Frederick the Great, discussion post 6
Dec. 2nd, 2019 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn...I think we need another one (seriously, you guys, this is THE BEST) and I'd better make it now before I disappear into the wilds of music performance.
(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)
Frederick the Great masterpost
(also, as of this week there are two Frederician fics in the yuletide archive and eeeeeeeeeee)
(huh, only one of them is actually tagged with Frederick the Great even though two with Maria Theresia and Wilhelmine, eeeeeee this is awesome I CAN'T WAIT)
Frederick the Great masterpost
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-08 07:56 pm (UTC)Oh, I thought I had mentioned this in our discussions, sorry. You got it, though: 1926. Good deduction, Sherlock!
We're talking Peter III level fanboy-ism for Fritz here, and he's unabashedly open about this.
Lol, I had picked up on this just from reading the first paragraph (and knowing the date).
It's the pure love of a father to his adopted son expressing itself here, mind you. (How old was Fritz when they met? 19?)
19. In prison, to boot. And Fredersdorf was 22. I am SO SURE that was a paternal relationship.
Because supposedly Fredersdorf was the one who smuggled his letters to Wilhelmine.
I had read that in a biography, and I guess I hadn't mentioned it. Since that bio didn't provide a source, it was probably this book. Thank you for clarifying that even this editor says it's apocryphal and (sadly) doesn't provide a source either.
I choose to believe it's true! Especially since that letter in Wilhelmine's memoirs predates Fredersdorf (not that we know for sure, but I'm not aware that anyone thinks they met before Katte's execution) *and* predates Fritz's pardon, so was far more dangerous, and I've seen that smuggling attributed to a random servant in the fortress. I can't remember where I saw that attribution--maybe Wilhelmine's memoirs.
So if random servant was willing to smuggle a letter at a more dangerous time, I'm not surprised if future ultra-loyal Fredersdorf was willing to smuggle letters at a less dangerous (but still dangerous) time.
Everyone is just FORCING military action on our glorious hero, keeping him from the wonderful philosophical life he wants to lead.
That is actually kind of interesting, given the time and place. Yes, Fritz is always the victim to these historians, but I more usually see the military life glorified and his desire to lead a different life downplayed.
He thinks Fritz becoming more mature and buddingly great in the 1730s is the result of him being in Rheinsberg surrounded by affection and intellectual challenge, friends who love and appreciate him and Dad far, far away.
Oh, wow! (I'm adding my comments as I read, so liveblogging my reaction to your summary here.) That explains the preceding paragraph. Editor! Given the rock bottom expectations I have of you, you've managed to exceed them.
Man. I'm with you on this, editor. I've always thought FW was holding Frederick the Great back. I maintain he's a much better general, and probably a better composer, and who knows what else, without FW's influence. (Mentally healthier goes without saying, but there is this pernicious belief that trauma can turn you into some kind of artistic genius, so...I would like to challenge that aspect as well.)
There's so much about mutual health troubles that you wonder whetherh these two have ever been healthy
Ha, I kind of did wonder that, from the Trier project, but yes, came to the conclusion that we have a very biased sample. Also, the second half of the book, which I will try to send, is set toward the end of Fredersdorf's life, when he's quite sick. Although, I think I've commented, tongue only half in cheek, that I'm surprised when *anyone* is healthy in the 18th century. Every time I grab a random Fritz letter to read, to practically any of his correspondents, he's either hoping someone gets better or relieved that they're on the mend.
one is about Keyserling's baby daughter who he assures Fritz already looks a bit like dad - Editor tells us Fritz kept being benevolently minded towards this daughter for his remaining life
Awww.
He points out Fritz keeps downplaying his own concerns and focuses on Fredersdorf's (who does the same), which is true. And the tenderness in all the many variations of "take care of yourself" is really striking.
Yes, this jumped out at me just from running through the letters in the Trier project. It's non-stop "Please be okay [implied or stated: I need you]" in different phrasings.
At the same time, the few preserved Fredersdorf letters to show the social difference keenly, in that Fredersdorf consistently keeps writing "Your Majesty" and "your servant" and rarely allows himself a bit of teasing back
Indeed, he's extremely formal in all the letters I've seen, but, it's worth noting that even Fritz is "Your Majesty"ing and third-personing his fellow monarchs in the various letters I've spot-checked. Yes, he's extra cautious in his early letters to Peter (I really want to read the rest, but they're not copy-pastable, so I have to read the French, so slow going), because so much is riding on it, but even after he starts "mon frère"ing him as he does to Louis, it's third person all the way as far as I can tell.
Still, the obvious "monarchs can Du/tu you but not vice versa" social difference is there.
(I really want to know now how Louis was addressing the Margrave of Brandenburg in his letters, assuming he didn't delegate all that. :P)
Also, for a famous Deist verging on Atheist, the "Gott bewahre dir" ("Gott keep you", and Fritz is using the wrong grammatical form - it should be "Gott bewahre dich") as a standard goodbye is noteworthy.
I don't speak German, but I admit I was wondering about that "dir". Thank you for confirming my intuition.
It is noteworthy, but so is the fact that Fritz does the same thing in French to a lot of other correspondents: "je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde." Including Algarotti, whom I'm not sure what his religion was. The Church put him on the banned book list, and I have a biographer saying he and Fritz hit it off at Rheinsberg by mocking religion (which shocked EC), but also I have records of him attending Mass at Strasbourg when no one else in the group did. And the dissertation I read had nothing to say on the subject, because it didn't have to do with his networking techniques. So I'm not sure whether Fritz does it as a convention, or only with people who believe in God.
Oh, this is interesting. I was looking through Trier to see who else he does this too (they remind me that he does this to Voltaire periodically, which I had seen but forgotten), and the list is long, and then I saw the editor actually talks about the formula. They conclude that he does this when he's either having a secretary copy his letter (I guess the secretary presumably adds this formula) or even having them write the letter from an outline. Otherwise, Fritz writing his own letters will add his own affectionate or otherwise personal note at the end. And they say this is why Voltaire only gets this formula when Fritz is pissed off at him. Oooh. I wondered why it was only some Voltaire letters.
Yes, this is interesting, because this can't be the case with Fredersdorf, given the intimacy of these letters, the fact that we have facsimiles in Fritz's handwriting, and the fact that if he were having a secretary make a copy, the German would be a lot more grammatical. :P
So apparently he's just writing "Gott bewahre dir" to Fredersdorf to...express affection? I've always assumed that Fredersdorf was not a freethinker when they met, and always wondered how his thinking evolved in a predominantly but not exclusively freethinking court. He was obviously chill enough to not be FW on the subject, but I've never been sure how far and how long he kept his religious beliefs. I'm now leaning toward him keeping them, just as Catt and various others did, and Fritz being not only tolerant but evidently indulgent.
I'm glad I checked Trier more systematically!
does Fritz write "Heinrich" or rather "Hendrich" because otherwise Fredersdorf wouldn't know whom he meant, or because he thinks of him in the German variation of the name?
I would say it depends on how else he renders German names when writing German. It's quite possible he just renders German names in their German form when writing German, and in French when writing French. For example, he signs his own name Friedrich/Frch/Fch in German, and Frideric/Frederic/Federic in French. I assume just to be linguistically consistent.
in the late 40s, Franz Stephan sends some Hungarian wine to Fritz and his best wishes with the hope of renewing their "youthful friendship"
Oh, lol, this is the best. Poor, poor Fritz. So young, so innocent, so pitiful.
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-08 09:02 pm (UTC)19. In prison, to boot. And Fredersdorf was 22. I am SO SURE that was a paternal relationship
Mildred, he‘s Frederick the Great. Naturally, he knows how to be a father at age 19 to some 22 years old guy, even when he‘s just recovering from a complete emotional breakdown and the other guy is not.
If you and I were manly chaste Prussians instead of having our minds polluted with all that sex obsessed psychoanalysis, we‘d understand.
(Editor does not mention any homoerotic poetry, if you‘re wondering. Otoh he‘s with you on the doctor declaring Fritz was impotent due to STD as a young man, but he also thinks Wilhelmine invented the entire Orzelska episode because her memoirs are so unreliable and just her writing down fantasies and proving what a case for a psychotherapist she is. He thinks Fritz had het urges and probably did something as a young man but never ever thereafter, channelling it all into Prussia and stoic masculinity.)
I really want to know now how Louis was addressing the Margrave of Brandenburg in his letters, assuming he didn't delegate all that.
Clearly, Louis delegated corresponding with the Margrave of Brandenburg to the Marquise de Pompadour, who wrote „mon frere“ with extra glee.
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-08 09:36 pm (UTC)If you and I were manly chaste Prussians instead of having our minds polluted with all that sex obsessed psychoanalysis, we‘d understand.
aLOL. I understand, editor. I am not worthy of the great Frederick.
Clearly, Louis delegated corresponding with the Margrave of Brandenburg to the Marquise de Pompadour, who wrote „mon frere“ with extra glee.
Sounds about right!
Next hundred pages are on their way. Sheesh, I haven't even finished reading your write-up of the last chunk. Fast-moving fandom moves fast!
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-08 09:46 pm (UTC)Also still trying to get my hands on the remaining Lehndorff. Hopefully today.
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-09 04:46 am (UTC)But now we have our gracious German speaker summarizing and excerpting for our edification and enjoyment. <3
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-09 03:27 pm (UTC)Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-09 08:00 pm (UTC)What are you seeing on your end?
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-09 04:41 am (UTC)Ha. So remember when I summarized the different approaches historians have taken to explaining Fritz's sexuality? Our editor is evidently Historian 4:
Historian 4: Idk about any operation, but I promise you, dear readers, there was nothing "unnatural" about Fritz's sex drive, it was just "underdeveloped." It's MANLY to not be into women and only like waging war, k? If he wrote poetry at all, much less erotic poetry, you will not find any mention of it in my incredibly manly book.
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-08 09:58 pm (UTC)In my scanning of pages 200-300, a "Gott bewahre dich" jumped out at me. Then he goes right back to "dir". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-10 05:27 am (UTC)Wait, so given that Fritz thinks in French, does he think of himself as Frederic?
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-10 05:34 am (UTC)Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-14 08:22 am (UTC)"Der Thronfolger" lets Wilhelmine use "Fritz" when they talk to each other without anyone else present. Films that take place when he's already King usually go with "your majesty" even when there's a sibling around, though I noticed that in the one scene where after all the psychological power play they bare their souls to each other, Bach (J.S.) calls him Friedrich in this exchange that comes in their improvised jam session:
Bach: I regret my sons cannot see this.
Fritz (hurt): I am here.
Bach: Forgive me, your majesty. Friedrich. You would have been a wonderful son. You as well." (Subtitles here say "even you", making Bach sound insulting, which I assure is not the case in the original. The German phrase implies "you, like my sons".
Fritz (turning away): To be a wonderful son it would have required a wonderful father.
Bach: Don't believe that, your majesty. I thought I had been a model father, but what am I to my sons? A shadow. A gigantic shadow. If one could start again, I'd have been a wine merchant. But one can never begin again.
Fritz (still with his back to him): As long as I can remember, my father was only shouting orders. He told everyone I was a guttersnipe" - subtitles here say "sissy", which probably comes closer to FW's actual words, but the German dialogue says "Schmutzfink", which is a bird dirtying itself, hence my different choice of equivalent - "and that I walked on tiptoe and pulled idiotic faces." (Cahn, this is all from an actual FW letter to his son.) "I played the lute in secret to comfort myself. He'd get terribly angry. He spat in my soup and forced me to eat it. And to kiss his feet. My older sister, Wilhelmine, and I, we loved each other. He forced her to marry to separate her from me. From then on, I was alone. A hostile father, that is the worst thing there is.
Bach (who had listened and come closer throughout this monologue), now silently hugs him).
(End of scene, we then switch to Friedemann and Amalie having their nightly rendezvous in the stables)
Re: Fredersdorf letters
Date: 2019-12-16 10:44 pm (UTC)