Frederick the Great, discussion post 6

[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

Comments

Re: Fredersdorf letters

[mildred_of_midgard]

Probably? Or Federic, which is how he seems to write it for much of his life (sans accents), per Trier. I've been wondering this myself, especially once I realized he was dropping the 'r'.

Re: Fredersdorf letters

[selenak]

In case you're wondering who actually called him Fritz, cahn: the German - not just the Prussians, but also fans like Hessian Goethe - people, plus it seems to have been a family nickname when he was younger; for example, when FW has his rant about his two oldest children in Wilhelmine's memoirs, he talks, err, shouts about "the villain of a Fritz and the English canaille of a Wilhelmine" in my edition. (Also Heinrich in the remark about young Napoleon which Ziebura quotes actually uses "Fritz", not Frederic or Friedrich, though he otherwise when not writing "the King" writes "Frederic".)

"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

[cahn]

I was wondering about that, thank you!