18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 37

[cahn]

More diaries of our favorite 18th-century Prussian diary-keeper have been unearthed and have been synopsized!

January 18th: Blessed be thou to me! Under your light, my Prince Heinrich was born!

Comments

Re: "Empress Elizabeth" and "Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov - II

[mildred_of_midgard]

Good for our author, and may he not end up in Siberia or do a 180 on nationalism.

I actually deleted sentences to that effect, like "what's listed in Russian that may give clues" used to be "I can't say if he's compromised his ideals or gotten more conservative in his old age and is now writing paeans to Putin." Let's hope!

I bet A. used German sources as well and at least can read German, because he actually works in a Schiller quote at one point without listing it as such, to wit

Oh, neat! His webpage only lists English and French, but hey, my LinkedIn doesn't list German either. ;)

Anisimov: Fritz was undoubtedly the most brilliant monarch of his age, but good lord, that character.

LOL, yep! Anisimov's take in a nutshell.

(Me: That's my Fritz. <3 :'D)

On a lighter note, it amuses me she made sure to include the princes should be responsible for watering their own plants.

Yes, that's a nice detail. Good job, Catherine.

Fritz: Princes the worst of Hohenzollerns should be responsible for not accidentally hitting dogs with homemade arrows.

Seydlitz: Kings should be responsible for not intentionally hitting their horses between the eyes with sticks, FRITZ.

Re: "Empress Elizabeth" and "Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov - II

[selenak]

LOL, yep! Anisimov's take in a nutshell.

It amused me that when listing all the paradoxes, he included "wrote a book called 'The Anti-Machiavel' with a self explanatory title, then spent the rest of his life acting against its beautiful principles". Thus joining the overwhelming majority of historians who did not actually read The Anti-Machiavel.

If I ever get around to writing The Rokoko Babysitting story, I'm so including not just the dog incident but also Fritz starting to write the Anti-Machiavell and little Heinrich mouthing off at him, thus causing some instant rewrites.

Re: "Empress Elizabeth" and "Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov - II

[felis]

Seydlitz: Kings should be responsible for not intentionally hitting their horses between the eyes with sticks, FRITZ.

Wait, what's this? That doesn't seem very in character.

Re: "Empress Elizabeth" and "Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov - II

[mildred_of_midgard]

It's something I've run into numerous times ("Fritz didn't use spurs, but he did hit his horses, and Seydlitz didn't approve"), and I kept hoping it was apocryphal, but at some point I ran into it somewhere that made me conclude it was probably legit...but of course I no longer remember where or what the source was, so it could be apocryphal! (But Fritz hitting his horses, especially in battle, doesn't strike me as terribly out of character, either. Refusing to use spurs as a matter of course is not the same thing as not having temper outbursts.)