cahn | Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

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frederick the great

Yuletide tags are out: Frederician version

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)

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Looks like "Ekaterina Alexeyevna | Catherine II of Russia (Catherine TV), Elizaveta Petrovna | Elizabeth of Russia (Catherine TV), Pavel Petrovich | Paul I of Russia (Catherine TV), Pyotr III Fyodorovich | Peter III of Russia (Catherine TV)" got nominated under "Екатерина | Catherine (TV 2014)".

Gotta admit, Elizaveta is my favorite character in the show so far. Also, thanks to the show, her name is now Elizaveta in my head.

It's also weird how foreign names get represented in your brain, and when and how you translate them vs. keep them in the original. Fritz's brother is largely Henry in my head, because that's how I mostly encounter his name outside our comment threads here, but Katte's dad is Hans Heinrich, and a couple days ago, when I saw him referred to as "John Henry," I about flipped out at the wrongness.

Well, if it‘s any consolation, Fritz‘ brother signed himself „Henri“, too, like Fritz signed himself „Frederic“. Whereas Katte‘s dad, while of course being fluent in French like the rest of the nobility, definitely signed himself Hans Heinrich.

Re: translation of names, I learned about, say, Heinrich VIII (Tudor), Karl I (Stuart) or Franz I (Francois Premier de France, not Leopold‘s kid) in school, don‘t know whether they changed this by now. The only names that didn‘t get adapted from their own language were Italian ones, so Lorenzo de‘ Medici, not Lorenz.

definitely signed himself Hans Heinrich.

Interesting, even when writing French? As far as I can tell, Fritz signed himself "Federic" (the lack of 'r' surprised me when I first encountered it, just because I always see it "Frédéric le Grand" in modern French, and I hadn't realized his own usage was different) in French and "Friedrich" in German (e.g. when writing to Fredersdorf). Now I'm curious who rendered their name how in what language. :D

Is it true that Heinrich didn't even know German, not even at the level Fritz did?

Italian names: Hm, I hadn't noticed, but yes, they aren't usually adapted to English either, whereas French, German, and Russian ones are. Huh. Although especially in French, individual names sometimes get their untranslated form registered in my brain as their "normal" one, e.g. Henri Quatre, Marie de Guise.

Heinrich's German or lack thereof: couldn't say, as Eva Ziebura's Heinrich biography is still on my to-be-read-list. The books (none of which were about him as a central character) I did read didn't mention how much or little he spoke. Given he was 14 when FW died, though, I doubt FW would have let him get away with no German at all. There's also the practical issue of being in the field a lot - his officers would be fluent in French, of course, but messenger boy x? (Or for that matter sexy violinists and pages?)

AW signs himself "Guillaume", for the record. Wilhelmine, though, never seems to have considered Guillaumette or whatever the French version would have been, or a latinized Wilhelmina, she signs herself Wilhelmine in all the facsimiles I've checked.

Meanwhile in Austria: MT, joking aobut her weight gain, in one later life letter signs herself "Therese la Grosse". FS - who actually did have French literally as his mother tongue, his mother being Liselotte's and Philippe's kid - adressed her as "Chère Mitz" in an engagement letter, whle he's "cher Mäusl" to her. "Mitz" for Maria Theresia strikes me as a (cute) French-German nickname.

(MT's Dad called his wife, Elisabeth Christine, aunt of the later EC, "Liesl". I very much doubt that would have occured to Fritz even if he'd liked her better.)

Katte's dad and signatures of same: have never seen any facsimiles, I was actually assuming based on his petitions for mercy.

BTW, elsewhere you wondered where, death situations excepted he was on the spectrum of supporting his son to just being a bit less awful than FW: don't know any more than you do. Though I was irritated by Zeithain making him into yet another evil Prussian father, because it felt gratitious to me and reflective of the author's issues more than of reality. (Since present day Philip Chandos' father is also an evil Prussian dad.) Sure, it's a novel, the author can do anything, but I haven't seen a quote anywhere by either Katte or his father indicating they had a bad relationship, plus I'm assuming Fritz wouldn't have favored Katte Senior the month he came on the throne if he'd had "our fathers, ugh!" type of conversations with his beloved.

Edited 2019-10-28 08:30 (UTC)

Eva Ziebura's Heinrich biography is still on my to-be-read-list

Oh, right! Do let us know when you do; I'm terribly curious about him.

Given he was 14 when FW died, though, I doubt FW would have let him get away with no German at all. There's also the practical issue of being in the field a lot - his officers would be fluent in French, of course, but messenger boy x? (Or for that matter sexy violinists and pages?)

Agreed, the source in which I read that is unreliable, and it raised an eyebrow on my part, which is why I wanted a second opinion.

Though I was irritated by Zeithain making him into yet another evil Prussian father, because it felt gratitious to me and reflective of the author's issues more than of reality.

Right? I'm not saying FW was the sole individual who thought his son shouldn't play the flute, but he was definitely swimming upstream. This wasn't Sparta, he just wanted it to be! (FW: born in the wrong place and time.)

Katte's dad and signatures of same: have never seen any facsimiles, I was actually assuming based on his petitions for mercy.

Oooh, but if that was to FW, that would have been written in German, right? As noted, Fritz signed himself Friedrich in German. Or, at least, I haven't seen a facsimile, but the transcription uses Federic for his French letters, and switches to Friedrich for Fredersdorf, so I'm assuming that's accurate, since I *have* seen facsimiles of his French letters (of which there are many more).

I'm also sure I've seen a facsimile of Katte's signature, but I don't seem to have saved it, dammit. I have a facsimile of a snippet of a letter in his handwriting, but not his signature. I'll see if I can dig it up. I can almost visualize it, but I can't remember if it was "HH v Katte" or if he spelled it out, and if the "HHv" is from a fic.

I haven't seen a quote anywhere by either Katte or his father indicating they had a bad relationship

Same, although limited evidence, etc. The one quote I've seen is that Katte at school wasn't really religious but pretended to be because he wanted to please his dad (another reason I think the death scene recantation might have been aimed at Hans Heinrich et al. instead of being spontaneous).

plus I'm assuming Fritz wouldn't have favored Katte Senior the month he came on the throne if he'd had "our fathers, ugh!" type of conversations with his beloved.

Excellent point, and yes, if Katte Senior had been anywhere near FW levels, no, I don't think he's getting made a count and a field marshal as high priority to-do items for the new king. I think it's safe to say whatever Katte Senior was doing wasn't shocking his contemporaries like FW.

But I'm assuming Katte Senior could have been awful by modern standards, and Katte could have shrugged it off as "normal" and "not that bad" and not trash-talked his father to Fritz. He's already presumably having to hide his religion and sexuality, maybe he has to hide other things in order to keep his father's love. Maybe he doesn't think that's a failing on his father's part. Maybe most people don't. Maybe he's better at hiding than Fritz (he almost certainly is) and maybe that's responsible for a lot of his stable relationship with his father.

Maybe he did have an awful home life growing up, but doesn't trash-talk his dad to Fritz precisely because he hears stories about dinner plates being thrown in Fritz's face and servants having to pry FW's hands off Fritz's throat and starts thinking he's really lucky. This is extremely common among abuse survivors. Plus a lot of survivors are trained from birth never to talk about what goes on at home; Fritz's case was a bit special because the family was so public.

I'm also sure Fritz dominated most of the conversation with Katte in the one to two years (with interruptions for travel) they had to get to know each other; so if his beloved didn't talk much about his father and just gave off the same vibes of "trying to please him" that we're getting 300 years later, Fritz might well have parsed that as "do something nice for Katte Senior to make up for what happened to Katte Junior."

Or maybe Hans Heinrich was pretty chill, and happy to pay for his son to try to make it as an intellectual and aesthete, and then got him a place in an elite regiment when FW made the army the only real option.

WIDE RANGE, is what I'm saying, and I suspect all of it short of plate-throwing gets Katte Senior a guilt promotion in June 1740. (I kind of wonder if he and Fritz ever met face-to-face after the promotion and if so, how stilted that was.)

cahn, when I say "guilt promotion," I'm referring to the timing and the fact that he gets made a count too; there's every evidence that Katte Senior was actually a very good officer (much better than his son) and that the promotion to field marshal was deserved and not just nepotism.

Independently of what kind of father he was, or at least semi-independently, I wonder what Katte Senior thought of his son's role in the escape plan. Because you can be a super liberal dad by FW standards when it comes to letting your son go to university and do the Grand Tour like all the other noble sons in Europe, and still be HELL NO about treason and attempted desertion. Especially in a family with a tradition as military officers. Or you could be privately sympathetic and just never ever going to say that out loud. Or anywhere in between.

Btw, on the opposite end of the extremes in fictional depictions of Hans Heinrich as a father, there's a fic on AO3 in which Fritz and Katte start having explicit sex on the desk in Katte Senior's office, but he comes back sooner than expected, catches them, and then surprise! Announces that he's gay too, have fun, use his office any time. Which makes me roll my eyes in the other direction, but just goes to show how much flexibility there is for authors in terms of the available evidence.

I personally aim somewhere at the middle; decent, somewhat aloof, but willing to demonstrate an occasional bit of pride or affection, as long as you hide the right things.

Okay, okay, I'm losing my mind here. The Katte Ordre und Kriegsartikel book seems to have a wealth of information, and it's even available as a PDF, but between it being in German and me trying *not* to spend more money on this fandom, I've had it on my "if I ever get back to work and have income again" wishlist for a long time. But then, while looking for that facsimile of Katte's signature, I ran into someone else who'd read this book talking about its contents, and then this...

"For example, at one point (early 1729), he went on vacation. First, he went to Paris, because his father wanted it. Then, he went to Madrid on his own and after that, he went to London.

"Apparently he stayed (even though his vacation time was long over) and he planned to just leave Prussia and the army for good (he never wanted to be in the army anyway, apparently) and stay in England instead.

"His father was kind of against that though (huh, I wonder why), writing a quite enraged letter saying that he should get his ass back to Prussia asap."

I...WHAT? In 1729? He was a lieutenant! This was way after his Grand Tour. You can't just overstay your leave in the army even in today's military! WTF. And announcing that you plan to desert? How the hell were there no consequences for this in 1729 but death penalties in 1730? I mean, announcing that you plan to desert in a private letter to your dad who doesn't tell anyone, maybe. Coming back late without a castiron excuse for everyone else? Now I'm imagining Major General Katte going, "He's extremely sick, can't travel, stuck in London, might be on his deathbed! (GET BACK HERE YOU YOUNG INFIDEL)" at his son's commanding officer. Also, how do we know this, because if I were either of them, I would have destroyed those letters asap.

Dammit, I need to get my hands on this thing. It's not that expensive (she says, about 100 inexpensive books). I need to know if this story is legit or if we're playing a game of telephone here. Katte escapes to England the year before Fritz tries, comes back, meets Fritz, advises him not to try to escape to England, but eventually agrees to go along with it? This story is getting weirder. Does anyone who knows German *cough* want to acquire a copy and set the story straight for us?

(If it's true, I need to take back what I said about Goldsmith overinterpreting the evidence in her claim that Katte hated the army, but then...SO MANY MORE QUESTIONS.)

Also,

cahn, for wacky anecdotes, the following story I'd run across before, probably ultimately from this same source: "The book I own doesn't say much about it and I have no way to check whether this is true, but oh well. So Hans Hermann wanted to visit his cousin. When his cousin then entered her living room to say hello to him, he was sitting on a white horse.

"Yeah, he just casually rode into his cousin's living room on a horse. Freaking Hans Hermann. (I somehow hope that it's just weirdly written and I misunderstood something, otherwise… Hans Hermann, why…?!)"

Can anything in this book be believed at all? Halp.

ETA: Why yes, I *am* this worked up about something that may or may not have happened 300 years ago. :P

Edited 2019-10-28 18:49 (UTC)

This sounds all very unreliable to me, but right now I have three lectures to write and a lot of other books to read first, so alas, acquiring a copy and check it out for you will have to wait. But you could give me a link so once I have a bit more room, I can follow up on it.

Right? It's the most unreliable-sounding thing I've encountered since we started. As someone once said in something I was reading recently, "If you say you have a cat in your backyard, people will be inclined to believe you. If you say you have a zebra in your backyard, they're going to want more evidence." This is a zebra! More evidence required.

Sure thing, here you go, and thank you very much.

The horse in the living room thing I'm willing to accept as either possible or apocryphal, as the sort of hijinks young people get up to. Just like Fritz's guards on his potato fields. But secret escape attempt to England in 1729 that neither you nor I have ever heard of...I need to see some facsimiles of the documents containing the evidence.

Yes, I remember back in Beatles fandom dozens and dozens of people (who hadn't read them and were just paraphrasing other people) insisting that Joe Orton's diaries include a description of attending a gay orgy Brian Epstein (the Beatles manager) threw. Having read the diaries, I kept saying: "No he doesn't. Orton's description of the party in question makes it sound eminently repectable and really really dull. (And Orton wasn't averse to describing gay orgies!) People did not believe me, because the other story was just more interesting. And thus it went.

Anyway, having read the summary of the content and the press voices: seems Kloosterhuis (the author/editor) came to the same conclusion like Fontane, only more so, i.e. that FW, not the military tribunal, was the one following the law as it existed then, and meant his "fiat justicia" etc.; by "only more so" I mean that one press excerpt adds that by ordering Katte's execution in front of Fritz, FW was doing further justice to Katte by showing all the world who the true criminal and the one guilty of Katte's death was, i.e. his protected by royal privilege son. (This was definitely not Fontane's interpretation, though he also thought the tribunal's lighter sentence for Katte was clearly informed by both consideration of the crown prince and that by the letter of the law, Katte was guilty was charged. (But then so was Fritz.)

There's no mention in the press excerpts and summaries of an earlier attempt at desertion by Katte, but then, there wouldn't be, since the key question the book seems to be revolving around was: was FW justified in his actions? (With Klosterhuis' answer being, yes, he was.)

ETA: Forgot to say: note that in all these discussions I've read as to what motivated FW and whether he did, by his own standards and the rule of the land, do justice in the Katte case, no one mentions poor Demoiselle Ritter, simultanously condemmned to public whippings and a life time imprisonment for the the crime of taking a few strolls with the crown prince and playing music with him. Possibly because FW bending the law (of his time, not the modern one) in this case is impossible to deny. Yes, Prussian law did have a clause about public whippings for prostitutes. (That wasn't much practised, but was there.) But he'd just had confirmed Dorothea Ritter was a virgin. Hence no debates about the legality of her conviction, or the impetus behind it.

Edited 2019-10-29 10:53 (UTC)

Yeah, I am just so very not impressed with FW all around. And it's also clear to me that pretty much no one in this situation is thinking purely legalistically. Some people are pitting the law against their conscience and choosing their conscience, other people (FW) are picking and choosing when the law suits them and overriding it when it doesn't.

I've even read (untrustworthy source) that he later spared the life of a Potsdam giant who deserted because his *favorite* son asked nicely. Which, if that story is true, must have *rankled* with Fritz.

In the inspection of the Long Fellows scene from Der Thronfolger, this happens:

FW: *pleased at one particularly tall guy* Your name, fellow?

Soldier: Claude Martin.

FW: Ah, a Huguenot. Don't worry, in my country you're safe to practice your religion. And you get to serve your King! Aren't you happy?

CM: No.

FW: Don't be impudent. What more can you want?

CM: My freedom. *stretches out arms so we can see his wrists bear the marks of iron cuffs* I was kidnapped and dragged here against my will.

FW: *frowns* Report to the army physician to get a balm for that. Fritz, this is why a King must always talk to his soldiers... Fritz?!?

F (has almost managed to sneak away, as the Giant inspection was boring him)

FW: *explodes*

CM: *might get a balm, but is still in the regiment against his will*

Mind you, gangpress soldiers was something all most of the kings and princes did in that century. (Hence the famous scene in Kabale und Liebe.) How the legalities of kidnapping were, God knows.

Here's a premise for a crackfic: During his undercover time working at a shipyard, Peter the not yet Great but definitely Tall gets kidnapped by FW's people. He reveals his true identity, but is not believed and instead ends up in Berlin. Does he a) successfully escape, b) murder FW, c) have an affair with SD, d) have an affair with teenage Fritz instead, or d) all of the above?

Oh, hahaha, I have long loved the crackfic premise of Peter as a Potsdam giant. You have to fudge the chronology to make it work, but for a crackfic, that's perfectly acceptable!

d) all of the above.

I also like the converse crackfic premise where he's working in the shipyard insisting that he's *not* Peter the not yet Great but definitely Tall, and nobody believes him precisely all the other tall guys in Europe have already been kidnapped. Long fellow outside of Potsdam? Only one person it can be.

as the Giant inspection was boring him

ahahahaha this is the part that made me laugh out loud (and then feel guilty about laughing). Oh Fritz, I love how you are just not into FW's fetishes.

I AM ON BOARD WITH THAT CRACKFIC

(I also vote all of the above!

...Although perhaps in the opposite order. Affair with Fritz, affair with SD, during which he murders FW and escapes in the resulting pandemonium. Afterwards, Fritz sends him a suitably cryptic thank-you letter that has historians going "...so what EXACTLY was he thanking Peter for??" for the next hundreds of years.)

Oh Fritz, I love how you are just not into FW's fetishes.

I couldn't resist. I screenshotted the relevant bit for you. It's too good; I was laughing out loud even while watching it silently at 2x speed. It's such a teenage moment, reading a book in the background while your parents drag you along to their latest boring interest.

~~Man~~ teenager after my own heart!

AHAHAHA OK I am totally watching this first when I finish my backlog. That is awesome! SO teenage!

*highfives*

ZOMG if you are wise in the art of the screen shot, could you do one of kid Fritz and Wilhelmine secretly reading together?

wise in the art of the screen shot

Hahaha, lol, yes, ma'am! Gladly. Would you like to give me the hour-minute-second marker you want? Otherwise I'll hunt for it based on the markers you gave in your (wonderful) synopsis.

And why yes, I am very wise in the art of the screen shot! That's how I put the Fritz/Katte/Sanssouci slideshow together. :D

I wasn't sure which moment you wanted screenshotted, so I did three. One, two, three. I figured no one would object to three shots of the siblings being cute and literary together, after all.

Okay, everyone, come one, come all, I'm taking requests! For this and any other Fritz-related videos you may want screenshots of. *grin*

Oh, speaking of, someone else screenshotted this Fritz/Katte bit from a documentary, with the English subtitles, and captioned it, "The moment when Frederick decides to wear that uniform for the rest of his life." And yes,

cahn, Fritz is played by a WOMAN in this documentary (two, actually, mother and daughter, for Old Fritz and Younger Fritz). And yes, the documentary really did have Katte telling Fritz he looks good in uniform.

I'm not aware of any historical basis for this exchange, but if there is, someone needs to tell me, asap. :P (I mean, teenage Fritz hating his uniform, obvs. Katte telling him he looks good in it...I want this to be real.)

I feel like Fritz getting played by women (btw, the Thalbachs are pretty famous actresses over here) and Austrians is the best karma ever.

Also, thank you so much for the screenshots. The last one was what I was after, but the others are adorable, too.

Katte responsible for Fritz changing his mind from "Sterbekittel" to "what I'm wearing for the rest of my life" - sounds plausible enough to me!

In 1729? He was a lieutenant!

Correction, he was not a lieutenant until August 1729, according to my sources. In "early" 1729, he would still have been a cornet. (He appears to have spent a long time as cornet, from 1724-1729, then gone very quickly from lieutenant to first lieutenant (July 1730). Nobody I can find is sure what's up with that, but I feel like there's got to be a story we don't know.)

Regardless! I don't think cornets get to come back late from leave going, "Never mind!" and then get quickly promoted twice in the next year, even if their dad and granddad are high-ranked officers, and even if they didn't engage in treasonous correspondence with the British on behalf of the Crown Prince.

Speaking of Katte and dates and evidence, Fontane places his birthday on February 21, and cites documentary evidence: "Hans Hermann von Katte wurde den 21. Februar 1704 zu Berlin geboren. Diese Zahlen sind zuverlässig. Auf dem Familiengute Wust findet sich folgende bald nach der Geburt Hans Hermann von Kattes in das dortige Kirchenbuch eingetragene Notiz: »Anno 1704 den 21. Februar ist des Herrn Obrist-Wachtmeisters (von Katte) Söhnlein zu Berlin geboren und den 22. getauft und mit Namen Hans Hermann benennet worden." With a little help from Google translate: "Hans Hermann von Katte was born February 21, 1704 in Berlin. These numbers are reliable. On the family estate Wust the following note, soon after the birth of Hans Hermann von Katte, can be found in the local church register: 'Anno 1704 the 21st of February was born to the Colonel (von Katte) a little son in Berlin and baptized the 22nd and given the name Hans Hermann.'"

So now I'm not sure where the Feb 28 date in Wikipedia comes from.

Also, turns out the horse story that I've seen in a number of places also makes an appearance in Zeithain. Haha. Whether or not it's apocryphal, I hope (and believe) that RL Hans made Fritz laugh a lot. :D <3 In the short time they had together. </3

Yeah, besides the obvious Anglicization wrongness, John Henry has connotations for an American audience, lol.

Right? Granted, this may not have been an American writing, I no longer remember where I read it and cannot check. But regardless, *the* John Henry popped into my head too!

Plus it's just so *wrong*.

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