Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

[cahn]

Come join us in this crazy Frederick the Great fandom and learn more about all these crazy associated people, like the star-crossed and heartbreaking romance between Maria Theresia's daughter Maria Christina and her daughter-in-law Isabella, wow.

OK, so, there are FOURTEEN characters nominated:
Anna Karolina Orzelska (Frederician RPF)
Elisabeth Christine von Preußen | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia (Frederician RPF)
Francesco Algarotti (Frederician RPF)
François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire (Frederician RPF)
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great (Frederician RPF)
Hans Hermann Von Katte (Frederician RPF)
Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor (Frederician RPF)
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria (Frederician RPF)
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (Frederician RPF)
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith (Frederician RPF)
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (Frederician RPF)
Stanisław August Poniatowski (Frederician RPF)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758) (Frederician RPF)
Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia (Frederician RPF)

This means some fourth person kindly nominated Algarotti and -- I think? -- Stanislaw August Poniatowski! YAY! Thank you fourth person! Come be our friend! :D Yuletide is so great!

I am definitely requesting Maria Theresia, Wilhelmine, and Fritz (Put them in a room together. Shake. How big is the explosion?), and thinking about Elisabeth Christine, but maybe not this year.

I am also declaring this post another Frederician post, as the last one was getting out of hand. I think I'll still use that one as the overall index to these, though, to keep all the links in one place.

(seriously, every time I think the wild stories are done there is ANOTHER one)

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

I admit that I know basically two things about Frederick the Great of Prussia. (1) he was involved in a legal kerfuffle with a mill (but this might be urban legend), and (2) he tried to run away with his officer boyfriend, who was executed as a result.

Which is to say, since there is clearly a lot of glorious historical batshit here I would enjoy, do you recommend a particular book to start (in English)?

[selenak]

Alas, I have to pass this on to mildred_of_midgard, because being German,the Frederick biographies I'm familiar with are as well. In the meantime, why not check out Mein Name ist Bach, a movie based on the historical encounter(s) between Frederick and, well, Bach? That one has English subtitles, is focused on a brief point in time (so you don't have to know context beyond the one the movie provides), and it does give you a first impression of Frederick's personality. (Though, as Mildred said, the jerk woobie part, not the magnificent bastard part, but that's due to circumstance. (The magnificent bastard part comes out when he's facing off with most of Europe, not with musicians, some of which depend on him for a living.)

[nineveh_uk]

Thank you for the rec! Alas, my German reading reaches its limits cheesy fanfic, but I enjoy a good costume drama and that looks like it would be a good fun start. And it's only 95 mins long, which is something I always like in a film!

Book treatments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ha, I was waiting to see if selenak had something to offer first. But I suspected her knowledge might be limited to German sources, just as mine is limited to English.

Sadly, I have further limitations, which are:

1) Most of the Fritz reading I've done was 20 years ago, when I was ~15 years old, and thus, while I remember a surprising amount of facts, I don't remember much about authors.
2) Due to chronic pain, I can no longer read physical books and can only read e-books. Not many of the Fritz bios have been converted to e-books.

So with these limitations, the only biography I can currently recommend as a starting point is Blanning.

Pros:
- It's recent, from 2015--more recent than I remembered.
- I found it quite readable.
- The author doesn't "no homo" Fritz.
- Best of all, he challenges a lot of long-standing unquestioned or rarely questioned beliefs about Fritz that have been floating around the ether for 200+ years, by looking at the documentary evidence.

Cons:
- It left me wanting more, by skimping a lot on the military and political side.

Oh, but another pro:
- It filled in a gap in my reading by actually engaging more with his artistic side than most biographers I've encountered.

If I could read more extensively, I'd have a lot more confidence in my opinions about the conclusions he draws in his challenging of long-standing myths, but between me not being able to read German or French fluently, and not being able to (re)read physical books in English, all I can say is I like the fact that he *is* trying to challenge long-standing myths by looking at documentary evidence. It's encouraging.

On the political side, MacDonogh is more thorough (and drier--oh, god, the endless Fritz & Wilhelmine wedding negotiations) and makes a good complement to Blanning, but he constantly frustrates me by saying factually wrong things, not considering the bias in his sources (or considering it wrongly), or just not backing up what he says with documentary evidence. Read with caution. Or as I always say, never read just one book on any subject. Blanning + MacDonogh is a pretty decent combo, though.

Mitford came out of her own abusive childhood believing that children deserve to be beaten, starved, and humiliated if they don't mold themselves into perfect emotional mirrors for their parents' every whim. I vaguely remember reading and disliking her bio of Fritz 20 years ago, but this time around, I had to stop reading 14 pages in. Cannot recommend.

But if you want a book-length treatment that's chaotic and out of chronological order, but focuses on presenting the glorious historical batshit in the most entertaining way possible, start here, then here, here, then read through the comments in cahn's Frederick the Great tag posts in order!

Also, always feel free to come here and ask us questions! We won't even mind repeating things if you don't feel like reading through the 100,000+ words of comments. I might even put together a "Best of" set of links, although the problem with our asynchronous presentation is that any given comment might presuppose knowledge that was presented in earlier, less exciting comments.

Welcome to the fandom! Somebody in it is always up to some wacky hijinks. :D See also my recent comment about Fritz thinking, "Oh no, it's been five whole minutes since I last said or did something controversial! Must...publish...ridiculous pamphlet!"

Re: Book treatments

[nineveh_uk]

Thank you for such a long and thoughtful summary of the options, that's incredibly helpful. It sounds like I should start with Blanning - recent, not-no-homo, and looking afresh at things sounds solid even if inevitably no-one is perfect - and then hopefully I'll feel a bit more confident about reading on and around if I want to go further. Not with Mitford, though - I'm glad you didn't say hers is best, because she really annoys me! Frankly my European history of the period is so dreadful that this would be a huge improvement with just one book! I shall definitely read the entertaining batshit presentation, too :-)

Re: Book treatments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Long and thoughtful is what I do best!

If you get *super* interested in Fritz specifically, Asprey seems to have a vast amount of detail (especially on his campaigns) that I desperately want to read but can't because of my disability--curses!--but would probably be too much detail for a beginner, and I also can't speak to any flaws it might have, because of course I can't read it. (I own a copy and try to read one to two pages a day, which is about the maximum my body will allow. The main text is 634 pages long. It's gonna be a while.)

Wish I could recommend a general 18th century intro, but I got into 18th century history so long ago I no longer remember anything (ETA: as far as good introductory resources), and now read only incredibly specific things. :P

Good luck, enjoy, and please do consider us a willing source of information and entertainment! :D

Re: Book treatments

[nineveh_uk]

Being restricted in reading like that must be absolutely infuriating! You have my sympathies. 1 - 2 pages a day is a long time to get through a book of that size - or anything really. I applaud your persistence.

For some reason the 18th century just seemed like the most boring historical period of all time when I was at school/university and I avoided it like the plague. But soon I shall know more!

Re: Book treatments

[cahn]

For some reason the 18th century just seemed like the most boring historical period of all time when I was at school/university and I avoided it like the plague.

SAME. I don't know what I was thinking! (Well, I do know what I was thinking. No one ever told me these stories!)

Re: Book treatments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hahaha, well, as for me, all I can say is I was a weird teenager. I can't even claim I either knew most of these stories or cared about the ones I did.

At the time, I kind of used the Enlightenment as my excuse for being obsessed with the 18th century, but while I did like the *idea* of the Enlightenment, was I actually studying Diderot and Lavoisier and that bunch? No, what I was obsessed with was military history, military history, military history.

I pored over battle plans and surprisingly detailed historical atlases. I drew up my own battle plans and campaign plans! I was all "expansionist warfare FTW!" I checked out muster rolls from the university library and found them fascinating. I was the weirdest kid ever. Even to this day, when I've gotten rid of most of my high school book collection over the course of several moves, one category of books I hung onto over the years was 18th century military history. Cause yeah.

I regret nothing. :D

Re: Book treatments

[nineveh_uk]

I bet you actually knew how to win Campaign instead of just shoving all bombs round your flag!

[cahn]

I was deferring to the other two, as I have basically no book knowledge and have just been reading all their crazy comments :D

I do have some links here but many of the links are video (which I haven't yet watched) or not in English (though for small things google translate can be used). I have read Volume 1 of Wilhelmine's memoirs in English translation (linked from that page), which definitely does make it pretty clear what an absolutely crazy family Frederick the Great was from, although depends on your tolerance for abuse (his father being quite abusive both physically and emotionally, and their mother being emotionally abusive to Wilhelmine). Volume 2 is less relevant to this discussion and I foundered in the middle of it.

If you're interested in Maria Theresia, there is apparently a good biography of her by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger coming out sometime soon in English translation; I'm definitely going to get it when it comes out and will post about it. selenak has read it in German and has good things to say about it.

Also, that is two more things than I knew before all of this started! (Although selenak told me (2) last year.)

[nineveh_uk]

Thank you! I will root around the links, though may go for a biog first (or not, am currently mid-way through one on Luther). As a TV!Versailles fan I need to read all the Philippe d'Orleans and Liselotte and their successful but Very Gay Marriage.

Thanks for the Maria Theresa rec as well, I mentioned upthread that I want to improve my European history generally, so that would be a good option, too.