Frederick the Great post links

[cahn]

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)!

Comments

Re: Tragic ship

[selenak]

Now it's been decades since I read Carlyle's biography (my grandfather had a - shortened - German edition in his library), but here's the irony: he had no problem being wary of Wilhelmine as a source when it came to her actual criticism of her brother, pointing out that the memoirs were written during their three years enstragement and thus likely coloured by her emotional state at that time. Otoh, I would caution against assuming homophobia, not least because Carlyle, cranky Scot that he was, didn't held back on the -isms he actually had, which were plenty, so if he'd any hangups in that direction he'd have ranted about them, not being coy. Plus the mid-Victorians, of which he was one, were actually wild about "passionate friendships" between men. (Think Tennyson's poem In Memoriam - and Tennyson was a friend.) Considering Carlyle's first biographer (also a friend) thought he (Carlyle) was impotent, his Albee-esque marriage to Jane Welch not withstanding, it's more likely that if C thought about Fritz' sexuality at all, he considered him a fellow asexual (not in those terms; I'm always trying to avoid putting current-day framings of sexuality into historical figures' heads), basically seeing his hero Above It All.

Back to Wilhelmine for a moment, I've just listened to one of those exchanges which make me salute her, when she and Fritz are discussing new books - these two were such endearing geeks in that regard, constantly talking about music and books in between news and family drama:

W: Have just come across a book that really made me furios. The author says women are not capable of rational thought, only men are. So we've been put on a level with sheep.

F: Gotta agree with the author. You, dearest sis, are of course an exception and Not Like Other Girls, but then I don't consider you a woman. You are one of the first men of Europe.

W: Thanks but no thanks. I'm a woman. I don't want to be thought as an exception. (literal quote is "I don't want to be held apart from my sisters"). Maybe rethink your criteria?

F: *changes subject*

Then there's this gem:

W: OMG have just heard you wrote to Voltaire and HE WROTE YOU BACK! A-plus fanboy achievement, bro. I'm so envious. But, um. Gossip says you've also invited him. Are you sure that's wise? He's supposed to a bit on the vain side in person, not quite living up to his writings.

F: Pffff. I'm also interest in him for his writings, don't care about his personal quirks at all, what could possibly go wrong?

And, around 1737:

W: Have just heard rumors that Mom and Dad have done a 180%. She's supposed to have gone religious while he's supposed to have discovered music. What the hell?

F: Don't worry, it's not true. Mom's no more religious than before and Dad has discovered painting, not music. That can still be our thing.

BTW, they always refer to their parents as "the King" and "The Queen", never as their mother and father. But to be fair, that might be writing custom of the day as much as reflecting their emotions, considering Wilhelmine refers to her husband first as "the Prince" and then, after his father's death, as "The Margrave", never by his first name or as "my husband". Fritz the very few times he mentions her refers to Elisabeth Christine as "the Crown Princess", but that's less surprising. Oh and, one of these times is a downright sympathetic reference, when telling Wilhelmine "Potsdam and Berlin are hell right now, the King is having a go at me again, and even the Crown Princess has lost nearly all her standing with him and gets similar treatment".

Re: Tragic ship

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, GOOD for you, Wilhelmine! *applauds*

(I see the Prussian cyber agents are at it again. They're very dedicated to their jobs!)

[Hit reply too soon]

but here's the irony: he had no problem being wary of Wilhelmine as a source when it came to her actual criticism of her brother

Ah, yes, I reread what I wrote and realized it reads like a globally applicable comment. I meant specifically about Katte and Keith. And that is also why I think it's partly his own pro-Fritz biases showing: he follows W blindly when what she says *resonates* with him.

And when I said "homophobic," I phrased it as "reflexes of homophobic mindsets" deliberately, without specifying *whose* mindset. I need to read Wilhelmine's memoirs more closely, instead of skimming (it's next on my list), but just from recent rereading of the Katte affair, she comes across as unhappy with both his freethinking (which Carlyle would not be), and his and Keith's "inappropriate" relationships with her brother, which I've been taking to mean sexual. If I am way off the mark, let me know. Maybe she really was just worried about FW's homophobia, and distressed at her brother having intense emotional relationships with people who are not her...but her whole language about his boyfriends comes across as homophobic: "debauched," "dissolute," "irregular."

But whereas Carlyle was on board with the whole freethinking thing, and as I said I had no idea about his attitude toward sexuality one way or the other (thank you for clarifying!), I've been assuming that a lot of biographers are sometimes just not questioning what might lie behind the portrayals in their sources. And he always seemed like one of them when I was rereading this section looking for shipping material.

Re: Tragic ship

[cahn]

Wilhelmine is awesome! <3

...it sounds worth reading these letters. Are they translated into English? I can read enough French that in theory it would be possible for me to read it untranslated, although in practice I would probably just not bother until that mythical time I have more free time.

BTW, they always refer to their parents as "the King" and "The Queen", never as their mother and father. But to be fair, that might be writing custom of the day as much as reflecting their emotions, considering Wilhelmine refers to her husband first as "the Prince" and then, after his father's death, as "The Margrave", never by his first name or as "my husband".

This confused the heck out of me in her memoirs for quite a long time until I figured this out. I was all "Where's her husband?" :)

I've sort of hit pause on the memoirs for a while, partially because I've been reading other things to figure out what to nominate for Yuletide, and partially as it got kind of depressing while she was navigating her in-laws. I don't know why it's more depressing than her flat-out family-of-origin abuse, though it's perhaps cumulative. And maybe because it's more mundanely awful than her original family's over-the-top craziness. And also probably because I was reading it in large part for the Wilhelmine-Fritz relationship, which is of course not as much of a thing once she's been married.