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timeasmymeasure
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Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie
Date: 2021-08-07 04:03 pm (UTC)At first I was glad you got both books for the balance, but then I was super impressed by how you put them in dialogue with each other!
But mainly I wanted to read these books to look up F1's youth and the other escape attempt by a Crown Prince, well, Kurprinz.
And delighted I am that you did! Because I've been curious.
a) Brandenburg needs an army of its own so we won't get invaded, devastated and depopulated again.
b) Brandenburg also needs money.
#HohenzollernPriorities
Then came Karl Emil, who looked like the ideal Prussian prince - healthy, jolly, loves sports and playing war
The original Karl Emil! (Don't name your kid Karl Emil is what I learned.)
Then came Friedrich, future F1, who wasn't only sickly, no, his nurse managed to drop him during a carriage drive, with the result that future F1 ended up with both feet turned inwards and a curved spinal
Omggg, poor baby, and in the 17th century, too. :(((
Lehndorff: *fistbump of solidarity*
a curved spinal (is this the right expression in English?)
I would say "a curved spine" if I were being casual, and "spinal curvature" if I were being more technical. For really technical terms, "scoliosis" if it's curvature to the side, "kyphosis" if it's curvature forward. "A curved spinal" isn't grammatical English, no.
Unfortunately, fighting for future F1 also meant subjecting him to an endless series of medical tortures, iron corsets, getting pressed between weights to correct his spine and feet, until one Dr. Fey put an end to it and said the weight pressures especially were probably responsible for F1's asthma or at least it being so bad and could kill the kid.
OMGGG, yes, no, don't do that! Poor F1 and poor Lehndorff!
All pretty fly for a 17th century guy!
No kidding!
"Herzallerliebstes Brüderchen,
weil Ihr bei Eurer grossen Glückseligkeit da Ihr alllzeit bei Papa und Mama seit, meiner ganz vergesset, so will ich hiermit beweisen, dass ich fleissig an Euch gedenke. Ich hoffe, mein Herzensbrüderchen bald wieder zu sehen."
Awww. <3
but extremely shouty, and the first time F1's mother Louise Henriette noticed this, she wrote a letter in protest, that "Fritzchen" surely would be better guided by kindness than by verbal abuse.
See, SOME people, like Sonsine, had figured this out even centuries ago! SOME people still haven't figured it out even today. :(
Whereupon Danckelmann was a bit quieter but still did things like this bit of German-to-Latin translation exercise for F1, of which there is a copy of the manuscript in child!F1's handwriting in the book:
Baroque German: "Mein Bruder und ich wollen gelehrte Printzen werden. Aber Fritz wird ein Esel bleiben."
Latin: "Frater et ego volumus fieri docti Principes. Sed Fridericus manebit Asinus."
SO MUCH HATE.
Not that his bitchy grandson shows any understanding for this. FYI, F2, your precious Black Eagle Order grew directly from this childhood Order de La Generosité.
Lol, enjoying the F2 counter-vendetta. :D
"cried out terribly, and hung from the Stewardess' neck and begged for for God's sake she should save everything and make it so his Mama did not die!"
AWWWW. And once little Hanette, five years younger than him, was of marriagable age, "weak" F1 lobbied for permission to marry her with both sets of (surviving) parents - and actually managed to pull it off.
Good for him! I'm glad something went right (at least temporarily).
Werner Schmidt: The only women I approve of unconditionally in this book are F1's mother and his first wife, who loved him unconditionally. Be content I don't think Dorothea the founder of the Schwedt line was a poisoner.
LOVING the dialogue!
"The King of Sweden is right; for my son isn't good for anything."
HOHENZOLLERN DADS OMG WTF
about whom I'm a bit more positive right until two decades later she makes a sarcastic remark about F1 and his ministers, at which point I'll say she's just like her daughter, because I am A One Man Defense Squad
LOLOLOL
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie
Date: 2021-08-08 02:24 pm (UTC)Clearly! I guess at some point I'll have to read Jürgen Luh's big new biography of the Elector to find out why he did in the first place, given it's such a non-Hohenzollerian name...
Lehndorff: *fistbump of solidarity*
I thought of Lehndorff repeatedly when reading about all the ways they tried to correct F1's bones. At least Lehndorff's back was okay and he didn't get weights of iron on his breast?
See, SOME people, like Sonsine, had figured this out even centuries ago! SOME people still haven't figured it out even today. :(
Here's the letter Louise Henriette wrote on Christmas Day 1666 to future F1's governor Schwerin:
Monsieur, it is also necessary for me to tell you that ther are people who reported to me that Monsieur Danckelmann fiercely attacks Fritzchen during his studies - rudoyoit fort, Schmidt says, is the original expression the Electress used - people who have heard it themselves. I must admit that this is something extremely repellent to me. (...)It could damage his health and his soul. I ask you not to permit it any longer and to signal to (Danckelmann) that this does not please me. I believe his intentions to be good, that he wants (F1) to learn much. But (F1) knows enough for his age, and gentleness is the best methods to win children (douceur est la meilleur méthode pour gagner les enfants).
SO MUCH HATE.
I know. When I read it, I thought: if you're THAT kind of a jerk, Danckelmann, I won't feel sorry at all when you fall.
The Severus Snape method of teaching: only entertaining to read about in fiction. Now Danckelmann, like Snape, had positives going for him - he was a tireless worker dedicated to the state, and there's a reason why him falling from power and Wartenberg gaining it was regarded as such a disaster for centuries. Undoubtedly, too, the trial and the ensueing prison sentence was unfair. But nothing I've read about him made me think he should have been a teacher. (If he was a prodigy able to defend a thesis at university level at 12, undoubtedly little F1 appeared slow to him by comparison.)
HOHENZOLLERN DADS OMG WTF
The Three Georges of Britain and Hanover: Why? This was certainly the most normal thing ever to state about a son. We all said this about our eldest!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie
Date: 2021-08-08 06:13 pm (UTC)Ooh, yes, do! For many reasons, not just Karl Emil.
The Severus Snape method of teaching: only entertaining to read about in fiction.
Right? Snape is one of my (predicatably) problematic faves in fiction, but I would never let him around a child in real life!
(If he was a prodigy able to defend a thesis at university level at 12, undoubtedly little F1 appeared slow to him by comparison.)
Oh, yeah, that makes total sense. I *cough* have not always been the most patient teacher either, though I'm trying to get better.
The Three Georges of Britain and Hanover: Why? This was certainly the most normal thing ever to state about a son. We all said this about our eldest!
*spittake*
HANOVER DADS OMG WTF
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie - Illustration
Date: 2021-08-09 05:11 am (UTC)Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie - Illustration
Date: 2021-08-09 10:09 pm (UTC)Such lovely handwriting, though! I can only admire and envy (and wish all historical records were that clear).
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: Portrait of F1 as a Young Woobie
Date: 2021-08-12 05:22 am (UTC)Seriously! :P