite, MT!
Re: Maria Theresia Trivia
Date: 2019-10-22 04:34 am (UTC)Joseph! I totally have a soft spot for him and have ever since learning of his Rational Fanboy nature (and, okay, imagining all these stories with the guy in Amadeus too). :D YAY JOSEPH. (I guess now you can tell me all the negative stories about him :P )
periodically made attempts to persuade MT to maybe consider a reconciliation with Prussia over a French alliance ... which were all met with a resounding "No, Franzl, NO".
lol! ...oh Franzl. Good thing he wasn't (acting) Emperor :P
Thank you for all this, this is wonderful!
Re: Maria Theresia Trivia
Date: 2019-10-22 04:48 am (UTC)periodically made attempts to persuade MT to maybe consider a reconciliation with Prussia over a French alliance ... which were all met with a resounding "No, Franzl, NO".
Hahaha, this is awesome. Love the parallels.
Heinrich: Do you think we could maybe calm the fuck down and let the Austrians have some of their territory back?
Fritz: NO.
Franzl: Do you think maybe letting Fritz keep some of our territory would not be the worst thing in the world?
MT: NO.
Joseph: Do you think maybe Fritz is actually kinda awesome at times?
MT: NO.
Joseph: Do you think maybe we should piss Fritz et al. off by invading Bavaria?
MT: What, am I the only sane person in this family? How many times do I have to say it? No, no, and NO.
which by the time you're getting this letter I'm actually invading
Fritz: doing his level best to deliver the letter in person. :P
Re: Random facts
Date: 2019-10-22 05:07 am (UTC)ETA: Never mind! I see what you mean now. I won't comment, yours is perfect :)
Re: Maria Theresia Trivia
Date: 2019-10-22 12:38 pm (UTC)I'm mentioning this because in the two MT biographies I'm currently reading bit by bit, again one of the biographers complains she wasn't chill about Fritz the way he totally was about her! (*caugh* "Apostolisches Rabenaas", "one of the three whores of Europe", "stinks of diapers all the time" "Your FRIEND the Queen of Hungary" *cough*)
BTW, have replied to the other comments at the new post!