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: Nomination coordination redux

[cahn]

"C'est pourquoi, si je me marie en galant homme, c'est-à-dire laissant agir madame comme bon lui semble, et faisant de mon côté ce qui me plaît, et vive la liberté!"

So from everything you guys have told me about Fritz, and reading this totally without context, I actually think he might have meant that he was OK with EC having affairs, but I also am getting Anti-Machiavel vibes here in a big way :P It's the kind of thing where I can totally see him going around saying "Everyone should have freedom to have affairs and do their own sex thing, vive la liberté!" and then when presented with the actual thing from his actual wife... maybe might not feel the same way about it.

Re: Nomination coordination redux

[mildred_of_midgard]

That is entirely plausible. I'm actually startled by the idea of him implying sexual freedom for his wife in the first place, but hey. Anti-Machiavel.

I can totally see him going around saying "Everyone should have freedom to have affairs and do their own sex thing, vive la liberté!" and then when presented with the actual thing from his actual wife... maybe might not feel the same way about it.

You almost literally quoted from Mein Name ist Bach there. In that case (since I don't think you've seen it) it's his unmarried sister having an affair, Fritz throws a fit, and she says, "You're always saying everyone is master of their own fate and arse in this kingdom, but by 'everyone' you mean 'you'." :P

So like I said, that's why I can see him deciding that his wife needs to sleep with someone of his choosing, but not that she's allowed to sleep with someone of her choosing.

His side

[selenak]

Same here. I mean, even that bit from his memoirs where he sides with future FW II's first wife cheating on him and says it's totally his nephew's fault for "neglecting her charms" and cheating on her first strikes me more as an (hypocritical) insult to his nephew than an actual acceptence of a woman's right to sexual freedom. Also: note that he agreed to his nephew seeking a divorce from said first wife when the woman got pregnant by definitely not his nephew, i.e. a non-Hohenzollern future heir was not on the menu.

He might have tried to marry August Wilhelm off to MT's younger sister (who in rl married Franz Stefan's younger brother, so it's a plausible match under the circumstances) and get a Habsburg/Hohenzollern heir the respectable way. But that's supposing said younger sister was still free to be married off by the time Emperor Karl dies instead of Karl making a match for his younger daughter before that. Also, again, I think MT would have been invested into getting a child of her own as heir, especially if she has a miserable marriage and no or not much power.

Now, best case scenario: we take Fritz at his word that he did have an affair (in the physical sense as well) with Orzelska as a teen in Dresden and when she later secretly visited him in Berlin, i.e. he's able if he's willing, he is motivated post-Küstrin to make a success of his new life in Vienna. Maria Theresia wouldn't get the 16 kids she had in rl out of that, but she was certainly fertile, and if she and Fritz manage an heir and a spare instead of or in addition to girls in the first few years, that would be enough to make any more future marital sex superflous, so by the time both their fathers are dead, they've come to an arrangement that suits them.

Re: His side

[cahn]

This, on the other hand, sounds... not... absolutely 100% terrible. I mean, maybe 80% terrible? But it seems like at least from this standpoint it might be just possible to make it more-or-less workable in the sense of "not going up in apocalyptic flame."

But poor MT, still. <3

Her side

[selenak]

Separately, re: would have MT gone along with having an affair to get an heir especially if Fritz was unwilling/unable from the get go and annulment was not an option?

Definitely not if he'd advised her to sleep with his brother. That would have been spiritual incest (since, post-marriage, his siblings were her siblings as well) in addition to being adultery, and a MT unhappy in her marriage would have been more likely to throw herself into her religion to compensate, not less.

However: in rl she never was in the situation of being in love with someone she absolutely could not have. So I'm not completely sure she wouldn't have had an affair with Franz Stefan (who definitely was okay with adultery) if he'd tried, because she really was deeply in love with him already at the point where the timelines would have diverged. Not immediately, I think she would have given this marriage an honest, dutiful try, but some frustrating years later? Just about possible for young MT, foiled in love, no realm ruling to put her energies into and stuck with Fritz as a husband.

Re: Her side

[cahn]

Ah, right. I also did know about the spiritual incest thing, courtesy of Henry VIII logic, but had entirely forgotten, thanks for reminding me.

But, ugh, this is sounding really awful, MT driven by frustration into an affair that she would have been super against religiously. This is making me so glad she and Franz Stefan got to have each other <3