Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

[cahn]

And in this post:

-luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!

-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!

-mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War

(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)

-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D

Comments

Re: The Romanovs take over

[cahn]

ahahahaha, that's hilarious! So how did it work out for Michael Romanov?

Re: The Romanovs take over

[mildred_of_midgard]

Hmm. Middling? On the plus side, his advisors did the ruling, they kept him on the throne and the country in one piece, and his job was to perform the ceremonial duties of tsar and father an heir, which he did successfully. His arranged marriage wasn't a disaster. He was described as good-natured, docile, pious, and not too bright.

On the minus side, he didn't have great health, he didn't get to marry the woman he wanted, he lost two sons, and he may have become depressed. But considering that his childhood started out like this:

The patriots defeated the Poles, cut off their supply lines and then besieged the Kremlin, where the Poles and boyars started to starve. Bodies lay around the fortress; a merchant found a sack of human heads and limbs near the walls. Michael Romanov remained within this charnel-house with his mother.

and his procession to Moscow to assume the crown went like this:

There has never been a more miserable, whining and melancholic procession to a throne. But the plight of Russia early in 1613 was dire, its trauma dystopian. The territory between Kostroma and Moscow was dangerous; Michael would pass through villages where dead bodies lay strewn in the streets.

it could have ended much worse!

I would say the same thing about Michael's life as Hille said about teenage Fritz's poetry: "for a prince, [it is] good, but for an ordinary man, nothing special."

ETA: Quotes from Montefiore, The Romanovs.

Re: The Romanovs take over

[cahn]

Bodies lay around the fortress; a merchant found a sack of human heads and limbs near the walls. Michael Romanov remained within this charnel-house with his mother.

Holy cow, I can see why one might get depressed, with a childhood like that.

I would say the same thing about Michael's life as Hille said about teenage Fritz's poetry: "for a prince, [it is] good, but for an ordinary man, nothing special."

Ouch, heh.

Re: The Romanovs take over

[selenak]

Holy cow, I can see why one might get depressed, with a childhood like that.

That, or one developes a very different kind of temper. Michail's grandson Peter during his childhood saw an uncle of his and a close advisor of his mother's torn apart by the Strelitzki (not sure whether this is the right spelling in English - think Praetorians in Rome) during the struggle for the Regency between his mother and his older half sister (Sofia, who won). Spoiler: this did not work out well for the Strelitzki in the long term.

Re: The Romanovs take over

[mildred_of_midgard]

I would love it if someone read and reported on a biography of Sofia. I found her *fascinating* in my recent reading.

Re: The Romanovs take over

[selenak]

There's a reason why in the minisieres based on Massie's Peter biography Vanessa Redgrave when offered her choice of parts went for Sofia and promptly went an Emmy for it,deservedly, because she's that rarity (especiallyiin the 80s), a female Worthy Oppponent to the main character who is older, neither sexualized (i.e. evil vamp) nor asexual (we see Sofia with her beloved), ruthless, smart, and thoroughly enjoying herself in power. As I said in my rewatch review, her final scene when she and Peter meet before she's off to her last banishment, and she chides him for chickening out of killing her, he first tries to sound noble and says "I'm not shedding family blood", she says, amused, "You will before this is over" (true, see also, Alexei), and he then says "let's just say I see something of me in you and leave it at that" I remembered so well that when I rewatched after decades I still recalled almost every word.

Re: The Romanovs take over

[mildred_of_midgard]

I can imagine!