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 | Expand All

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So I'm also reading Geoff Mortimer's biography of Wallenstein, mostly for German practice. (Yes, Geoff Mortimer is a British name; the book was translated into German for the audience that cares the most about Wallenstein, and that's how I'm reading it.)

Reminder for

cahn about who Wallenstein was: early 17th century guy, general of the Thirty Years' War. He worked for the Holy Roman Emperor, raised an army, won a bunch of battles and outmaneuvered a bunch of enemies, had a bunch of opinions about strategy and politics, made many enemies at the Vienna court and among the smaller principalities, was dismissed by Emperor Ferdinand, then called back when there was another crisis that only he was equal to, then assassinated at Ferdinand's command. Most powerful and famous general on the imperial side.

So I'm here to talk about the astrology chapter in his biography.

Wallenstein has a reputation for being obsessed with astrology. I picked up on this even from the Thirty Years' War book I read recently. The most extreme claims say that he made military decisions based on whether the stars were favorable or not.

This is utter nonsense, says Mortimer. One, let's remember all those enemies and the fact that he was assassinated, so of course there were smear campaigns in the form of pamphlets, and that's where most of these claims come from that get credulously repeated by historians. Two, Schiller's depiction of Wallenstein as astrology-obsessed, while a perfectly valid choice for an author of fiction, has been way too influential among historians, much like Shakespeare and Richard III. Finally, a detailed study of the primary sources was done by a responsible scholar in 1983, and she found that people have been both attributing things to Wallenstein that other people wrote, and overinterpreting what he did write.

For example, Wallenstein had his horoscope done twice. The first version is annotated in the margins, with his commentary on how well or poorly the predictions correlated with events. This has led to the claim that he carried the horoscope around with him and consulted it at every opportunity.

In reality, there's no evidence that he did anything but sit down with the first horoscope after sixteen years, when he was requesting the second one, and give feedback on the first one. He makes a case that all of the annotations were added at the same time. And using the horoscope to make military decisions is right out: that is not how you outmaneuver a military genius like Gustav Adolf of Sweden!

In conclusion, says Mortimer, Wallenstein probably had a *normal* 17th century belief in astrology, not the slavish, gullible devotion to it that he's often accused of.

But the interesting part for me was that these horoscopes came from, as the title of this post hinted, Johannes Kepler. It turns out that being an astronomer does not pay that well, and doing horoscopes for famous people pays much better. So that's how he supplemented his income.

And as the years went on, older Kepler came to believe less and less in astrology than younger Kepler. He reluctantly did Wallenstein's second horoscope as requested, but then attached a diatribe that was three times as long as the horoscope itself, explaining why you shouldn't take horoscopes seriously. (Lol.)

And Kepler's conclusion wasn't that the stars have no influence over our lives, it was that there are so many other factors that you can't expect exact predictions. There's free will! And societal factors! And if the mother falls down the stairs and gives birth prematurely, the child can be born when the stars aren't right!

For example, in 1608, Kepler had predicted Wallenstein would receive a military command in 1611. This did not happen, and Kepler says it's because of those societal factors: there was no war that year, so no opportunity for the prediction to be fulfilled until 1615.

As someone passionate about philosophy of science, I was most fascinated by how close Kepler came to realizing that astrology has no predictive power and therefore there's no reason to believe it plays any causative role at all, but without quite making that final step. I also didn't realize this was how you made a living in the 17th century if astronomy wasn't paying well enough!

From:

cahn

LOL, this was legit me:

Mildred: Reminder for [personal profile] cahn about who Wallenstein was: early 17th century guy, general of the Thirty Years' War.
Me: Oh, OK! Don't remember him at all. I'm sure we talked about him at some point, whatever.
Mildred: Two, Schiller's depiction of Wallenstein as astrology-obsessed, while a perfectly valid choice for an author of fiction, has been way too influential among historians, much like Shakespeare and Richard III.
Me: OH! THAT Wallenstein! The one Schiller wrote the trilogy about that

selenak pointed me to and which I have downloaded the 19th-C [maybe?] translation for somewhere!

*facepalm* I guess I am consistent about my priorities! But also, I guess I really should read this soon... maybe after I get done with Hugo reading *eyes the stack of books on my kindle*

The astrology thing is fascinating, though!

The first version is annotated in the margins, with his commentary on how well or poorly the predictions correlated with events.

This actually seems like a very reasonable thing to do!

And as the years went on, older Kepler came to believe less and less in astrology than younger Kepler. He reluctantly did Wallenstein's second horoscope as requested, but then attached a diatribe that was three times as long as the horoscope itself, explaining why you shouldn't take horoscopes seriously.

Oh, huh! That's awesome :D

And Kepler's conclusion wasn't that the stars have no influence over our lives, it was that there are so many other factors that you can't expect exact predictions. There's free will! And societal factors! And if the mother falls down the stairs and gives birth prematurely, the child can be born when the stars aren't right!

This is so interesting to me, because I remember reading in St. Augustine's Confessions a while back that he stopped believing in astrology because he realized that twins with different life paths falsify it! (I mean, he used Jacob and Esau as the example, which has its own problems, but I was impressed by the reasoning anyway.) But I guess Kepler would have said that free will could cause that.

I also didn't realize this was how you made a living in the 17th century if astronomy wasn't paying well enough!

Ha, that's very interesting!

From:

selenak

re: Schiller, let me just add that as he added fictional Posa to the Philip & Don Carlos story, he gives one of Wallenstein's subgenerals, Ottavio Piccolomini, who eventually turns against Wallenstein, a fictional son, Max, who is fiercely loyal to Wallenstein, hero worships him, and is crushed to discover that not only does he have to choose between his oath to the Emperor and Wallenstein, but also Dad and Wallenstein, and that Wallenstein is while still admirable also immensely flawed. Lots of male love and torn loyalty and mutual heartbrokenness here, and that Max is wooing Wallenstein's fictional adult daughter (Wallenstein had a real one, but that girl was a child of ten when he died) doesn't reduce the slash factor, au contraire.

Also, mature Schiller in his letters: So I wondered whether or not to write a big Fritz character drama, not about young Fritz but Old Fritz. And then I decided I didn't want Fritz living in my head for years. I'll write about Wallenstein instead! Also a problematic hero, but one I can be emotionally distant from while writing about him, which is better for me! Yep, it's decided.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

re: Schiller, let me just add that as he added fictional Posa

Mortimer: See, the fact that he made Wallenstein obsessed with astrology is just as legit for the sake of FICTION as his FICTIONAL son of Piccolomini and said son's FICTIONAL love affair with a girl who was irl just a child. That doesn't excuse Mann and other biographers!

From:

cahn

I'm kind of with Mortimer here? I mean, did actual biographers think there was e.g. a love triangle between Philip/Don Carlos/Elisabeth?

From:

selenak

No, if you're talking of biographers either in Schiller's time or ours, but then Schiller didn't come up with that one, it was, in fact, a story circulating in Philipp's life time, and part of the Black Spanish Legend. (Also it wasn't meant to make Elisabeth sympathetic, au contraire. Adultery with a step son from a 16th century perspective is incest, and anti Philipp along with anti Valois pamphleteers smacked their lips while telling this story. (Elisabeth: just as bad as her evil Mom and immoral sister Margot!)

However, pamphlets aside, the (good) way Philipp treated his Queen before and after his son's death and the fact historical Don Carlos had a terrible reputation meant that while the story was making the rounds, it wasn't widely believed even in the 15th century, let alone later. Though in later centuries, with Carlos getting a historical hero upgrade as memories of his personality faded while Philip remained in public conscious as the evil Catholic king par excellence, the idea of an actual Carlos/Elisabeth romance gained more and more track long before Schiller wrote his play.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So I wondered whether or not to write a big Fritz character drama, not about young Fritz but Old Fritz. And then I decided I didn't want Fritz living in my head for years. I'll write about Wallenstein instead! Also a problematic hero, but one I can be emotionally distant from while writing about him, which is better for me! Yep, it's decided.

WOW. I mean, I can 100% understand this! Both the fact that Fritz will totally get in your head and under your skin, and also the fact that you might not want that. (I just compartmentalize really, really well.) But I did not know that Schiller felt that way.

Tangentially, this is Jean Dunbabin in the intro to her bio of Charles I of Anjou (that's 13th century,

cahn):

He was no more aggressive than Edward I of England, no more avaricious than Philip IV of France, and his achievements were more interesting than either of these.

Me: Just say he's your problematic fave, Dunbabin! No need to get so defensive.

From:

cahn

Lol! I wish more biographers admitted the possibility of having a problematic fave! That was what I loved so much about Orieux, say, that he really embraced the problematic part of problematic fave :)

From:

selenak

Indeed he did! And refreshing it was, too, since I read it relatively soon after reading that Voltaire novella which partly annoyed me into writing my own version because it edited out Voltaire's wit along with his vengefulness, vanity and bitchiness in order to make him a martyr subjected to the whims of a mean monarch. I thought, author, I get that you want to write a parable of The Intellectual vs Absolute Power, but this is not how these two worked, and making Voltaire of the all the people bland is a crime against good writing. All hail Orieux, who might have a lamentable lack of German sources and consequently makes mistakes like getting the name of Fritz' wife wrong, Fredersdorf's job title(s) or the fact Fritz' younger brothers weren't scheming against him in 1750 - 1753, but by fully committing to Voltaire's flaws along with his virtues and showing how the two are intimately connected (never letting anything go!), manages to create a terrific portrait.

Re: Wallenstein and Kepler

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-18 05:01 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Lots of male love and torn loyalty and mutual heartbrokenness here

...I like how you've figured out how to drastically raise the probability I will read something :PP (I mean... not that it's exactly hard...) :)

Also, mature Schiller in his letters: So I wondered whether or not to write a big Fritz character drama, not about young Fritz but Old Fritz. And then I decided I didn't want Fritz living in my head for years. I'll write about Wallenstein instead! Also a problematic hero, but one I can be emotionally distant from while writing about him, which is better for me! Yep, it's decided.

Heh. That sounds... rather sensible, in fact!

(Heinrich, though, is a problematic hero I am happy to have in my head, so there! :D ~~but does it count if he has Fritz in his head?~~)

From:

selenak

Any version of Heinrich has Fritz in his head, so….

Also, so you don‘t have to read the entire three plays all at once, here‘s the slashiest scene for you:

SCENE II.

WALLENSTEIN, MAX. PICCOLOMINI.

MAX. (advances to him).
My general!

WALLENSTEIN.
That I am no longer, if
Thou stylest thyself the emperor's officer.

MAX.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?

WALLENSTEIN.
I have renounced the service of the emperor.

MAX.
And thou wilt leave the army?

WALLENSTEIN.
Rather hope I
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max., I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right, yea, and a joy it is
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens, that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present: do not look behind thee,—
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! judge not! prepare thyself to act!
The court—it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes—right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He stops himself, expecting PICCOLOMINI's answer.
I have taken thee by surprise. Answer me not:
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.

[He rises, retires to the back of the stage. MAX. remains
for a long time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish.
At his first motion WALLENSTEIN returns, and places himself
before him.

MAX.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person,
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.

WALLENSTEIN.
Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day;
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act forever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other. Duties strive with duties,
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy emperor.

MAX.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as heaven's pestilence,
Yet it is good, is it heaven's will as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the emperor
Thou wagest with the emperor's own army?
O God of heaven! what a change is this.
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who like the fixed star of the pole
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
O! what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency,
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me—
It always was as a god looking upon me!
Duke Wallenstein, its power has not departed;
The senses still are in thy bonds, although
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.

WALLENSTEIN.
Max., hear me.

MAX.
Oh, do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee,
Knows not of this unblest unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste, it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee—and innocence,
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief,
Which holdeth nothing noble in free will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.

WALLENSTEIN.
The world will judge me harshly, I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
The extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence—so stands the case,
There remains nothing possible but that.

MAX.
Oh, that is never possible for thee!
'Tis the last desperate resource of those
Cheap souls, to whom their honor, their good name,
Is their poor saving, their last worthless keep,
Which, having staked and lost, they staked themselves
In the mad rage of gaming. Thou art rich
And glorious; with an unpolluted heart
Thou canst make conquest of whate'er seems highest!
But he who once hath acted infamy
Does nothing more in this world.

WALLENSTEIN (grasps his hand).
Calmly, Max.!
Much that is great and excellent will we
Perform together yet. And if we only
Stand on the height with dignity, 'tis soon
Forgotten, Max., by what road we ascended.
Believe me, many a crown shines spotless now,
That yet was deeply sullied in the winning.
To the evil spirit doth the earth belong,
Not to the good. All that the powers divine
Send from above are universal blessings
Their light rejoices us, their air refreshes,
But never yet was man enriched by them:
In their eternal realm no property
Is to be struggled for—all there is general.
The jewel, the all-valued gold we win
From the deceiving powers, depraved in nature,
That dwell beneath the day and blessed sunlight.
Not without sacrifices are they rendered
Propitious, and there lives no soul on earth
That e'er retired unsullied from their service.

MAX.
Whate'er is human to the human being
Do I allow—and to the vehement
And striving spirit readily I pardon
The excess of action; but to thee, my general!
Above all others make I large concession.
For thou must move a world and be the master—
He kills thee who condemns thee to inaction.
So be it then! maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the emperor,
And if it must be force with force repel;
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But not—not to the traitor—yes! the word
Is spoken out—
Not to the traitor can I yield a pardon.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature—that is wholly different,
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell!
[WALLENSTEIN betrays a sudden agitation.
Thou canst not hear it named, and wilt thou do it?
O turn back to thy duty. That thou canst,
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna;
I'll make thy peace for thee with the emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke! with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.

WALLENSTEIN.
It is too late! Thou knowest not what has happened.

MAX.
Were it too late, and were things gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then—fall! fall honorably, even as thou stoodest,
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war!
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others,
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.

WALLENSTEIN.
It is too late! Even now, while thou art losing
Thy words, one after another, are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.

[MAX. stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance
expressing the most intense anguish.

Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin. Thou—no—thou canst not forsake me!
So let us do, what must be done, with dignity,
With a firm step. What am I doing worse
Than did famed Caesar at the Rubicon,
When he the legions led against his country,
The which his country had delivered to him?
Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost.
As I were, if I but disarmed myself.
I trace out something in me of this spirit.
Give me his luck, that other thing I'll bear.

[MAX. quits him abruptly. WALLENSTEIN startled and overpowered,
continues looking after him, and is still in this posture when
TERZKY enters.

Re: Wallenstein and Kepler

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-06-18 05:01 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Me: OH! THAT Wallenstein! The one Schiller wrote the trilogy about that [personal profile] selenak pointed me to and which I have downloaded the 19th-C [maybe?] translation for somewhere!

Lol! Oh, Cahn, never change. <3

I remember reading in St. Augustine's Confessions a while back that he stopped believing in astrology because he realized that twins with different life paths falsify it!

I remember being impressed by the reasoning in his takedown of astrology in the City of God, but I didn't remember that twins were what led him to this conclusion. (Okay, this is where I admit I'm the only human being I'm aware of who's more familiar with the City of God than the Confessions. I read the latter once and was meh about it, have read the former at least a couple of times and enjoy dipping into it now and again.)

I guess Kepler would have said that free will could cause that

That, or that twins are not born at the exact same time! One comes out before the other. One of the ways in which Kepler accounted for the discrepancies between his initial predictions for Wallenstein and actual occurrences was that he didn't have the *exact* moment of Wallenstein's birth the first time. He asked for the precise hour and minute the second time, and said he was changing his calculations accordingly.

Kepler also pointed out that clocks were not entirely accurate and don't always tell the same time, which is true even in my house today, never mind in the early 17th century! (Remember our guy Harrison, who developed a more accurate timekeeping device in the 18th century with which to calculate longitude.)

After all, astrologers have to have *some* way of excusing their repeated and inevitable failures. ;)

I would be curious if Kepler actually managed to not believe in astrology at all by the end, but was just knocking out horoscopes for the money. The "don't believe this, though I'm not saying astrology isn't real!" rant to the guy who just paid for a horoscope may not contain Kepler's full and complete skepticism toward whether astrology was real or not. On the other hand, it was normal to believe in at the time, and the sunk costs fallacy is real, so Mortimer's one excerpt of Kepler's one letter may actually be representative of Kepler's beliefs.

From:

cahn

I remember being impressed by the reasoning in his takedown of astrology in the City of God, but I didn't remember that twins were what led him to this conclusion.

OK, I found the reference to the Confessions, and it sounds like the germ of his deciding not to believe was a friend of his talking about being born at the exact same time as a slave, and surprise! them having very different lives. But he also then realized that twins also falsify it, which was what I remembered :)

That, or that twins are not born at the exact same time! One comes out before the other.

Ah, Augustine thought of that! He pointed out that they're usually born close enough that an astrologer can't distinguish between the two in terms of what is used to produce the astrological reading.

(Okay, this is where I admit I'm the only human being I'm aware of who's more familiar with the City of God than the Confessions. I read the latter once and was meh about it, have read the former at least a couple of times and enjoy dipping into it now and again.)

I'm kind of annoyed that I didn't read City of God at the time (in my mid-to-late 20's) where I would have actually enjoyed it and possibly been really into it. At this point in my life there's no way. Maybe in another ten years I'll be able to read stuff like this again, we'll see.

I would be curious if Kepler actually managed to not believe in astrology at all by the end, but was just knocking out horoscopes for the money.

Me too!

From:

selenak

Does Mortimer say anything about Golo Mann? Other than Schiller, Golo (son of Thomas, nephew of Heinrich, brother of Klaus) is probably the best known German writer about Wallenstein, and he didn't write a drama or novel, but a non-fictional biography.

(There's also Alfred Döblin's novel "Wallenstein" as the third best known written in German take, but that's faded from the public consciousness by now. Back then in Weimar Germany, it was a sensation because Döblin was otherwise known for his social present day novels like Berlin, Alexanderplatz, not for the historical genre.)

Note: I haven't read Golo Mann's biography yet, but it really is the best known in German, and he won lots of awards for it.

Re: astrology, sounds as if Mortimer has a case. And yes, extremely interesting about Kepler. Incidentally, when I was in Regensburg some months ago, I found the Kepler museum closed, alas, but I did stand in front of the two houses where he lived while there. I wasn't conscious of the Wallenstein association, though Kepler is associated with another phenomenon of the time: the witch craze, which rose to unprecedented bloody heights during the same 30 Years War years, and to which Kepler's mother Katharina nearly fell victim to. Kepler rushed back to defend her when he heard she'd been accused, and as one of the very few cases, managed to pull it off. (

cahn, there are two operas about Katharina! One by Hindemith, and a very recent one (from 2021) by one Volker Plangg.

Edited Date: 2022-06-11 07:35 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

~~3 mentions of Mann~~ and one of Döblin in Mortimer.

[ETA: I'm an idiot. When you asked this question, my reaction was "All the time!" Then when I went to consult the Kindle search function, I went, "Obviously need to search 'Golo', 'Mann' will have too many hits." So yes, he mentions Mann a *lot*, as my memory suggests, I had just forgotten by the time I finished writing the post and translating all the quotes that I had searched for his first name, not his last.]

One of the Mann mentions is indeed astrology:

Golo Mann said categorically that Wallenstein believed "in the accuracy and precise readability of the tremendous flickering writing of the nocturnal heavens", and that he "absolutely trusted" the prophecy of the astrologer Kepler, "just as we do the expert reading of the rays that are shined through our bodies."

The other mentions are just "Why is it necessary for me to write a new biography of Wallenstein, when Mann's exists?" (answer: because it's 40 years old and 1100 pages long, and we need something that's more modern and also doesn't include every single detail), and "How famous is Wallenstein now that he's dead?" (answer: in the twentieth century, we got not only a novel by Döblin, but at least half a dozen others).

In conclusion, Mortimer does seem to at least be aware of the existence of German literature, fictional and non-fictional, on his subject.

to which Kepler's mother Katharina nearly fell victim to. Kepler rushed back to defend her when he heard she'd been accused, and as one of the very few cases, managed to pull it off.

This I didn't know! I mean, I know nothing about Kepler's life, just his scientific contributions. I hadn't known that he did horoscopes either.

Edited Date: 2022-06-11 01:46 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Good for Mortimer. Re: Katharina Kepler, check out her German wiki entry, which is way longer than the brief English one I linked. She was an innkeeper's daughter who worked at her father's inn and married Kepler's father Heinrich most likely because she got pregnant by him. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a brute. (According to his son's memoirs.) Also he ran off and left her with two children to fend for herself. She travelled after him, tracked him down and shamed him into coming back. They ran an inn together for a few years, but he got punished by the city for "bad behavior" and then ran away for good to become a mercenary. (How do we know all this? Because it was brought up at her witch trial as evidence against her, i.e. she had driven her husband away by "sorcery" and thus caused him to die a miserable soldier's death, why else would he have left?) This time, Katharina didn't bother, and managed to support her family on her lonesome. Said family included her aged father who lived with her and whom she had to nurse, and when he died after five years, she inherited from him which together with her own earnings was enough to finance her son's going to university. A strong-willed, energetic woman, but unfortunately that also meant she made enemies, and when one of them denounced her as a witch, the whole machinery got going. It took years and years and years (first accusation: 1615; Katharina finally freed for good: 1621), and date wise must have overlapped with his Wallenstein acquaintance.

ETA: And here's a vid in English about the two Keplers - 'The Astronomer and the Witch'. /ETA

Re: Wallenstein the astrology believer, admittedly that is such a well known trait of his in Germany that "name of Wallenstein's main astrologer" is a popular crossword puzzle question. (Answer: Seni.) And that is definitely due to Schiller.

Edited Date: 2022-06-11 03:21 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I will check her out, thanks! This is why salon is so great: reporting what you read leads to learning new things. :D

Re: Wallenstein the astrology believer, admittedly that is such a well known trait of his in Germany that "name of Wallenstein's main astrologer" is a popular crossword puzzle question. (Answer: Seni.) And that is definitely due to Schiller.

Didn't know that! But it makes sense, given how much Mortimer complains that people get their impression of Wallenstein from Schiller rather than meticulous primary source research.

From:

cahn

...I mean, this sounds awful for Katarina but also she is super awesome and I can see how she got made into operas!

From:

cahn

Go Katarina and Kepler <3

Hindemith! That's interesting -- is it performed much in Germany?

From:

selenak

Instinctually and without looking anything up, I'd say no, at least I didn't see it on the schedule of the big operas (Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt) in recent years.

From:

cahn

I had to hunt around for a while before I found anything like a (partial) recording on Spotify! (Although it appears to be based on a symphonic work that is a bit easier to find.) I listened to it a bit and it sounds interesting! Hindemith is not someone I know really anything about, but I'd watch that once at least :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

On the subject of famous people's mothers who are interesting in their own right, I just ran across a bio of Mary Ann Costello, mother of prime minister George Canning. She was an actress, and as you can probably guess, treated badly by 18th century society and often by the men around her. (Her contemporary Emma Hamilton says hi.)

I haven't read the bio, George Canning is My Son, which turned up by accident in a google search for Guy Dickens (she was his granddaughter), but the Kindle sample looks interesting. I'm not exactly dying to know more about her, but I think I speak for

cahn when I say I would not say no to a

selenak write-up, if said Selena had the time and interest at any point. ;)

From: (Anonymous)

She does look interesting, and I will read the book, but I don't know yet when I will write the review. :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

No worries! And if you never write it up, that's fine too. One, it's not like it's a Katte execution primary source, which you were consistently generous about <3, and two, it's not like I don't live in a glass house of not writing up everything I read!

(Still meaning to do that Brühl post, still need to get enough sleep to finish plowing through this book.)