cahn | Frederick the Great post links

More 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 movies ~~because 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)!

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Here's another irony - I think FW might have gotten along better with Alexej (religious, conservative) provided that in this scenario, Alexeji wouldn't have threatened to undo all his father's work, or would have drunk far too much. And Fritz may have wondered how he'd have fared with Europe's most famous (and infamous) micro Managing reforming Monarch pre him as a Father - would he have died, or would they have gotten along?

I'm not sure any one of the four was the type to get along with any one of the others at close range, lol, but if I manage to brush up on my Russian history, I'll see what I think about the AU father/son pairs.

Personally, the man I always find myself wistfully imagining raising Fritz and doing a better job than FW was Eugene of Savoy. Not so much because he was the better general (I actually think that borders on irrelevant), or even because he was probably gay (although I like to imagine him being supportive of my ship :-P), but because from the one encounter between Eugene and young Fritz, plus Eugene's interest in the arts and in learning, I got the impression Eugene would have taken a more hands-off and positive reinforcement approach. And as I've mentioned, I think that was all you really needed to get an eventual general-king Friedrich, and in fact a better general than the traumatized one who could never listen to any of his advisors, take his enemies seriously, or admit when he was wrong. NOT, mind you, that I'm saying that Fritz's expansionist wars were awesome and I'd like to see him with even more conquests to his name. I'm just sick of FW's parenting style getting the fucking credit in everything I read.

From:

cahn

The post is up! In an effort to get

mildred_of_midgard more Fritz/Katte fic, here is a draft of what I propose to comment on that post. I have totally cribbed from both of your posts and comments, sometimes lifting several sentences at a time, just so you know (with credit!)

I'm happy for you guys to make changes or really to totally rewrite, if you want -- I'm sure either of you could make a better case for the fandom than I can :D I just thought I'd take a stab at it.

FANDOM NAME: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Would you like a fandom with all kinds of canon slash tropes (mean abusive dad who might have been suppressing his own slashy tendencies, tragic love story with best friend)? Would you like a fandom about a magnificent bastard royal figure who is a modernist and reformer (and very much into freedom of speech and religion) for his time but also likes to invade various territories for fun? Would you like a fandom with interesting, layered female characters, including a woman who becomes Empress despite all of Europe thinking this is hilarious being that she's a WOMAN?

Let me introduce you to Frederick the Great / Friedrich II / "Fritz" fandom! Fritz is beaten and publicly humiliated by his father (Friedrich Wilhelm), and his boyfriend is deported when his father caught them. He falls in love again, and he and his boyfriend (Hans Hermann von Katte) try to escape, but dad catches them and executes Katte, whose last words may have been "I die for you with joy in my heart!" (Well, in French.)

Fritz earns his freedom by marrying a woman (Elisabeth Christine), whom he sees... approximately once a year, for dinner. He eventually becomes king when his father dies, at which point he turns out to be pretty much a spectacularly magnificent bastard. Voltaire reports that he said, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis." But he also goes around breaking treaties and invading people on paper-thin and/or really zero justification. (Hilariously, he writes the Anti-Machievel, basically saying "You should definitely positively not break treaties and invade other people just because you can" in September of the year he invades Maria Theresia's province of Silesia in December, just because he can. In December. Later he tells his people to come up with a historical claim to Silesia.)

Maria Theresia, meanwhile, fights three wars with Fritz, after which he gets to keep Silesia. Also during which she meets with Fritz' sister Wilhelmine, thus leading to Fritz getting upset and a three-year estrangement between Fritz and Wilhelmine (!) So there's lots of family drama in this fandom too, and female friendship!

And I haven't even gotten into the Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship!

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):
The best primer for this for a total beginner is probably

selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses..

selenak and

mildred_of_midgard have been gracious enough to welcome me to their fandom by telling me all kinds of wacky stories about it; I have links here, including links to Wilhelmine's memoirs.
A hilarious summary of the War of the Austrian Succession is here.

[Many thanks to

selenak and

mildred_of_midgard, most of whose words these are.]

From: (Anonymous)

Well, anyone tackling young Fritz probably won't get around FW anyway, at least as a threatening shadow in the Background, so there's no reason to extra nominate him.

Okay, Voltaire it is! Am now really curious whether there will be Fritz/Voltaire frenemy stuff. Ideally, we could tempt someone who's an expert in Voltaire, which I'm decidedly not, alas.

From:

selenak

From:

selenak

I love it! Also I'm still hiking in the mountains with very limited online time, but will link the evidence post at my Journal as soon as it's up. Off now with Aged Parents to celebrate my mother's birthday by hiking. As one does.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, anyone tackling young Fritz probably won't get around FW anyway, at least as a threatening shadow in the Background, so there's no reason to extra nominate him.

More or less agree, and also he doesn't need to be on screen, so I wouldn't necessarily want him as a character. Plus I think it's possible to write a Fritz/Katte getting-to-know-each-other fic or a PWP or something without even alluding to FW. Let them be happy for an hour!

Yay for getting our nominations sorted. \o/

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I have another comment outlined with more anecdotes for you, ranging from #LifeGoals to TOTALLY NUTS, but it seems tonight I'm instead working on the above, aka a *second* short, morbid, mostly canon-compliant fic about Fritz, Katte, ghosts, and the burial site at Sanssouci. Because one fic about that wasn't enough. Look, the reason I can't ever do YT (or any other fic exchange, or challenge, or prompt) is that I don't tell the muse what to do, the muse tells me what to do.

Anyway, stay tuned!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

OMG! I'm just going to suggest a few teeeeeny tweaks, but this is amaaaaazing, thank you so much for writing it!

likes to invade various territories for fun

"Fun and profit" is more accurate as well as equally snappy.

his boyfriend is deported when his father caught them

The tense shift from "is" to "caught" feels awkward to me. I would make it "catches." Also, maybe specify "(Peter Keith)" since it seems like you're specifying characters who are getting nominated?

he and his boyfriend

"He and his new boyfriend," juuuust for clarity?

executes Katte

Maybe add "in front of Fritz's very eyes" or some such? EXTRA DOSE OF TRAGEDY.

whose last words may have been

I think "whose last words were some variation on" makes a stronger case for the wonderfulness of the ship while still being historically accurate: the different accounts show only minor variations on the death scene. He clearly said *something* about being happy to die for Fritz. <3 :'-(

"(Well, in French.)"

I would omit this. I think translation from some language can be assumed, and I don't think specifying it contributes anything. If you think people will love the fact that it was French, I'd put "His last words, in French, were..." so we can end on the strong note of Katte proclaiming his love.

Voltaire reports...But he also

"On the one hand...on the other" makes the tension between reformer and expansionist clearer to me. In fact, I might add something to make it slightly more clear that Voltaire is talking about his liberal tendencies in the first part. Otherwise, I read it and try to figure out where the bastardy comes in.

Anti-Machievel

Anti-Machiavel

(Hilariously, he writes the Anti-Machiavel

I would omit the parentheses as well as the dates and phrase as: "Hilariously, he first writes the Anti-Machiavel...then three months later invades..." That way the reader doesn't have to do the math, plus it flows a little better from the preceding.

come up with a historical claim

I see that I put "come up with" in my summary, but I actually think "go look for a historical claim" is probably more accurate as well as, imo, funnier, because I think it's totally hilarious if the one they found was real and they didn't make it up. And I haven't looked into it, but as far as I know, it was a real claim (albeit a weak one and never meant to be anything else). In contrast, I have seen the pretense for the later invasion of Saxony dismissed as a possible fabrication on his part.

Fritz' sister Wilhelmine

I would specify that she was his favorite sister or most beloved sister or something. It heightens the family drama, and it's relevant.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):

Missing space after the question mark.

primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses..

This ends in two periods.

A hilarious summary of the War of the Austrian Succession is here.

Did you mean for the link to go to

selenak's intro to the Pragmatic Sanction upthread of the War of the Austrian Succession summary? Or directly to the summary? The intro is informative and interesting, but it begins in medias res and might be confusing if you start reading there.

And I haven't even gotten into the Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship!

I suggest "snarky Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship." People like snark. :D

It was way easier for me to go through this looking for typos than it would have been to write it, so thank you sooooo much once again for pimping my fandom for me! And it's now after 3 am and I'm half asleep, but I will resume being enthusiastic at you when I wake up, yaaay.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

the different accounts show only minor variations on the death scene. He clearly said *something* about being happy to die for Fritz. <3 :'-(

Btw, other variations I've seen that are coming to me right now (there may be others):

- "If I had a thousand lives, I'd sacrifice them all for you."
- "It is an honor to die for a sweet prince."
- "I die for you with a thousand joys [in my heart]."

From:

mildred_of_midgard

selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses.

Forgot to mention, the link for this one leads to one of your posts instead.

From:

selenak

Late Roman Republic, among others. I'm also better versed in Elizabethan England and Renaissance France than Fritz & Prussia, though I'm pretty good with the French Revolution and German literature from the late 1770s onwards, not least because late 1770s onward is our equivalent of Elizabethan England in terms of the most treasured part of our literary canon getting written. Since Fritz either ignored or badmouthed without having read the start of said literary canon, the two areas only cross intermittently.

From:

selenak

I finally have a miniseries in English to rec to you: Peter the Great, starring Maximilian Schell as older Peter, Jan Niklas as younger Peter, Vanessa Redgrave as Peter's older sister and enemy Sophia the regent, Lilli Palmer as Peter's mother, Helmut Griem as Peter's bff Menchikov, Hanna Schygulla as Martha/Catherine I., and a lot of English actors like Trevor Howard and Laurence Olivier in cameo roles as various European dignitaries. Poor Alexeji is actually played by a Russian Actor, Boris Plotnikov. It's a very Euro 1980s production with cheesy soundtrack and international cast, but the acting is solid, it's based on Robert Massie's biography, and they go for morally ambigous yet compelling in general with Peter. (Alexej's death is not as graphic as it might have been, given this was shown at 8 pm, but it's clear how it came about.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I know it's just nominations so it doesn't matter, but for the sake of satisfying my urge to have our character nominations more thematically linked: do you want to swap Fredersdorf and Catherine with me?

From:

cahn

Excellent, thank you, this is perfect!

*headdesk* I checked the Anti-Machiavel spelling twice and that WASN'T ENOUGH

Oh man, I really like her intro to the Pragmatic Sanction, maybe I'll change the link and add a parenthetical to parent up twice for that. :)

From:

selenak

Catherine against Voltaire, but Fredersdorf against whom?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Fredersdorf, Keith, and Katte as Fritz's BFFs/probable boyfriends.

From:

selenak

Yes, I get that, but which one of yours should I take instead? (Since Fredersdorf was originally one of mine.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oooh, I see. I meant since you were supposed to do Fredersdorf and I was supposed to do Catherine, we would swap so I'd do Fredersdorf and you'd do Catherine.

Me: Fritz & his boyfriends. (Ship ALL the gays! :P)

You: Catherine, Voltaire, Orzelska, SD.

cahn: MT, Joseph, EC, Wilhelmine.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I agree! Plus it does explain what the Pragmatic Sanction is, which the later summary assumes you know. It just confused me because it wasn't, strictly speaking, "a hilarious summary of the War of the Austrian Succession." I think your parenthetical idea works well.

From:

cahn

I thought I'd seen in your DW that you were hiking. I applaud your commitment to Fritz (and Yuletide :D ) in doing all this commenting while on vacation with limited online time!

I HAVE POSTED in the Promo post:

https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/180595.html?thread=1519475#cmt1519475

From:

cahn

*facepalm* Thank you for being thorough about this!

It's now up!
https://yuletide.dreamwidth.org/180595.html?thread=1519475#cmt1519475

From:

mildred_of_midgard

SQUEEEEE!

In a past life, I think I was a proofreader. Also, I'm much better at proofreading other people's stuff than my own. Also, it's something my brain lets me do (up to a point) even when I'm sleep-deprived. Good collaboration!

From:

selenak

Wilhelmine's memoirs break off just when she has to describe realizing Marwitz - who wasn't just a Lady in waiting but a dear friend up to that point - was also her husband's mistress. At least in the of the memoirs I have, her last sentence is "I don't want to write about that court anymore". I might misremember, or have one of the shortened editions, but as far as I know, she never finished her memoirs propery. You have to consider her state of mind when she wrote them: marriage crisis, friend lost, Fritz estranged. I wouldn't be surprised if that was why she tackled her chiildhood and youth to begin with - not just because she had time at her hands, but to remind herself she'd survived worse. And afterwards, when Marwitz had at last left for Vienna, she'd made up with her husband, and she was reconciled with Fritz again, she probably didn't want to dive straight back into the arguments and the misery.

Unfortunately, that means the Maria Theresiia encounter didn't make it into the tell all (again, as far as I recall). She just mentions her when listing the royals who married at the same time she and Fritz had to.
end on a slightly less depressing note, I'm currently reading about "Friedrich II als Musiker", and Wilhelmine plays a big role in that one, not just because music was a mutual passion for them but because he kept sending her his compositions ~~for beta-reading~~ for her musical judgment. Am v. amused but not surprised in one letter Fritz explains how he taught the castrato singer he'd just hiired, Porporino, how to sing properly. (Think Hamlet lecturing the players on how to act.) (And bear in mind that castrati were trained from early childhood onwards and that it was an incredibly tough musical education..)

(I also got a more detailed summary of Wilhelmine's opera "Argenore" than I iused to know. Ahem: Argenore, King of Ponto, has a daughter named Palmida, secretly in love with Ormondo, a noble soldier and war leader; however, Argenore has promised her to Leonidas, his other battle-leader, who in turn has a secret love affair with Palmida's friend Martesia. Our villain Alcasto has designs on Palmida himself and frames Ormondo for trying to run away with her. Ormondo gets arrested. Argenore demands that Palmida kills Ormondo herself, otherwise both of them would have to die.

Ormondo manages to escape. Argenore, who plans to present his daughter with her lover's dead body (since she refused to earlier demand) in order to make her marry Leonidas, orders Leonidas to recapture Ormondo. Leonidas does so and in the ensuiing duel mortally wounds Ormondo, who dies. In anger and despiar, Palmida kills Leonidas. Martesia then, too late, via a letter in her possession reveals that Ormondo was really King Argenore's long lost son, i.e. Palmida's brother. Palmida, learning this, drowns herself. Argenore realises he's destroyed both his children, sings about that and commits suicide on the stage. Fina della tragedia.

...I don't know about you, but I think someone was venting... (More seriously, Wilhelmine in some ways may have been more together than Fritz, but I think it's more a question of her being restrained by being a woman and not having the same power at her disposal to deal with her trauma. She was stuck writing opera and memoirs to even try to attempt to.

...I wanted to end less depressingly, didn't I? Okay, I did manage to find the pastel miniature Wilhelmine - who was never more than amateur but as a princess of her age had to learn to paint as well - did of Maria Theresia (the Erremitage online inventory says she did it with her own hands. Given she met her just that one time, it was probably done by memory unless that meeting took longer (will have to track down Thiel's biography who supposedly gives the most detail on this):

http://www.wilhelmine-von-bayreuth.info/index.php/streben-in-der-politik/maria_theresia_pastell/
To

From:

selenak

Gotcha! Let's do it this way.

From:

primeideal

Every time I see your posts I'm reminded that technically Frederick is the first character namedropped in "Godel, Escher, Bach" (obviously in the Bach context). Don't have anything to add to that but glad you're enjoying :)