Shortening everything: in this case, at a guess, because they figure people don't care about Catherine's German childhood and youth and want to get to the action in Russia as quickly as possible. With Wilhelmine's memoirs, since among the things they cut were the Dresden wild parties and FW getting punched after trying to grope Frau von Pannewitz, there's an obivious common denominator, i.e. illicit sex. (Or at least the hint of it.) With Trenck's memoirs, the editor admittedly wanted to cut down the rants and the Rokoko emo and get to the core swashbuckling adventure novel. Beats me what the category for the Thiébault rewriting was, though...
BTW, because YouTube users claimed the Russian Ekaterina tv series was on Amazon Prime, I checked, and Amazon Prime Germany doesn't have it, it only has the British Julia Ormond (as Catherine)-Vanessa Redgrave (as Elizabeth) one from the 80s or 90s which I saw a few scenes of back in the day. I checked out the beginning, and good lord. British scriptwriter, Sophie's Dad wasn't a King, and Zerbst wasn't a Kingdom. Also, a quick glance at the cast and then at wiki confirms what I was suspecting when seeing "Count Orlov" as the Russian officier supposed to escort Sophie and her mother en route to Russia - the script, probably to make Catherine not too alienating to its proper British audience, smashed Grigorii Orlov (her lover at the time of the coup), Alexeji Orlov (his brother, who killed Peter), Count Saltykov (Catherine's first lover, possibly the biological father of Paul) and Poniatowski into one character.
Maximilian Schell as the most Austrian Fritz ever was as I recalled from my very few glimpses a long time ago; the tv series actually has his dinner encounter with young Catherine, but zomg before that he invites her to a hunt. Fritz! Scriptwriters, I realise he wasn't your main subject, but really,do your research better. Oh, and he tells Sophie's ambitious Mom it's his destiny to rule middle Europe from the French border to the Siberian tundra if his fan plus Sophie get on the throne. Because clearly, the British scriptwriters don't recall that Prussia isn't Germany yet, and hey, was there something about the HRE, Austria or that Maria Theresia person? Good grief.
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Re: Fritzian library
Date: 2020-03-17 12:14 pm (UTC)BTW, because YouTube users claimed the Russian Ekaterina tv series was on Amazon Prime, I checked, and Amazon Prime Germany doesn't have it, it only has the British Julia Ormond (as Catherine)-Vanessa Redgrave (as Elizabeth) one from the 80s or 90s which I saw a few scenes of back in the day. I checked out the beginning, and good lord. British scriptwriter, Sophie's Dad wasn't a King, and Zerbst wasn't a Kingdom. Also, a quick glance at the cast and then at wiki confirms what I was suspecting when seeing "Count Orlov" as the Russian officier supposed to escort Sophie and her mother en route to Russia - the script, probably to make Catherine not too alienating to its proper British audience, smashed Grigorii Orlov (her lover at the time of the coup), Alexeji Orlov (his brother, who killed Peter), Count Saltykov (Catherine's first lover, possibly the biological father of Paul) and Poniatowski into one character.
Maximilian Schell as the most Austrian Fritz ever was as I recalled from my very few glimpses a long time ago; the tv series actually has his dinner encounter with young Catherine, but zomg before that he invites her to a hunt. Fritz! Scriptwriters, I realise he wasn't your main subject, but really,do your research better. Oh, and he tells Sophie's ambitious Mom it's his destiny to rule middle Europe from the French border to the Siberian tundra if his fan plus Sophie get on the throne. Because clearly, the British scriptwriters don't recall that Prussia isn't Germany yet, and hey, was there something about the HRE, Austria or that Maria Theresia person? Good grief.