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

[selenak]

Yes, I think so. Also, I keep forgetting to say this, but given the sheer size of Fritz' hangup about German (the language and being one), it really says a lot about his relationship with Fredersdorf that he's willing to write German to him (and presumably talk as well?). Am determined to request a Federsdorf pov for Yuletide, set in Küstrin when he's introduced to a badly damaged prince and has to figure out how to even begin to make him feel better a bit.

[mildred_of_midgard]

YES! I've been thinking exactly this:

given the sheer size of Fritz' hangup about German, it really says a lot about his relationship with Fredersdorf that he's willing to write German to him (and presumably talk as well?)

and wanting to read exactly this:

a Federsdorf pov, set in Küstrin when he's introduced to a badly damaged prince and has to figure out how to even begin to make him feel better a bit.

I hope someone writes it!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, speaking of German, and Fritz, can you explain what's up with the definite article before proper names in that passage? Why those names and not the others?

Googling tells me that in modern times, sticking definite articles before proper names is a southern thing and Not Done in the north, but this is 1) 18th century German, 2) Fritz's idiosyncratic 18th century German. So I'm super curious if the article there is optional and makes no difference, or if it adds some nuance to the meaning, or if Fritz is just being Fritz.

Fritz: German is stupid because it doesn't have rules.
Modern biographer: Have you ever considered that it might just be that you never learned any?

[selenak]

You mean as in "der Champion" and "der Dechiffreur"?

Well, "der Dechiffreur" uses "der" just like English would use "the", as in "the decyphrer". "Der Champion", otoh, is Fritz using informal spoken German in written form. To this day, when we refer in spoken German to someone - be they pet or person - we often add a "der" or "die" before their name. (If either of you gets around to watching the young MT miniseries, when Franz Stefan refers to MT as "die Resi" early on, he's signalling their level of familiarity not just with the nickname but with the "die".

Famous rl MT quote, when she had her first grandson (by Leopold), spoken out loud to the entire audience of the Vienna opera just after she was told: "Der Poldl hat an buam kriegt!" Our Poldl's got a boy!" would be the equivalent English sound, I suppose. If she'd said simply "Poldl" not "Der Poldl", it would have sounded like someone artificially trying to come across as informal, not like the real thing.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, thank you.

I went back and forth on whether Dechiffreur was a job title or a surname based on a job title. It seemed weird to me to have the job title in the middle of a list of proper names, I personally would have grouped like nouns together, but then I just remembered I have a backspace key. Ink is harder. ;)

Similarly, I had gone back and forth the other day on whether Champion was a dog or whether he was the cook that we later hear of who was named Champion, especially because I wasn't sure if Fritz kept male dogs, but I thought it was weird to group a cook with a dog instead of with the humans, and then I started worrying if Annemarie was maybe not a dog either, but then I couldn't figure out which female human would be not only getting mentioned by her first name but given place of priority in the list, plus the editor feels the need to explain that Fritz is not mentioning his *other* dog, so they can't all be humans, so I went back to my original reading of two dogs followed by four humans, haha. All this is why you're getting asked. ;)

Thank you for clarifying! You're an excellent canon beta. (And yes, I'm writing about Soor and the capture of the dogs, hence how I stumbled across the condolence letters, and why you're getting these incredibly specific questions.)