Mongols: How come no one ever mentions us when it comes to stories about invading Russia? We pulled it off successfully! Granted, our empire collapsed within a few generations and broke into separate empires, but the point is, the original invaders did pull it off!
More seriously, A plus teaser, and one could add: Charles XII and Peter are also whom Fritz and Voltaire are discussing in their early letters when they FINALLY stop writing solely about how wonderful the other one is. Also, the preface of Voltaire‘s Histoire de Charles XII makes for an entertaining and witty defense of why source scepticism is a good thing, where he brings up several ancient historians as examples, which makes mincemeat of the preface to the Montesquieu Roman history editor‘s argument that of course Montesquieu believed the Roman historians were the real deal always and he could trust them implicitly, no 18th century guy with love of history and writings would have thought differently.
I only skipped the book about a year ago - Voltaire‘s, that is - but I really need to read it properly because I do think his characterisations of Charles and Peter, both written pre Fritz, so to speak, should make an interesting point about what Voltaire thought re: warrior kings and reform czars autocrats before getting into a relationship with one.
Another point of connection: Why there was a French and a Russian party in Swedish parliament - which affected Ulrike, if you‘ll recall - and why Heinrich offering to mediate between Ulrike and Catherine at the start of his Russian adventure was a thing.
Lastly, here‘s an imagined Charles and Peter encounter from the 1980s Massie based „Peter the Great“ tv series:
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Re: The Great Northern War: Teaser post
Date: 2021-10-31 04:34 am (UTC)More seriously, A plus teaser, and one could add: Charles XII and Peter are also whom Fritz and Voltaire are discussing in their early letters when they FINALLY stop writing solely about how wonderful the other one is. Also, the preface of Voltaire‘s Histoire de Charles XII makes for an entertaining and witty defense of why source scepticism is a good thing, where he brings up several ancient historians as examples, which makes mincemeat of the preface to the Montesquieu Roman history editor‘s argument that of course Montesquieu believed the Roman historians were the real deal always and he could trust them implicitly, no 18th century guy with love of history and writings would have thought differently.
I only skipped the book about a year ago - Voltaire‘s, that is - but I really need to read it properly because I do think his characterisations of Charles and Peter, both written pre Fritz, so to speak, should make an interesting point about what Voltaire thought re: warrior kings and reform
czarsautocrats before getting into a relationship with one.Another point of connection: Why there was a French and a Russian party in Swedish parliament - which affected Ulrike, if you‘ll recall - and why Heinrich offering to mediate between Ulrike and Catherine at the start of his Russian adventure was a thing.
Lastly, here‘s an imagined Charles and Peter encounter from the 1980s Massie based „Peter the Great“ tv series:
https://youtu.be/2XNmGa3h974
Some months ago, I rewatched the series for the first time since the 80s, and had thoughts here:
https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1455984.html