Wanted: one historically interested Russian to give us the current state of opinions on Elisaveta summed up.
Re: why Blanning just accepts Preuss on Elizabeth when he doesn't accept Preuss' take on Fritz: I suspect laziness, pure and simple. He doesn't have to do extra research that way. (See also Burgdorf, who even has "Frederick the Gay" written on his agenda, still not bothering to go to the state archive himself, or read Lehndorff's diaries, and instead provides no other citation than Ziebura while presenting his summary of her research. And at least he does provide a citation there. Unlike for Grigorii the suicidal hussar - btw, I looked up anyone with a similar sounding name in the Frederician dictionary Leuschner put together, and no luck - or the statement that Wilhelmine was in love with Katte.) Blanning from what you say doesn't strike me as all that interested in the minor supporting cast, and Elisaveta shows up solely during the 7 Years War. So no extra research for her.
Was thinking of Louis 9 the Saint, yes, not Louis 7 Eleanor's husband (who did not have mistresses, either, true).
Blanning's "FW2 hastily removed all the male nudes" and Blannings "people thought Pompadour in politics = sleaze" strikes me as both committing the cardinal sin of assigning present day attitudes to the past. FW2 had a bad relationship with Fritz and was flamboyantly heterosexual, ergo, he must have been a homophobe censoring all the gay. A head of goverment's mistress believed to be in charge of politics - so sleazy! This just isn't how you should write biography.
Speaking of mistresses, behold this bit from the later conversations with Fritz:
Fritz: *spends a lifetime mocking Louis XV. for being run by his dick and allowing his mistresses, especially but not exclusively Pompadour, to influence him*
Fritz: *very annoyed that Louis XVI, married to daughter of MT, still won't budge from the France/Austria alliance*
Fritz to French visitors of the early 1780s: Your king should totally take a mistresss!
ETA: Also, Catt is still around at this date, I think? I've seen 1780 and 1782 for his dismissal. But I haven't seen it in any contemporary source, so I don't know.
Haven't seen any mention of Catt in Lucchesini's diary, so if he was around and/or talked about, it's not there, or I overlooked it. (But I tried running the name through the search machine, and it doesn't find any Catt in the German translation of Lucchesini at least.)
(BTW: we know why Louis and MA didn't have kids during the first seven years until Joseph became the world's least likely marriage counsellor before Munck the Finnish sex machine in Sweden, because we have Joseph's letters on the subject. But it says something about how discreetly this was handled that Fritz, with all his claimed "secret sources" at Versailles, had zero idea about this spicy bit of gossip.) And all the later revolutionaries who ascribed all sorts of things to MA's sex life and questioned the paternity of her kids never seem to have heard of it, either.)
Re: Blanning 3
Re: why Blanning just accepts Preuss on Elizabeth when he doesn't accept Preuss' take on Fritz: I suspect laziness, pure and simple. He doesn't have to do extra research that way. (See also Burgdorf, who even has "Frederick the Gay" written on his agenda, still not bothering to go to the state archive himself, or read Lehndorff's diaries, and instead provides no other citation than Ziebura while presenting his summary of her research. And at least he does provide a citation there. Unlike for Grigorii the suicidal hussar - btw, I looked up anyone with a similar sounding name in the Frederician dictionary Leuschner put together, and no luck - or the statement that Wilhelmine was in love with Katte.) Blanning from what you say doesn't strike me as all that interested in the minor supporting cast, and Elisaveta shows up solely during the 7 Years War. So no extra research for her.
Was thinking of Louis 9 the Saint, yes, not Louis 7 Eleanor's husband (who did not have mistresses, either, true).
Blanning's "FW2 hastily removed all the male nudes" and Blannings "people thought Pompadour in politics = sleaze" strikes me as both committing the cardinal sin of assigning present day attitudes to the past. FW2 had a bad relationship with Fritz and was flamboyantly heterosexual, ergo, he must have been a homophobe censoring all the gay. A head of goverment's mistress believed to be in charge of politics - so sleazy! This just isn't how you should write biography.
Speaking of mistresses, behold this bit from the later conversations with Fritz:
Fritz: *spends a lifetime mocking Louis XV. for being run by his dick and allowing his mistresses, especially but not exclusively Pompadour, to influence him*
Fritz: *very annoyed that Louis XVI, married to daughter of MT, still won't budge from the France/Austria alliance*
Fritz to French visitors of the early 1780s: Your king should totally take a mistresss!
ETA: Also, Catt is still around at this date, I think? I've seen 1780 and 1782 for his dismissal. But I haven't seen it in any contemporary source, so I don't know.
Haven't seen any mention of Catt in Lucchesini's diary, so if he was around and/or talked about, it's not there, or I overlooked it. (But I tried running the name through the search machine, and it doesn't find any Catt in the German translation of Lucchesini at least.)
(BTW: we know why Louis and MA didn't have kids during the first seven years until Joseph became the world's least likely marriage counsellor before Munck the Finnish sex machine in Sweden, because we have Joseph's letters on the subject. But it says something about how discreetly this was handled that Fritz, with all his claimed "secret sources" at Versailles, had zero idea about this spicy bit of gossip.) And all the later revolutionaries who ascribed all sorts of things to MA's sex life and questioned the paternity of her kids never seem to have heard of it, either.)