Thanks to Mildred unearthing Leineweber's disseratation about Samuel Jakob Morgenstern's FW book so quickly, and it being pretty short
Yeah, in my day, our dissertations had to be a lot longer. :P
This was because not just Morgenstern but other German scholars hoped to get jobs in Russia because of Anna employing Germans and German being basically the court language due to her lover.
And also one traveling Italian who hoped but failed to get a job at her court. ;)
Said lecture got published later and is Leineweber's exhibit a) for his theory that Morgenstern's FW biography employs Antony's rethorical funeral speech technique from "Julius Caesar" because it shows him capable of subsersivness.
Aahhhh, this was fascinating! Like cahn, I'm convinced!
It starts with a big whopper, that "Narr" - fool" - hails from the Latin word "narrare", storyteling, and you can feel all the listening professors cringe.
Folk etymology is timeless. :)
Because there's a cabinet order from Feburary 4th 1738 in which Morgenstern is ordered to go there, observe everything (but NOT do scholarly stuff)
Lol. Priorities!
country and people, and then report to FW about his impressions. Under no circumstances was he to say that he was in Prussian service; he was supposed to travel under an alias and keep a diary noting down all he sees and hears.
This is fascinating, because this is exactly what Algarotti was supposed to do in Turin in early 1741, but Algarotti and incognito don't really go together, so that was a disaster that left both Fritz and Algarotti grumpy.
So he must have offered to work as a secret agent, and the amazing thing is, Fritz accepted and sent him to Breslau
Wow, that is amazing! This whole story was fascinating, and I'm so glad I accidentally turned up this brief gem of a dissertation! None of the accounts I've read of the taking of Breslau mention this story.
Fritz: *annexes Breslau on August 10th, and orders the city of Breslau to pay Morgenstern a life long pension of 500 Reichstaler per annum*
To supplement the chronology here, because I remembered that Algarotti waited a long time for Fritz in Breslau around this time:
September 22: Algarotti arrives in Breslau because Fritz told him he wanted to see him there. September 23 - November 3: Algarotti twiddles his thumbs. November 4: Fritz finally shows up. November 7: Homage ceremony for Fritz. November 8: A clearly fed up Algarotti hightails it to Dresden.
supposedly, he didn't even clean up the spiders in his room because he liked their company.
This is fascinating, because this is exactly what Algarotti was supposed to do in Turin in early 1741, but Algarotti and incognito don't really go together, so that was a disaster that left both Fritz and Algarotti grumpy.
Given Fritz must have known by 1741 that Morgenstern successfully pulled this off with Britain for FW, that trip clearly was a model and precedent, for all that Fritz was big on how different he treated scholars to his father and how his academy actually consisted of world renowned scientists, not court fools.
(BTW, the anonymous preface writer who puts Morgenstern's British journey in the year 1739 and credits him with reconciling Prussia and Britain at the brink of a war is still talking hogwash, of course, but he's at least basing this on two separate true events - Morgenstern did go to Britain for FW, though his mission didn't entail negotiations, and Brtain and Prussia once were at the brink of a war, only this was a decade earlier, 1729, and the resoluion had nothing to do with Morgenstern who wasn't even working for FW yet.)
None of the accounts I've read of the taking of Breslau mention this story.
Same, but Leineweber quotes from actual correspondences, orders and complaints and petitions (from the citizens of Breslau), i.e. primary sources. Meanwhile, the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie encyclopedia from the late 19th century says Morgenstern's various secret agent works probably were all lies on his part, which means Leineweber must have done original research. He definitely earned his Doctor Philologus!
(Mind you, I would have automatically assumed they were all made up, too, when first coming across that claim, but given that at least the Christian Wolff mission is backed up by Wolff's own letters (and Haude's and Manteuffel's), someone ought to have checked the State Archive earlier.)
This said, I would still someone to counter check whether the Scots would have preferred FW to G1 as heir in Queen Anne's time. This would have been adolescent Crown Prince FW, after all, who thus wouldn't yet have gathered a reputation for his impeccable Protestant Christianity (designed to apppeal to Scotch Prespyterians), and who would have come with the same draw back as the Hannover cousins - a German principality that he sure as hell would not have given up, especially since he was the only son F1 had. And that's leaving aside how attached or not your avarage Scottish lord was to the House of Stuart (Catholic or not).
If true, that is a touching detail.
It sounds like it's from Nicolai's 1779 visit, though the phrasing (by Leineweber) is a bit ambiguous.
Given Fritz must have known by 1741 that Morgenstern successfully pulled this off with Britain for FW, that trip clearly was a model and precedent, for all that Fritz was big on how different he treated scholars to his father and how his academy actually consisted of world renowned scientists, not court fools.
Exactly. That's fascinating! Everything we learn keeps being related to something else we learn!
He definitely earned his Doctor Philologus!
He did!
This said, I would still someone to counter check whether the Scots would have preferred FW to G1 as heir in Queen Anne's time.
Yeah, that would be really interesting. Perhaps we'll turn it up!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: The Life and Times of Samuel Jakob Morgenstern
Date: 2021-03-13 05:09 pm (UTC)Yeah, in my day, our dissertations had to be a lot longer. :P
This was because not just Morgenstern but other German scholars hoped to get jobs in Russia because of Anna employing Germans and German being basically the court language due to her lover.
And also one traveling Italian who hoped but failed to get a job at her court. ;)
Said lecture got published later and is Leineweber's exhibit a) for his theory that Morgenstern's FW biography employs Antony's rethorical funeral speech technique from "Julius Caesar" because it shows him capable of subsersivness.
Aahhhh, this was fascinating! Like
It starts with a big whopper, that "Narr" - fool" - hails from the Latin word "narrare", storyteling, and you can feel all the listening professors cringe.
Folk etymology is timeless. :)
Because there's a cabinet order from Feburary 4th 1738 in which Morgenstern is ordered to go there, observe everything (but NOT do scholarly stuff)
Lol. Priorities!
country and people, and then report to FW about his impressions. Under no circumstances was he to say that he was in Prussian service; he was supposed to travel under an alias and keep a diary noting down all he sees and hears.
This is fascinating, because this is exactly what Algarotti was supposed to do in Turin in early 1741, but Algarotti and incognito don't really go together, so that was a disaster that left both Fritz and Algarotti grumpy.
So he must have offered to work as a secret agent, and the amazing thing is, Fritz accepted and sent him to Breslau
Wow, that is amazing! This whole story was fascinating, and I'm so glad I accidentally turned up this brief gem of a dissertation! None of the accounts I've read of the taking of Breslau mention this story.
Fritz: *annexes Breslau on August 10th, and orders the city of Breslau to pay Morgenstern a life long pension of 500 Reichstaler per annum*
To supplement the chronology here, because I remembered that Algarotti waited a long time for Fritz in Breslau around this time:
September 22: Algarotti arrives in Breslau because Fritz told him he wanted to see him there.
September 23 - November 3: Algarotti twiddles his thumbs.
November 4: Fritz finally shows up.
November 7: Homage ceremony for Fritz.
November 8: A clearly fed up Algarotti hightails it to Dresden.
supposedly, he didn't even clean up the spiders in his room because he liked their company.
If true, that is a touching detail.
Fascinating read, thank you!
Re: The Life and Times of Samuel Jakob Morgenstern
Date: 2021-03-14 05:40 am (UTC)Given Fritz must have known by 1741 that Morgenstern successfully pulled this off with Britain for FW, that trip clearly was a model and precedent, for all that Fritz was big on how different he treated scholars to his father and how his academy actually consisted of world renowned scientists, not court fools.
(BTW, the anonymous preface writer who puts Morgenstern's British journey in the year 1739 and credits him with reconciling Prussia and Britain at the brink of a war is still talking hogwash, of course, but he's at least basing this on two separate true events - Morgenstern did go to Britain for FW, though his mission didn't entail negotiations, and Brtain and Prussia once were at the brink of a war, only this was a decade earlier, 1729, and the resoluion had nothing to do with Morgenstern who wasn't even working for FW yet.)
None of the accounts I've read of the taking of Breslau mention this story.
Same, but Leineweber quotes from actual correspondences, orders and complaints and petitions (from the citizens of Breslau), i.e. primary sources. Meanwhile, the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie encyclopedia from the late 19th century says Morgenstern's various secret agent works probably were all lies on his part, which means Leineweber must have done original research. He definitely earned his Doctor Philologus!
(Mind you, I would have automatically assumed they were all made up, too, when first coming across that claim, but given that at least the Christian Wolff mission is backed up by Wolff's own letters (and Haude's and Manteuffel's), someone ought to have checked the State Archive earlier.)
This said, I would still someone to counter check whether the Scots would have preferred FW to G1 as heir in Queen Anne's time. This would have been adolescent Crown Prince FW, after all, who thus wouldn't yet have gathered a reputation for his impeccable Protestant Christianity (designed to apppeal to Scotch Prespyterians), and who would have come with the same draw back as the Hannover cousins - a German principality that he sure as hell would not have given up, especially since he was the only son F1 had. And that's leaving aside how attached or not your avarage Scottish lord was to the House of Stuart (Catholic or not).
If true, that is a touching detail.
It sounds like it's from Nicolai's 1779 visit, though the phrasing (by Leineweber) is a bit ambiguous.
Re: The Life and Times of Samuel Jakob Morgenstern
Date: 2021-03-14 12:40 pm (UTC)Exactly. That's fascinating! Everything we learn keeps being related to something else we learn!
He definitely earned his Doctor Philologus!
He did!
This said, I would still someone to counter check whether the Scots would have preferred FW to G1 as heir in Queen Anne's time.
Yeah, that would be really interesting. Perhaps we'll turn it up!