cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

felis

Aw, I didn't get around to commenting before reveals. I'd forgotten how many different things Heinrich tried after Fritz' death and that he got rebuffed by not just one but two successors. The "waited and waited" was rather heartbreaking.
I also love how well this got the love/hate across - I knew that "I will not miss you at all" would be famous last words, but it was still very touching to follow. (... now I'm wondering how that would have gone if he hadn't been ignored after Fritz' death!) The obelisk letter was fun and the way you invent/use the Amalie music anecdote to show us something about all three characters was just wonderful. Also, the "I would be seen truly" was just as much of a surprisingly poignant (self-)insight as Fritz' "autre-moi-même". And trying to needle Fritz' ghost into coming back! Aw. <3

is the "etc" actually transcribed literally from the letter, or is it the transciber's shorthand for "yours, Heinrich"

I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

sounds like a formal salutation in English without being too over-the-top to modern eyes, as "My very dear brother" looks to me

Interesting. I might have gone with the more rococo version myself, precisely because it's so typical for the time period, but I can see why you guys came down on the other choice. It's hard enough to judge tone in the originals.

One other thing that stuck out to me: And when it was perfect (I did good work!) you never admitted it. - Is this meant as selective memory on Heinrich's part, or is your premise that he never got to hear Fritz' praise? I seem to remember that he was present for one of the post-Seven-Year-War speeches for example, but I could also see that he would choose not to remember that, given the whole kerfuffle regarding the proper salute immediately after the war, having to step back into the ranks after he was basically second-in-command.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

And when it was perfect (I did good work!) you never admitted it. - Is this meant as selective memory on Heinrich's part, or is your premise that he never got to hear Fritz' praise?

She and I didn't discuss this, so I'll have to wait to see what

cahn intended, but I read it as selective memory/hyperbole in the heat of anger, which is exactly how dysfunctional families fight, *cough*, not that I would know. ;)

Me and my sister: "You never let us go anywhere when we were growing up!"

My mother: *enumerates 5 times we were allowed to go somewhere without the school or immediate family supervising*

Me and my sister: "The fact that you can count 18 years' worth of examples on one hand is exactly making our point for us!"

IMO, Heinrich would be a model of self-restraint if he *didn't* say something like "You never!" to Fritz at some point.

ETA: I chatted with my wife about this over breakfast, because our respective dysfunctional familes are a frequent topic of discussion (as with Cahn and me, actually, lol), and we agreed that people say "You never" because it feels *emotionally* true, and then because it's not literally true it opens you up to counterattack. (Actually, if you read books on family therapy and couples therapy, therapists devote a certain amount of time to helping people find more constructive means of communicating their emotional truths to get them out of this unproductive "You never!" "Yes I did!" cycle.) The upshot is that Heinrich felt underappreciated even if there were literal examples of Fritz appreciating him.

I might have gone with the more rococo version myself, precisely because it's so typical for the time period, but I can see why you guys came down on the other choice. It's hard enough to judge tone in the originals.

Yeah, I was torn. Does one translate the words or the meaning? In our discussion, I ended up drawing a parallel between Heinrich's obligatory "my very dear brother" to a brother who was not at all dear to him, mixed feelings notwithstanding, and "Dear Hiring Manager," where the salutation is so obligatory that it loses all meaning. Part of me felt like "My very dear" in modern English would be misleading.

Edited Date: 2022-05-13 03:44 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

(Actually, if you read books on family therapy and couples therapy, therapists devote a certain amount of time to helping people find more constructive means of communicating their emotional truths to get them out of this unproductive "You never!" "Yes I did!" cycle.)

Oh huhhhhh. I know a reasonable amount about more effective forms of communicating in relationships, but it never really clicked for me that this is how they work better. It's always very educational to talk to you! :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I mean, there are lots of failure modes that are addressed by more effective means of communicating in relationships, but one of them is "You never!" "Yes I did!", or, more generally, "Attack!" "Defense and counterattack!"

From:

mildred_of_midgard

And to switch from characterization to history, I think the episode you're thinking of was when Fritz, after the Seven Years' War, raised a toast at dinner to Heinrich, the only one of the Prussian generals, Fritz included, who never made a mistake. Someone, maybe Krockow, said that Heinrich's response is unknown, but that he probably bowed in silence and returned to Rheinsberg asap.

I could see how something like that would make Heinrich feel even more underappreciated--like if Fritz could see that he was so good at what he did, why hold him back so much after the war? (The obvious answer being that Fritz could see exactly how good he was, and in Fritz's zero-sum power game, that meant a threat.)

Therapy for everyone, as I always say.

Edited Date: 2022-05-13 08:59 pm (UTC)

From:

felis

Yeah, that was one of the main anecdotes I had in mind, next to the bit where he acknowledged Heinrich's key role in the partition of Poland (if and when he felt like it). I seem to remember that Fritz praising Heinrich for his role in the war came up a couple of times - and of course he did put him in charge for a few days - although I would not know where to go for the primary sources at the moment. And yes re: holding him back after the war, that's why I brought up the symptomatic salute problem - although not to forget, once they hadn't talked for a year and Heinrich did give in and do the proper salute, Fritz promptly pulled him from the ranks again and had him ride by his side. Because of course he did. :P

But speaking of praising Heinrich, there's another instance I came across recently when I was reading the Rothenburg letters. Quote: My brother Henri distinguished himself extremely in our march of the 16th and we begin to know in the army his talents, of which I have spoken so often to you.
That's from October 1745, so well before the 1746 blow-up in which Fritz had an entirely different opinion on Heinrich's attitude towards the army, but I could easily see this as something that he didn't actually tell Heinrich to his face in 1745. Or maybe he did, who knows. But I was particularly surprised by the "so often" in that sentence when I read it. Heinrich might have been as well!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

next to the bit where he acknowledged Heinrich's key role in the partition of Poland (if and when he felt like it)

Yes, but by the 1780s he was giving himself and Joseph full credit, and in 1786, that's what's going to be fresh on Heinrich's mind!

It's funny, because when

cahn wrote "if I managed to convince you, you would have probably decided it had been your idea all along," I commented while betaing, "Nice shout-out to the First Polish Partition!" To which she said she had forgotten about the partition credit-stealing and was just thinking, "What would Fritz do?" to which I said, "Exactly that!" :D

WWFD

From:

mildred_of_midgard

but I could easily see this as something that he didn't actually tell Heinrich to his face in 1745. Or maybe he did, who knows. But I was particularly surprised by the "so often" in that sentence when I read it. Heinrich might have been as well!

Indeed! But I suspect 1745 was before Fritz started to see Heinrich as a serious threat? So he was probably just pleased that his brothers wanted to be in his army. And I suspect anything he said before the 1746 watershed year (or at least from the evidence we have, I suspect it was something of a watershed year) would have been long forgotten by 1786, at least emotionally.

From:

cahn

Ohh... that's interesting! Now, my experiences have made me absolutely certain that Fritz would be capable of saying super nice things about Heinrich regularly to other people but not to Heinrich himself. (My mom does this regularly with my sister and me -- she'll say nice things about one of us to the other sister (and I think she brags about us to her friends), but she won't say the nice thing to the person whom it concerns! Which I know about because both sister and I then usually immediately tell each other, but we didn't learn how to do this reliably until we were both adults.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Lol, look at us applying our first-hand experience with dysfunctional families of the present to the study of dysfunctional families of the past. ;) And good for you and your sister, seriously.

From:

cahn

<3 :)

(... now I'm wondering how that would have gone if he hadn't been ignored after Fritz' death!)

Me too! (Mildred and Selena, please write, or at least outline, this AU for us! :D )

So does etc. always mean basically "yours, [writer]" or is there like another whole line of flowery sentiments that the transcriber just got tired of transcribing?

Interesting. I might have gone with the more rococo version myself, precisely because it's so typical for the time period, but I can see why you guys came down on the other choice. It's hard enough to judge tone in the originals.

Yeah, my reasoning there was similar to Mildred's -- that my 21st-C eyes see "My dear brother" as something I might write as a (perhaps somewhat flowery) typical obligatory salutation, whereas "My very dear brother" is something I'd only write to a brother who was, well, very dear to me.

(Also informing this decision is my usual hilarious inability to history where, although I know I've looked vaguely at the Heinrich and AW letters before, I had only really read (and, I guess, remembered) the Wilhelmine letters. So up until, uh, writing this fic, I thought that maybe "ma très chère soeur" as a salutation might have been saying something about Wilhelmine and Fritz.)

One other thing that stuck out to me: And when it was perfect (I did good work!) you never admitted it. - Is this meant as selective memory on Heinrich's part, or is your premise that he never got to hear Fritz' praise? I seem to remember that he was present for one of the post-Seven-Year-War speeches for example

Hee, now the "never made a mistake" incident I did remember! But I decided Heinrich was not in the frame of mind where he'd go "You never even told me I did a good job! ...well, except for that one time, yeah, okay." So, basically, what

mildred_of_midgard said about emotional truth, only I wouldn't have been able to articulate it as well as she did :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So up until, uh, writing this fic, I thought that maybe "ma très chère soeur" as a salutation might have been saying something about Wilhelmine and Fritz.)

Not in that way, but remember this, though, your summary of their 1745 falling out letters?

2 Oct, F to W - "We have just defeated the Austrians."
19 Oct, W to F - You're the greatest, bro!
29 Oct, F to W - Thanks, sis! I am the greatest!
30 Dec, F to W - (Ma chere soeur instead of Ma tres chere, :(((((( ) - I just made peace with YOUR FRIEND

:D

From:

cahn

I KNEW there was a reason I thought the "très chère soeur" thing was meaningful! Aw, Fritz.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So does etc. always mean basically "yours, [writer]" or is there like another whole line of flowery sentiments that the transcriber just got tired of transcribing?

I'm pretty sure it's the latter, and that "your [flowery adjectives] servant" has got to be a major one. Comparing the Wilhelmine letters to Fritz in Trier to ones in the Bayreuth enthusiast collection, the former has a lot of "etc"s, (understandable given the sheer number of volumes Preuss was assembling!), and the latter has none and the editor consistently ends Wilhelmine's letters with repetitive flowery sentiments.

Bayreuth Enthusiasts, a 1757 letter:

Je suis avec tout le respect et la tendresse imaginable

Mon tres cher Frere
votre tres humble obeïssante
Soeur et Servante
Wilhelmine

Preuss, a 1756 letter:

Étant avec toute la tendresse et le respect imaginable, mon très-cher frère, etc.

So Preuss has to be eliding "Votre tres humble et tres obeïssante Soeur et servante Wilhelmine," or something very close to it.

From:

felis

Yeah, it always seems to be the formal and more or less flowery phrase of self-description + name that get omitted. I compared a couple of Fritz->Voltaire letters and while Preuss includes the closing "respect/tenderness/friendship" lines that are an actual part of the text and directly related to the recipient, he skips the final "your faithful friend, Frederic" or similar via the etc.
Another example are Fritz' letters to FW, where Preuss's etc replaces "Meines allergnädigsten Königs und Vaters getreu gehorsamster Diner und Sohn Friderich".

ETA: Which is to say - yes, flowery stuff gets omitted, but it seems like it's always formal flowery stuff which functionally amounts to today's "yours", nothing actually substantial in terms of compliments that the editor just got tired of or some such.

Edited Date: 2022-05-14 02:06 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yes, precisely: it's the formula that gets omitted because the editor can trust the reader to supply the formula, and no information is lost. (Except to those of us who are like: "Wait, who's doing the omitting here?" ;) )

ETA: Also, I don't blame editors of the past for this, in the days when the traditional MO was to write everything out longhand and get your intellectually frustrated wife to type up your manuscript, but modern day editors have an excellent use case for a macro here! :P

Edited Date: 2022-05-14 05:47 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

This is GREAT and I should clearly have asked this question before now -- I would have had a lot of fun with Heinrich starting out with ending his letters "Your very humble and very obedient brother and servant" and being all "...wait! I'm not humble OR obedient and I don't have to pretend to be any more!" But I guess fic!Heinrich got his point across either way.