For what it's worth, it might not be, because the two letters Volz published (see here) are in German. Not sure if you saw the discussion about it, but Mildred included it in the Rheinsberg entry.
re: de Catt - at least Blanning does cite the diary (mostly, not for all of these) and not the memoirs.
when discussing unpublished letters, would at least quote from an excerpt so we have something to go off of
Yes! As I said a while ago, I really wish the habit of including appendices with unpublished sources would come back, especially if there's no publication in sight.
In the Secret State Archives in Berlin, Norbert Leithold reports, there is a correspondence between Friedrich's brothers August Wilhelm, Heinrich and Ferdinand that has not yet been evaluated, who also bluntly exchanged information about the love affairs and preferences of their royal brother.
As it happens, I'm actually reading Leithold's Fritz book at the moment and got to that part today and it's another can of worms.
a) He actually says "their (own) sexual experiences with men and women and they also hint at the sexual habits at their brother's court", which isn't quite as explicit when it comes to Fritz.
b) Leithold's is not a scholarly book, he doesn't give footnotes or direct sources for his claims and quotes, just mentions selected books in their entirety as "if you want to know more" literature, which are the source for some of the things he says in each chapter, but definitely not for all of it. So I don't know if he ever had a look at those letters himself or if he relies on someone else for that statement - and I strongly suspect it's mostly Ziebura, whom he has read and quotes in this same chapter, which is about Fritz' homosexuality. (That said, I very much do think that there are gems to be found in those letters, beyond the things Ziebura thankfully unearthed.)
Leithold also has glaring errors (did you know that Fritz visited the Dresden court in 1731? or that Paul II. died in July 1763?), and he mostly gives an overview on a whole variety of topics from A to Z, extracted from random primary and secondary sources without much, if any, analysis of same, which doesn't keep him from boldly concluding things like: Fritz didn't have sex anymore after he became king, because absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And here I thought there were all those hinting letters from the brothers he mentioned two pages earlier! (By the way, he's another one who is very charitable towards FW, and very uncharitable towards SD, who is a horrible, conniving person. And the short overviews he gives for the siblings, well. Apparently Fritz, deeply hurt by the MT thing, stopped talking to Wilhelmine entirely in 1745, and they only started to reconcile in 1750, so I must have imagined all those letters from 1746 to 1750, for once freely available for anyone to read in various editions.)
Like, Mr Alings, you're writing an essay specifically about this topic for an important event, and you won't go into the archives to check this out yourself?
Right? Why do they all just comment on the same sources and each other's opinions (some of them writing whole new Fritz biographies in the process) instead of having a look at the unpublished documents in the state archive, or better yet, doing us all a favour and publishing some scholarly editions of those primary sources. Which include Fritz' own writings, because Preuss was a looong time ago and we know he left things out as well, be it entire letters or just parts of them he apparently didn't think suitable for publication (case in point: all the profanity in the Groeben ones).
He actually says "their (own) sexual experiences with men and women and they also hint at the sexual habits at their brother's court", which isn't quite as explicit when it comes to Fritz.
In fact, I would say it's a very different thing from them commenting on Fritz' own sexual habits. Also, what you then report does sound as if he hasn't read the letters themselves, and is going by Ziebura's excerpts from them in her AW and Heinrich biographies. None of which contain the slightest bit of comment on Fritz' sex life, I might add. (Excepting Fritz' own letters to Heinrich re: Marwitz which document Heinrich/Marwitz but don't prove anything about Fritz/Marwitz, though they are at the very least suggestive of him being, shall we say, overly invested.) As far as I recall, the sexually blunt comments from the letters quoted in the Ziebura biographies are 1.) AW re: Kreyzen, which I've quoted, 2.) AW's fratboy letter to Ferdinand about vaginas, and 3.) Heinrich telling still relatively recently wed Ferdinand in 1756 to enjoy sex with his wife as much as he can because it's definitely going to be war this year. And that's it.
(On a non-explicit note, she also quotes AW warning Ferdinand to keep it platonic with Mina (to which Ferdinand must have thought, pot, kettle.)
Now, Ziebura, unlike all those gentlemen, actually did read the unpublished letters in the archives herself, or at least a great deal of them. At a guess, if there'd been one with a comment on Heinrich's sex life by either himself, AW or Ferdinand, it would have ended up in her Heinrich biography. And given Heinrich's relationship with Fritz is a key part of said biography, just as AW's relationship with Fritz is a key part of the AW biography, I would be surprised if she missed out on quoting a "blunt comment" on Fritz' sex life by either of them. Though of course it's possible! No one can read everything! Plus we know from Lehndorff's diaries, volume IV, that Heinrich at the very least had fun reading out loud Voltaire's memoirs to Lehndorff and two other friends at Rheinsberg when he got a copy in 1784, and commenting on them.
Then again, Ziebura also points out we lucked out that Ferdinand was a letter horder and keeper, because the entire AW/Heinrich correspondence is lost, and we only have the Heinrich/Ferdinand and AW/Ferdinand letters because Ferdinand kept all the letters he received by his older brothers. If AW/Heinrich got disappeared, it was likely for political reasons, but maybe there were some comments on Fritz' sex life (or lack of same?) there as well.
Why do they all just comment on the same sources and each other's opinions (some of them writing whole new Fritz biographies in the process) instead of having a look at the unpublished documents in the state archive, or better yet, doing us all a favour and publishing some scholarly editions of those primary sources.
No kidding. I mean, as far as I know there was a new translation and edition of the iPalladion, but that's it. The Website with the Wilhelmine travel letters is a laudable exception to the rule of still using the Volz translations for all the Fritz/siblings letters. (Ditto for Oster's Wilhelmine biography; Oster is another one who went to the actual archives himself and thus quotes from some unpublished Wihelmine/parents and Wilhelmine/siblings letters.) Pleschinski did his own translations of the Voltaire letters, but I think he used Trier as a texual basis. And no seems up to the gargantuan task of a new scholarly edition.
(Not even of the Fredersdorf letters. Guys, these are managable! There aren't so many of them that it would take you decades, and you don't have to translate, just to transcribe and footnote! Get on it!)
what you then report does sound as if he hasn't read the letters themselves, and is going by Ziebura's excerpts from them in her AW and Heinrich biographies
Only the Heinrich one. I initially thought it was because the AW one wasn't out yet, but looking up the dates, I see that it was, so I have no idea why he didn't read that one as well. But then, his sources are random in general and it shows. As for the letters, he might have a had a cursory look at them - he lists "1.HA, Rep. 56/1 and Rep. 56/2" under literature for the chapter, which I suspect means records for AW and Heinrich respectively (even though they are BPH, not HA, so who knows) - but if he'd found anything relevant, he'd have mentioned it. (He certainly doesn't mention that there are no AW/Heinrich letters to be had, so.)
Pleschinski did his own translations of the Voltaire letters, but I think he used Trier as a texual basis.
Koser/Droysen critical edition of the correspondence in three volumes actually!
Speaking of letters to be had, it occured to me that Ferdinand's general invisibility on anyone's radar, in addition to him being both the youngest and the longest lived and having children to inherit the letters who aren't the rulers of the country, might be why we still have the letters both his brothers wrote to him, including the lethally angry ones from Heinrich after AW's death. (I mean, it's hard to imagine what more hardcore stuff he could have written elsewhere than calling Fritz a monster who is drowning all of Europe in blood.) At a guess, Ferdinand's letters didn't find their way to the state archive until the later 19th century, and by then no one was interested anymore and/or realized what could be in the content.
"BPH": Just guessing, but maybe BP for Borussia Princeps"?
Heh, that's hilarious and ironic that it's Ferdinand's very invisibility that might mean we have more of his stuff :) The revenge of Ferdinand! (who has always shown us friendship!) (that will never not be funny to me)
Ah, sorry - the state archive has different collections, and BPH means "Brandenburg-Preußisches Hausarchiv", i.e. the royal archive that, as far as I know, was kept separate for a while in the 19th/20th century. HA means "Hauptabteilung" of the state archive, but I'm not sure how it all connects and have yet to understand the entire structure of the archive (the online database sure doesn't help).
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timeasmymeasure
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-15 12:06 am (UTC)For what it's worth, it might not be, because the two letters Volz published (see here) are in German. Not sure if you saw the discussion about it, but Mildred included it in the Rheinsberg entry.
re: de Catt - at least Blanning does cite the diary (mostly, not for all of these) and not the memoirs.
when discussing unpublished letters, would at least quote from an excerpt so we have something to go off of
Yes! As I said a while ago, I really wish the habit of including appendices with unpublished sources would come back, especially if there's no publication in sight.
In the Secret State Archives in Berlin, Norbert Leithold reports, there is a correspondence between Friedrich's brothers August Wilhelm, Heinrich and Ferdinand that has not yet been evaluated, who also bluntly exchanged information about the love affairs and preferences of their royal brother.
As it happens, I'm actually reading Leithold's Fritz book at the moment and got to that part today and it's another can of worms.
a) He actually says "their (own) sexual experiences with men and women and they also hint at the sexual habits at their brother's court", which isn't quite as explicit when it comes to Fritz.
b) Leithold's is not a scholarly book, he doesn't give footnotes or direct sources for his claims and quotes, just mentions selected books in their entirety as "if you want to know more" literature, which are the source for some of the things he says in each chapter, but definitely not for all of it. So I don't know if he ever had a look at those letters himself or if he relies on someone else for that statement - and I strongly suspect it's mostly Ziebura, whom he has read and quotes in this same chapter, which is about Fritz' homosexuality. (That said, I very much do think that there are gems to be found in those letters, beyond the things Ziebura thankfully unearthed.)
Leithold also has glaring errors (did you know that Fritz visited the Dresden court in 1731? or that Paul II. died in July 1763?), and he mostly gives an overview on a whole variety of topics from A to Z, extracted from random primary and secondary sources without much, if any, analysis of same, which doesn't keep him from boldly concluding things like: Fritz didn't have sex anymore after he became king, because absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And here I thought there were all those hinting letters from the brothers he mentioned two pages earlier! (By the way, he's another one who is very charitable towards FW, and very uncharitable towards SD, who is a horrible, conniving person. And the short overviews he gives for the siblings, well. Apparently Fritz, deeply hurt by the MT thing, stopped talking to Wilhelmine entirely in 1745, and they only started to reconcile in 1750, so I must have imagined all those letters from 1746 to 1750, for once freely available for anyone to read in various editions.)
Like, Mr Alings, you're writing an essay specifically about this topic for an important event, and you won't go into the archives to check this out yourself?
Right? Why do they all just comment on the same sources and each other's opinions (some of them writing whole new Fritz biographies in the process) instead of having a look at the unpublished documents in the state archive, or better yet, doing us all a favour and publishing some scholarly editions of those primary sources. Which include Fritz' own writings, because Preuss was a looong time ago and we know he left things out as well, be it entire letters or just parts of them he apparently didn't think suitable for publication (case in point: all the profanity in the Groeben ones).
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-15 05:41 am (UTC)In fact, I would say it's a very different thing from them commenting on Fritz' own sexual habits. Also, what you then report does sound as if he hasn't read the letters themselves, and is going by Ziebura's excerpts from them in her AW and Heinrich biographies. None of which contain the slightest bit of comment on Fritz' sex life, I might add. (Excepting Fritz' own letters to Heinrich re: Marwitz which document Heinrich/Marwitz but don't prove anything about Fritz/Marwitz, though they are at the very least suggestive of him being, shall we say, overly invested.) As far as I recall, the sexually blunt comments from the letters quoted in the Ziebura biographies are 1.) AW re: Kreyzen, which I've quoted, 2.) AW's fratboy letter to Ferdinand about vaginas, and 3.) Heinrich telling still relatively recently wed Ferdinand in 1756 to enjoy sex with his wife as much as he can because it's definitely going to be war this year. And that's it.
(On a non-explicit note, she also quotes AW warning Ferdinand to keep it platonic with Mina (to which Ferdinand must have thought, pot, kettle.)
Now, Ziebura, unlike all those gentlemen, actually did read the unpublished letters in the archives herself, or at least a great deal of them. At a guess, if there'd been one with a comment on Heinrich's sex life by either himself, AW or Ferdinand, it would have ended up in her Heinrich biography. And given Heinrich's relationship with Fritz is a key part of said biography, just as AW's relationship with Fritz is a key part of the AW biography, I would be surprised if she missed out on quoting a "blunt comment" on Fritz' sex life by either of them. Though of course it's possible! No one can read everything! Plus we know from Lehndorff's diaries, volume IV, that Heinrich at the very least had fun reading out loud Voltaire's memoirs to Lehndorff and two other friends at Rheinsberg when he got a copy in 1784, and commenting on them.
Then again, Ziebura also points out we lucked out that Ferdinand was a letter horder and keeper, because the entire AW/Heinrich correspondence is lost, and we only have the Heinrich/Ferdinand and AW/Ferdinand letters because Ferdinand kept all the letters he received by his older brothers. If AW/Heinrich got disappeared, it was likely for political reasons, but maybe there were some comments on Fritz' sex life (or lack of same?) there as well.
Why do they all just comment on the same sources and each other's opinions (some of them writing whole new Fritz biographies in the process) instead of having a look at the unpublished documents in the state archive, or better yet, doing us all a favour and publishing some scholarly editions of those primary sources.
No kidding. I mean, as far as I know there was a new translation and edition of the iPalladion, but that's it. The Website with the Wilhelmine travel letters is a laudable exception to the rule of still using the Volz translations for all the Fritz/siblings letters. (Ditto for Oster's Wilhelmine biography; Oster is another one who went to the actual archives himself and thus quotes from some unpublished Wihelmine/parents and Wilhelmine/siblings letters.) Pleschinski did his own translations of the Voltaire letters, but I think he used Trier as a texual basis. And no seems up to the gargantuan task of a new scholarly edition.
(Not even of the Fredersdorf letters. Guys, these are managable! There aren't so many of them that it would take you decades, and you don't have to translate, just to transcribe and footnote! Get on it!)
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-15 07:39 pm (UTC)Only the Heinrich one. I initially thought it was because the AW one wasn't out yet, but looking up the dates, I see that it was, so I have no idea why he didn't read that one as well. But then, his sources are random in general and it shows. As for the letters, he might have a had a cursory look at them - he lists "1.HA, Rep. 56/1 and Rep. 56/2" under literature for the chapter, which I suspect means records for AW and Heinrich respectively (even though they are BPH, not HA, so who knows) - but if he'd found anything relevant, he'd have mentioned it. (He certainly doesn't mention that there are no AW/Heinrich letters to be had, so.)
Pleschinski did his own translations of the Voltaire letters, but I think he used Trier as a texual basis.
Koser/Droysen critical edition of the correspondence in three volumes actually!
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-16 04:01 am (UTC)"BPH": Just guessing, but maybe BP for Borussia Princeps"?
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-16 05:02 am (UTC)Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-16 05:57 pm (UTC):D
(who has always shown us friendship!)
:DDD
Re: FW and the Younglings
Date: 2021-04-16 05:55 pm (UTC)