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: Prussian sibling correspondance

[mildred_of_midgard]

You said everything I was thinking. I was going to reply to your previous command and say that "Oh Fritz, oh Wilhelmine" pretty much sums it up. :-( I feel sorry for Wilhelmine and Fritz and everyone who had to deal with Fritz at close range after he became king.

Speaking of his correspondence in the other thread, apparently his idea of a condolence letter was "I am so sorry your brother died in one of my battles...but I just have to take advantage of this opportunity to say I TOLD YOU SO. I've been saying over and over again that he was going to get himself killed unnecessarily, I'm only surprised it didn't happen sooner."

He wrote this letter to EC about her brother's death *and also* to EC's surviving brother.

Um, Fritz? I'm notoriously bad at condolence letters, but even I know THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO IT.

In a way, that's even worse than his "but don't be too sad, my problems are much bigger" condolence ("condolence") letter to his own brother Heinrich after their brother Wilhelm's death 13 years later.

Both EC and Heinrich then wrote to their surviving brother, both named Ferdinand, expressing their fury at the "condolence" letters they got from Fritz. I don't have EC's letter, but all my sources agree that even she got mad. Saint EC!

She may have gotten her revenge, as one of my sources says *she* later blurted out the news of Friedrich's mother's death in a letter to him that she sealed with a red seal, instead of one of the black ones indicating bad news, and that's how he found out. Now, I don't have documentary evidence on any of this, and even if it's all thoroughly based in fact, I don't know to what extent she was familiar with the practice of preparing the King for bad news with a different seal, but...after watching him not learn how to write a condolence letter in 13 years, I think it was time for him to be on the receiving end of some insensitivity.

Fritz, unlike every historian ever, I don't expect you to interact with your forced-marriage wife or really any of your family you didn't choose. PLEASE DON'T INTERACT with your forced-marriage wife or really any of your family you didn't choose!! It works wonders for me.

Re: Prussian sibling correspondance

[cahn]

Awwwww EC :( Man, she deserved better. On the other hand, so did both Fritz and everyone around him, sigh. (Especially Wilhelmine, omg.)

(Is it mean of me that I kind of hope she actually did do the letter thing on purpose?)

Re: Prussian sibling correspondance

[mildred_of_midgard]

(Is it mean of me that I kind of hope she actually did do the letter thing on purpose?)

No, because I love Fritz with a deep and unreasonable love that is totally dependent on him being safely long dead, and even *I* hope she did it on purpose.

Not because being insensitive back at people is a good way of getting them to be less insensitive in future, but since that ship has sailed, just...EC, you're allowed to have your moment here, and this is coming from a non-fan of you.

Re: Prussian sibling correspondance

[mildred_of_midgard]

Man, she deserved better. On the other hand, so did...everyone.

This. This is why I live for AUs in this fandom. Also, why it breaks my heart that, unlike in my fictional fandoms, where I'm perfectly willing to tell myself that, say, my LOTR AUs are as valid in my head as anything canonical, the awful 18th century stuff all really happened no matter how many AUs I come up with. I write and I write and I write, and Katte's head is still separated from his body in that coffin in Wust, and Fritz still fainted watching. :'-(