Frederick the Great, discussion post 16
Jul. 14th, 2020 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnWe have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 04:53 am (UTC)They still had claim to a "Pflichtteil", their "share of duty"
Makes sense--it's the same in French inheritance law. I can see I'm going to have to research Prussian inheritance law as much as I did French for this AU!
...how he'd have decided in a scenario where Hans Herrmann survives and is now the new King's favorite is another question altogether...
Yeah...
But even more interesting to me, since I might actually write this AU, is the one where Hans Hermann, eldest son, has deserted the army, has been living in exile under a death sentence for ten years, and only one year before Hans Heinrich's death, has been pardoned by the new king, but is still living in France.
I kind of feel like maybe Hans Heinrich, even if they have a reconciliation, does not approve of all the deserting and still goes with youngest son, thus passing over *two* older brothers.
But if the two brothers then kill each other after the younger one comes to majority, I guess it reverts to the remaining son, French exile Hans Hermann? Whose boyfriend, even if he's inherited the estate of the "très riche" Comte Rottembourg (reason for all my knowledge about French inheritance law), could probably use the inheritance of the "loaded" Hans Heinrich. :D
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 04:40 pm (UTC)Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 05:02 pm (UTC)Yep, he has. Even before Hans Heinrich dies the following year, so I've been planning for Hans Hermann to make a trip back to visit dying dad in 1741. Then yes, a visit in 1748 to grieving stepmom, and yes, I absolutely thought stepmom would petition for Hans Hermann. I'm glad you think this is plausible! Also, I'm glad we get to keep the duel. It's terrible irl, but it makes great fiction!
Good point about the marriage: he'll be 44 in 1748, have lived in France for almost 20 years, and be
married to Fritzunmarried. So while it's not impossible he might still marry into a French family, it's reasonable to assume he won't, especially if he saysFritz will kill himhe has no intention of it, and will let it pass to Heinrich Christoph's line after his death.Fritz, btw, I think *doesn't* go back to Prussia, at least not in 1740 when he doesn't trust koolaid-drinking Dad-favored younger brother at all, pardon or no pardon. But AW can travel west to inspect his domains, and the brothers can meet up in Strasbourg, or maybe Aachen (because historically, Suhm is sick around this time, though I'm going to have a hard time letting him die in his 40s and will probably save him at least a little while longer :P).
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 05:17 pm (UTC)Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 05:29 pm (UTC)Voltaire: definitely! They make a trip to Cirey when Algarotti is there, and Wilhelmine and Émilie hit it off (per cahn's request) and Peter and Algarotti as well. This is one of the vignettes I'd actually started drafting back in May.
(Someone remind me that I have to get my German on more solid footing first. :P)
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 05:35 pm (UTC)But really, now that you have Ziebura, don't you want to start going through those? You can call it fic research :PP
also I have conjunctions now, those are also very helpful!!Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-19 05:47 pm (UTC)You can call it fic research :PP
I am absolutely calling it fic research. :PP
Selena, next up in our reading group's queue (either already in my possession or ordered and on the way) are:
Ziebura: AW
Ziebura: sons
Ziebura: wives
Oster: Wilhelmine
Krockow: Fritz & Heinrich
Lehndorff: 2007 volume 1
We're about a year behind you, but at least we're following in your footsteps!
(Many thanks to cahn for helping fund my book habit and my German studies. :) )
also I have conjunctions now, those are also very helpful!!
Conjunctions are helpful!
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-20 01:41 am (UTC)Also: are you sure you want to do the three Zieburas in a row? Because AW‘s ending combined with the wives‘ fates in short order could feel depressing to you. I would suggest one of the others in between.
Or: outlying suggestion - use the link to the website with Wilhelmine‘s France and Italy letters I put permanently at our Rheinsberg. (And everyone‘s replies to hers.) The letters are in French and German, so you can choose your language to practive on, they‘re short texts and from a time when she was happy and so were Fritz and the sibs - leaving aside Fritzian sour grapes outbursts which he acknowledges as such - , and they‘re plenty interesting to boot in terms of providing glimpses at France and Italy during that time. (Not to mention that letters like Wilhelmine’s about her non-audience with the Pope showcase her and Fritz kidding each other in what must have been one of the charms of their interaction when they weren’t needing comfort or help with the drama of their lives.) I‘m not saying you should read everyone, but if I were you, I‘d read some between the AW and the Wives, for example, to lift your spirits, and as a reminder these people have modes of interaction other than being punched and punching down. If you like, I could select a few so you can look them up.
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-20 03:15 am (UTC)Haha. Well, cahn definitely wanted to do the Ziebura three in that order so as to develop sympathy for the guys before reading about how they punched down. She said if she read the Wives book first, she'd go into the other two resenting the hell out of the Hohenzollern brothers.
She probably wouldn't mind splitting them up, but there's one other consideration: my main goal here is to beef up my German. And Ziebura has straightforward prose that I can handle, and unless Oster or Krockow also do, I'd like to work my way up. I learned my lesson trying to jump straight to Roes and Horowski. But if they do, I've no objection to interspersing either or both. (Lehndorff I'd like to leave for last, since I suspect the genre will make the content more difficult to follow in a foreign language.)
Additionally:
- I have a seriously high tolerance for depressing material.
- For someone who's trying to learn German, "no new content" (which I had guessed already) is a feature, not a bug. :)
Cahn, if you want to skip Sons, I don't mind. I'll read it on my own, and it'll give you a break between depressing book one and depressing book three. But it's short (~100 pages), and just because it has nothing new to Selena, doesn't mean you won't get anything out of it. :)
Selena, thank you for the Wilhelmine correspondence offer. I will seek out recommendations when the time comes (probably when we get to French--I want to read her memoirs and a bunch of correspondence).
Re: Learning Frederick
Date: 2020-08-20 03:21 am (UTC)I miiiiight take you up on that skipping Sons. We'll see. It is possible my German might be good enough by that point not that I'll feel up to reading it, but that at least I might feel interested in seeing how much I can make out.
Though I think novels might actually work better for me for that -- are the other Voigts in German, or is it just Homecoming?
German reading group
Date: 2020-08-20 03:27 am (UTC)We'll see how I feel about the syntax of the others when they arrive, then, and play it by ear.
Everyone just remember: the quicker I get my German up to snuff, the quicker I can start reading things Google translate can't handle, like blackletter font, or lots of footnotes or other complicated formatting. :D
Though I think novels might actually work better for me for that -- are the other Voigts in German, or is it just Homecoming?
Nope, it's all of them! All the Tillerman books, I mean, I haven't checked her others. I just grabbed my personal favorite for my own use, but if you want to pay for one or more of the others, and possibly bribe me with a book of my own choosing to generate an interleaved translation for you, I'm game. :)
Re: German reading group
Date: 2020-08-21 05:50 am (UTC)Because I'm going to produce an interleaved translation of a book
Now, as we all know, I have no time to read, I am busy learning your wonderful language. But I would very much like someone to read me Lady Mary Montagu's biography, which is supposed to be good, and definitive, and at least semi-recent (2001). It's also long, and apparently devotes a lot of page time to her literary output, but you can skim whatever is not of interest.
There's no particular rush, but would you have time and interest in the next, say, few months to read and summarize this for us? I feel that, in addition to
If you're too busy, no worries!
Re: German reading group
Date: 2020-08-21 01:22 pm (UTC)Incidentally: in the long term, I've also been meaning to read her letters from Turkey, aka the ones which made her famous. (And which Heinrich did read and recced to his friends and relations, which is the very flimsy ground on which I base my speculation he knew some English on.) So depending on when I manage the biography, I might add the letters after.
Re: German reading group
Date: 2020-08-23 05:03 am (UTC)The book is now on order.
Yay reading group!