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cahnSo for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:
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rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
We now have a community,
rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D
Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-25 11:07 am (UTC)Indeed. It's in Jürgen Luh's biography Der Große which is in general a "he didn't love anyone, except possibly Fredersdorf, he was too emotionally crippled for that and all those letters (not just to Wilhelmine but also to his friends) saying otherwise are just rethorical posing" takedown. Which strikes me as the reverse of the 19th century worship Preuss engages in, and just about as insightful in the complexity of human emotions.
Spreaking of Preuß, though: good grief. Every time I take a look, I'm thrown out again by the sheer mid 19th century nationalism of it all. Starting when after explaining with Fritz & family were raised with French as a primary language, he assures his 19th century readers that while Fritz may have loved French literature as a result, he despised "alles Welsche und die Welschen" - which term, as used in 19th century Germany, covers not just the French but also the Italians and any Latin-European people. Says the man who will soon list all those various Frederician friendships with Frenchmen and Italians.
And later on, he laments how the One King keeps getting maligned as an aggressor, when really, he never was the aggressor in a single war in his life. It was all either righting wrongs to Prussia (Silesia 1), defending his allies (Silesia 2) or defending German freedom (guess what). The later, btw, is a case in point of how attitudes had shifted from one century to the next. Fritz himself certainly sold the 7-Years-War as him defending German freedom of religion in his propaganda, among other things, i.e. himself as the champion of Protestantism which otherwise would be crushed under Habsburg tyranny. When triying to get the other German principalities on your side, that's the smartest argument to make, given that the 30 Years War is still just a century plus ago. But "freedom of religion" is no longer the selling argument in a century in which national feelings start to get increasingly more toxic all around, preparing the ground for the hell of the 20th century, which is why I find it hard to take the dispassionate attitude which is necesssary when such paragraphs keep coming up. Preuß is here ascribing ideas of nationalism to a mid 18th century mindset that just weren't there.
I was morbidly curious how invading Saxony is defending German freedom, but of ourse it's because the Saxons secretly are already yearning to become Prussian citizens and it's just the corrupt aristocracy, i.e. Saxon PM Brühl & Co., that's at fault for forcing Fritz to invade them. Bear in mind here what we've mentioned about the Saxon regiments forced into Prussian service who promptly deserted. At Prague, they even shot their Prussian officers while doing so. Mind you, Fritz won Prague regardless. But: Dead Prussians: 14 300 men. Dead Austrians: a thousand soldiers less. All of which was already well known at the time of Preuß' writing. Whereas, say, a contemporary loyal Prussian subject like Lehndorff who doesn't doubt the "the King was right, he had to attack first, the Saxons would have stabbed us in the back otherwise" and the "the King is a genius!" premise, is also able to later in the war (which of course he sees the results of first hand) go "so maybe the King shouldn't have insulted all the powerful women in Europe all the time?" and "the Austrian generals are called cowards by us, but can't help but notice they lose way less people and have provoked the King in some rash costly battles" . And of course when the dust is settled, Lehndorff, with all the relief and joy about the war ending and all the admiration for the the King and Dearest of All Princes he has, can make a diary entry (February 5th 1763) saying: Thus all our misery is over. But if one recalls the countless victims this war has cost, how many provinces were devastated, how many families have been ruined, and all just so that all the rulers can go back the status quo ante, one wants to scream. Now the question of the coinage has to be solved. If the King doesn't help with this as quickly as possible, we're all ruined. The prices for all goods have all risen so far that we're facing a permanent state of debt.
And when you compare this to one century later Preuß - and not just him - going on about how wonderful and heroic and necessary the war was, having learned all the wrong lessons from it, and you know, as a reader, it will just get worse, you want to scream, too.
Seriously, just one sentence or two wondering whether it was all worth it on Preuß' part would make this easier for me to stomach. He can still root for Fritz! (Lehndorff does, too.) Just - good lord, man, stop trying to sell this as having benefited the then non-existing German nation.
And speaking of historical attitudes, unsurprisingly, Preuß is also one for slut-shaming. With the Marquise de Pompadour and Elisaveta, naturally (he can't with MT and in general has a sort of begrudging Frederician respect for her, but SHE WAS WRONG and couldn't see Fritz' historic mission). When he's sneering about Louis XV along the lines of "and then that woman even became some de facto minister - and what kind of a man gives his commoner paramour he's not even sleeping with anymore important governing responsibilities, huh?", the, err, Prussian parallel does not seem to occur to him, but well, join the club, Preuß. He's also snide about Émilie. None of this is surprising in a 19th century historian, I know, I know, and I've often come across this before, but for some reason, this time around it just keeps throwing me out. In conclusion, it will be a long while till I properly read that multi volume biography.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-25 10:03 pm (UTC)Whereas, say, a contemporary loyal Prussian subject like Lehndorff who doesn't doubt the "the King was right, he had to attack first, the Saxons would have stabbed us in the back otherwise" and the "the King is a genius!" premise, is also able to later in the war (which of course he sees the results of first hand) go "so maybe the King shouldn't have insulted all the powerful women in Europe all the time?" and "the Austrian generals are called cowards by us, but can't help but notice they lose way less people and have provoked the King in some rash costly battles" .
<3 Or, I mean, it could just be that Lehndorff is the best :D *sparkly hearts him* No, but seriously, I get your meaning. And we know that he's loyal and not a particularly radical thinker, at all.
he can't with MT and in general has a sort of begrudging Frederician respect for her
I gotta say that the MT-fan part of me is doing the mental equivalent of sticking my tongue out at him. Everyone has to accept that MT was awesome! (I mean, more of me is sad about the slut-shaming. I'm just saying.)
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-26 05:32 pm (UTC)None of this is surprising in a 19th century historian, I know, I know, and I've often come across this before, but for some reason, this time around it just keeps throwing me out. In conclusion, it will be a long while till I properly read that multi volume biography.
I don't blame you. Unsurprising is one thing, but wanting to immerse yourself in it is another matter.
What I was hoping, since Preuss was the one who led us to Münchow Jr.'s letter, was that he would be a useful set of primary source material (5 volumes of source material; yes, much of it made it into his correspondence collection now on Trier, but I got the impression there was some non-overlap), but now I see exactly how all that selection of material for the Oeuvres happened. Marwitz letters? Cut. Voltaire wanting to commit suicide because of the way he was treated in Frankfurt? Cut.
Sigh. Between him and Catt, it's been quite a morning. To quote Fritz himself, writing to Algarotti, "With age I feel more and more incredulous when it comes to histories, theology and physicians. There are few known truths in the world, we look for them, and while we do so, we satisfy ourselves with the fables that are created for us, and the eloquence of charlatans."
I was morbidly curious how invading Saxony is defending German freedom, but of ourse it's because the Saxons secretly are already yearning to become Prussian citizens
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Well, I'm sorry he's such a letdown, and thanks for dipping your toe in the waters of German nationalism for us. I'm still hopeful we'll have more Münchow moments where he leads us somewhere interesting, even if the commentary isn't worth reading cover-to-cover.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-27 07:30 am (UTC)Also, with his basic belief that Fritz can do no wrong and is truth incarnated, he tranfers errors. Remember, in the 7 Years War, one of Fritz' most efficient propagana writings was a supposed letter from MT to the Marquise de Pompadour calling her "dear sister". This was, depending on your pov, forgery in the service of political propaganda or satire, but it definitely wasn't the real deal. (We do have the entire correspondance between the Marquise and Vienna documented. The only direct letter of hers to MT, and not the other way around, was thanking her for the present of an ebony cabinet. Otherwise, Reinette corresponded with Kaunitz (basically Austria's PM,
Or: like I said, I noted - and was surprised - that he quotes from Fritz' conversations with Catt (naming Catt's memoirs as the source) before these were published, then found the explanation in the preface (the memoirs were in the Prussian State Archive and Preuß was given access to them). I don't blame him for being thrilled - getting your hands on such a document with lots of surely authentic Fritz conversations, what a find! But it means that he accepts anything Fritz says here (or that, as we now know, Catt has him say) without question, including the AW-editing-out-of-history thing where Heinrich, not AW, is declared by Fritz to have been FW's favourite. (Which Preuß with his access to the state archive, which I assume back then had the same FW letters Ziebura and other modern biographers whote from, could have counterchecked. But if the One King says it...)
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-27 04:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, he definitely seemed to be the most source-oriented guy I could find so early, which is why I grabbed him. Well, like you said, maybe more gems will turn up. And maybe it's worth scrolling through the five non-bio volumes just to see if there are any sources in there that we don't have access to through Trier, or if it's all just Fritz correspondence that he later published.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-02-02 04:32 am (UTC)I'm still amazed that Fredersdorf rather than Wilhelmine was the exception. After years of abuse and faking love with the one person who stood by him and suffered with him, he suddenly acquired the ability to love at age 19, while imprisoned? But then never used it again?
Oh, wait, I'm trying to make sense of the senseless. Never mind!
But seriously, if he was going to only ever love one person, it would be either SD or Wilhelmine, imo.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-02-02 08:37 am (UTC)Jürgen Luh, like Judith Zinsser with Voltaire vs De Lambert, is put off by all the French written Rokoko emo in the letters to Wilhelmine, Suhm et al and qualifies it as posing and rethoric, written with an eye to posterity, whereas he sees the secret German emo in the Fredersdorf letters as possibly genuine, seeing as it was decidedly not written for anyone but Fredersdorf to read. Somehow, the fact that Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf (and Suhm, and Algarotti, and just about anyone who's sick) gets the "live for meeeeee!" in whatever language, does not seem to be a shared factor here.)
I should add here that actually the 1926 editor of the Fredersdorf letters, who is the oppposite of a Deconstructing Fritz biographer like Luh, also suggests the relationship with Fredersdorf was more genuine (FATHERLY FATHERLY FATHERLY) love, but not for Luh's reasons - he just doesn't consider Wilhelmine worthy. Fredersdorf, after, all, never had lunch with MT, nor did he carry on corresponding with perfidious Frenchmen who broke our national hero's heart!
But seriously, if he was going to only ever love one person, it would be either SD or Wilhelmine, imo.
Oh, agreed. BTW, the passage in Seckendorff's diary quoted below about SD hating on Wilhelmine up to the mid 1730s and telling FW "odious stories" about her, which Seckendorff Jr. wonders might spoil things for her with her son (it didn't) did make me wonder. If Wilhelmine by not encouraging Fritz to make a run for it and escape the abuse (because she was afraid it would fail, because she didn't want to be left alone in hell, for a variety of reasons) did something which, as with Katte, in his subconscious he resented her for yet could not express, even to himself, why (so it might have come out much later in the 1740s during their crisis)... it could also be possible that Fritz blinding himself (as he had to) to the fact that while Best of Mothers might do all she could to please him (as per Mantteuffel), she was abusing his sister, also caused such a subconscious resentment gathering reaction inside Wilhelmine which in turn contributed to her cathartic memoirs writings (with their critical deictions of 1730s and early 1740s Fritz)? (And they were cathartic for her; after their reconciliation, she never seems to have doubted his emotions for her again, as if she'd gotten all out of her system.)
Incidentally: SD being so hostile towards her oldest daughter that foreign ambassadors notice it - still revenge for Wilhelmine having failed her (in her eyes) by not holding out for the English marriage, or awareness that when the next regime comes, it's not EC who is going to be her competition for royal woman most important to the next King? In any case, what all the verbal abuse through the early 1730s reminds me of is also Fritz' behaviour to AW in the year between the casheering and AW's death. Yes, FW was the chief royal role model for wanting the crown prince who has failed you (in your eyes) broken and submitting by an admission he was utterly wrong and you were utterly right, but what SD was doing with Wilhelmine had more scapegoating in it. It could never be SD's fault for having asked the impossible from her daughter (and driven her children into a war with their father they couldn't win), it was Wilhelmine's fault that she failed to become Queen of England.
Re: Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-02-02 05:33 pm (UTC)Okay, at least there's some coherence to the argument. Thank you for clarifying. I still don't buy it, and like you said, he freaks out and uses "Live for me!" to all parties, and as I will always point out, that's the line that Wilhelmine said worked on *him*...maybe the guy is just emo and had a lot of people taken away from him by force, and he's not good at letting go.
If Wilhelmine by not encouraging Fritz to make a run for it and escape the abuse (because she was afraid it would fail, because she didn't want to be left alone in hell, for a variety of reasons)
This. And the fact that whether it succeeded or failed, her hell would become a lot worse.
did something which, as with Katte, in his subconscious he resented her for yet could not express, even to himself, why (so it might have come out much later in the 1740s during their crisis)
caused such a subconscious resentment gathering reaction inside Wilhelmine which in turn contributed to her cathartic memoirs writings
I couldn't agree more. I have always thought that both the siblings had some deeply buried resentment toward each other that couldn't find any outlet except in a big explosion, and that that contributed to their willingness to assume the worst of each other in the 1740s.
(And they were cathartic for her; after their reconciliation, she never seems to have doubted his emotions for her again, as if she'd gotten all out of her system.)
Gotten it out of her system, yes, and reliving the early years might have stirred up the memories that made it easier to reconcile.
Also, just to quote MacDonogh one more time, about the reconciliation: "Wilhelmina must have worked the gall out of her system by then: she had used it as ink for her memoirs." :)
still revenge for Wilhelmine having failed her (in her eyes) by not holding out for the English marriage, or awareness that when the next regime comes, it's not EC who is going to be her competition for royal woman most important to the next King?
Interesting, could be!
Yes, FW was the chief royal role model for wanting the crown prince who has failed you (in your eyes) broken and submitting by an admission he was utterly wrong and you were utterly right, but what SD was doing with Wilhelmine had more scapegoating in it. It could never be SD's fault for having asked the impossible from her daughter (and driven her children into a war with their father they couldn't win), it was Wilhelmine's fault that she failed to become Queen of England.
Oooh, yes, this is very accurate. Fritz definitely had a distinct lack of role models admitting to mistakes, and that must be a big part of his hurry to scapegoat.