Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

Mes amies, my pal kathyh just pointed me towards this Frederick the Great for Dummies British radio broadcast with Stephen Fry. I lasted for about seventeen minutes before screaming so much I had to break it off, but: enjoy all the wrongness! (Though it has to be said: at least Peter von Keith gets a mention without any confusion with either of the Jacobite Brothers Keith or with some other Keith.)

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

Well, I listened to the first ten minutes and thought, hmmm, well, it's not stellar, but I'm not sure there's anything to scream about yet, mostly okay - and then: "Frederick William was a Lutheran Pietist, but he also believed in predestination." Okay then. (I mean, funny enough, I think the guy's idea that FW actually did believe in it and also thought he wouldn't end up in heaven has interesting psychological implications, but it's not what the sources say of course.)

And then I reached the point where Selena apparently turned this off: Did you guys know that FW decided to forgive Fritz in 1731 because his other son was also gay and refused to marry, so FW thought, well, I'll have to take the first one after all?

No? Me neither! I mean. What? That's certainly a novel theory.

(Heinrich: Dear audience, I was five years old at the time. Just saying.
AW: And I was nine. Also, not gay.
Ferdinand: I'm a baby and I really don't know what's happening here. Maybe AW will appreciate my later experience with being ignored?)

I actually kept listening because it was the moderator who said that and I expected the also present expert to step in here. But no. That one was left undisputed.

Also, by the way: no mention of the English Marriage Problem at all, but apparently Fritz tried to dissolve his forced marriage at one point. News to me!

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

Okay, so five more minutes and my genuine reaction just now was "What? WHAT? WHAT????" Out loud. Because, how does he celebrate becoming King in 1740? (My flippant answer was: "by invading Silesia" but okay, that was a bit later :P) Their answer, and I'm quoting: "He begins openly appearing in public with a man who is, quite clearly I think, his lover and [he] treats him as such."

Three guesses anyone?

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

I stand confirmed in my not listening any further. But do tell - Keyserlingk? Algarotti? Fredersdorf?

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

Well, at least you got him, because he would not have been my first guess: Algarotti. "Very much one of Frederick's great loves, not just emotionally, but also intellectually." And they quote the "come at once" letter to him as proof, with total awe at the "don't make me pine" part. You know, the very same one Duhan got.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

I mean, between the riding in the same carriage making dirty jokes and singing bawdy songs, and the orgasm poem (which has gotten a lot of press since its rediscovery in the last 10 or so years) and taking him on the trip west, my only guess was Algarotti, and I actually think this sounds legit?

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

It sounds legit that to celebrate becoming King he begins to publicly and openly appear with his great lover, Algarotti? (And it's the one and only point they mention for things he does as new King, too.) I'm not saying they weren't lovers or that he wasn't into Algarotti at the time, he obviously was - I'm saying that the way it's phrased is really misleading, making it sound much more deliberate and official and public than it was, and singling out Algarotti as the King's consort in a way that's too much, even in 1740. But hey. YMMV.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

That was indeed the point where it became too much for me. I can't decide what's more extra, the idea that FW would indulge any of his sons in their chosen sex life, let alone a gay one, or that this was the reason for the "reconciliation", or that FW could have altered the succession at will (that he couldn't was a really big plot point in that father/son relationship).

But I was flabbergasted earlier than this when Stephen Fry was surprised there were Protestant princes within the HRE. I mean. How you can think about the Reformation, or the Thirty Years War, without the awareness there were German princes who were Protestants, most importantly several of the Princes Elector, is beyond me. (How does he think Luther survived into old age?) Not to mention: even if your school education totally misses out on the HRE, what religion does he think the Princes Elector of Hannover had? Them being Protestants is the sole reason why G1 became King of England in the first place, despite the 50 something people with a better claim between him and Anne. Head.Desk.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

Yeah, it's ... a lot in just that one assumption.

I wasn't quite as annoyed with the HRE discussion because at least it wasn't presented as fact and was corrected later and Fry is kind of there to ask questions and not know things, even if this was rather out there for him to not know, not least because of the Hanover connection, as you said.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

And Fry had a recurring role in the Georgian season of Blackadder as well as playing in the Horrible Histories sketch dealing with the Westphalian Treaty. Not to mention his entire image is that of a Cambridge-educated intellectual. (Didn't he meet Hugh Laurie at Cambridge?).

See, him not knowing your Hohenzollern from your Wittelsbachs and being unaware which dynasty was which and ruled over which German state, I'd have had no problem with. But the "how with a Catholic Emperor could there be PROTESTANTS in the HRE?" question is really something else again.

Oh, and as for Fritz trying to dissolve his marriage: if he had wanted to after his father's death, he could have done it. Even without loosing the Braunschweig alliance, between Charlotte's and AW's marriages. It's not like EC was the aunt of Charles V.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Fry is kind of there to ask questions and not know things

That is a key part of salon alchemy! *waves to cahn*

But cahn never appeared in a skit about the Peace of Westphalia. (That I know of.)

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

How you can think about the Reformation, or the Thirty Years War

I mean, I can't speak for education in the UK, but I wouldn't expect an American to know what the Thirty Years' War was, and when I brought it up to my (Brazilian) wife in the last couple years, she had no idea when or what it was either.

The Reformation, though, yeah...I would expect at least some passing knowledge of that!

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

Now I can't help imagining an English lesson of the Reformation which is all "Luther who?" and where it only started when Henry VIII wanted out of his marriage.

I wouldn't expect an American to know what the Thirty Years' War was,

Well, me neither, but like I said, Fry played in a Horrible History sketch about the Westphalian Treaty.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

I can't decide what's more extra, the idea that FW would indulge any of his sons in their chosen sex life, let alone a gay one, or that this was the reason for the "reconciliation", or that FW could have altered the succession at will

Yeah, that is a LOT. Also, the ages! Look up the kids' ages on Wikipedia! It takes 1 minute!

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

To be fair: he's in the proud tradition of the Hohenzollern RomCom about Wilhelmine and BayreuthFriedrich here. (Where all the younger sibs are in the wrong age and the wrong gender. This despite the fact they don't have any lines, and it wouldn't have cost anything for them to be the right gender and the right age.)

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[cahn]

hahahaha well as the resident ignorant American, I mean, I'm going to stick up for my fellow Fry-as-the-resident-ignorant-person and say I know where he is coming from! Like, I'd be the last person not to know about the Reformation and Martin Luther, but before salon I had sort of this understanding that there was this Thing called the Holy Roman Empire, which was Catholic (it's in the name! Holy Roman!), and then this Thing called the Reformation, with Martin Luther -- but I didn't know anything about Princes Elector or how these two things interacted! Also didn't know anything about the Thirty Years War.

I mean obviously if I'd ever thought about it for a little bit I guess I'd have had to realize that it wasn't like the Reformation overthrew all the existing political establishments. But you have to realize that the way it's presented to an American Lutheran is sort of "...and here is where Martin Luther Nailed His Theses! and changed the world! and Spoke Truth to the Holy Roman Empire!" and so on, without really a whole lot of context.

But if the actual expert people are not correcting this, as felis says, that's another thing entirely.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

before salon I had sort of this understanding that there was this Thing called the Holy Roman Empire, which was Catholic (it's in the name! Holy Roman!)

You know, if I squint, I could see how you could think there was a Reformation in Germany but also no Protestant princes: there were Catholics in England but no Catholic monarchs. I could see seeing Protestantism as a tolerated minority in Germany if I hadn't made a skit about the Peace of Westphalia.

I myself knew this before salon, but only because I made a special point of researching the 18th century for my novel in high school, which no one else I knew did. I am reminded that when I was in Munich for a conference in grad school, I was doing a tour of Nymphenburg Palace with some English professors, and we were reading plaques and signs, and I was trying to explain what an elector was to two professors who'd never heard of electors.

Me: The electors got to vote on the Holy Roman Emp...er...or... *voice trails off*
Prof: On his council?
Me: No...on who got to be emperor...except I thought it was hereditary in the Habsburg family...so I guess I don't remember this as well as I thought I did. But I could have sworn there were a handful of princes in the empire who got to vote on the next emperor, and that they were called electors. Darnit, I used to know this!

I'm pretty sure one prof was either British or American, but I know the other was Bulgarian, because she was my advisor. Now, maybe behind the Iron Curtain they were too busy covering Marxist takes on history to go over what an elector was, but she'd clearly never heard of them and I was doing my level best to be expert in the group, i.e., the only one of us who'd ever heard of electors. Pretty sure nobody could have commented on their religious affiliations, and I would probably have done the same thing of dredging up a correct thing from memory but with a lot of hesitation and second guessing and "never mind"s.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank god for felis, because I can't even listen to the *good* stuff most of the time! No way am I forcing myself to listen to the bad stuff.

Frederick William was a Lutheran Pietist

Raised Calvinist, embraced Pietism as he got older, right?

he also believed in predestination

Lol. Well, he believed in it when he was young, but in 1730? It would have made things a lot different for Fritz, that's for sure!

because his other son was also gay and refused to marry

WHAT! This has so much wrong with it I can't even!

apparently Fritz tried to dissolve his forced marriage at one point. News to me!

This is ringing a very very faint bell, but I can't give you any more than that, alas. It's one thing I wouldn't be surprised to find, though. If not confirmed, at least in a "Well, Caroline Pichler *did* say Joseph showed the letters" way.

Okay, Dirk, I was a bit worried about what would happen when you got to a period I knew something about, but nah, you'll do fine!

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

Raised Calvinist, embraced Pietism as he got older, right?

Yes, but he was never a Lutheran. He had a lot of respect for Luther, but that's quite different from being a Lutheran, which would have needed a formal conversion. And FW was quite explicit in his testament as I recall about Calvinisim (minus predestination) being his faith.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[felis]

Oh, hey, of course the Orgasm Poem is read by Fry later on, once again returning to Algarotti. Not a single other love(r) is mentioned throughout the whole thing (apart from Katte at the beginning of course). Also, all the siblings are Not Appearing In This Podcast. No Wilhelmine, no AW, no Heinrich (Fritz is the Big Mastermind of the Polish partition of course, Catherine who?, and somehow they think he invaded the country).

Sanssouci is "filled almost exclusively with homosexual or bisexual men" -

Voltaire: The worst!
D'Argens: ... well, I got to bring my wife.
James and George Keith: *didn't notice anything*

- and "the staff only speak French".

Fredersdorf: Figures.

Of course they take Voltaire's bottoming anecdote as is, without any context or anything (and that's basically the only detail they even mention when it comes to their relationship), but I'm laughing that Zimmermann's "everyone believed he was gay" gets quoted but that they leave out the "BUT IT WAS ALL A CUNNING PLAN" bit entirely. He's totally rolling in his grave.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, hey, of course the Orgasm Poem is read by Fry later on

I figured it would be. It got pretty popular, which is part of the reason Algarotti is on everyone's radar (and faithful Fredersdorf's not).

Also, all the siblings are Not Appearing In This Podcast.

Sigh. One passing mention and it was WRONG.

no Heinrich (Fritz is the Big Mastermind of the Polish partition of course, Catherine who?

Fritz: Score one for my history-rewriting!

Sadly, this is a pretty common take, as is the (Fritz's) story that Fritz and Joseph totally planned it all out at Neisse. Even respectable histories have it.

Sanssouci is "filled almost exclusively with homosexual or bisexual men" -

Lol! I've seen this take too, but...less respectably.

Of course they take Voltaire's bottoming anecdote as is

Oh FFS.

but I'm laughing that Zimmermann's "everyone believed he was gay" gets quoted but that they leave out the "BUT IT WAS ALL A CUNNING PLAN" bit entirely. He's totally rolling in his grave.

Fritz: My cunning plan worked! Everyone believes I was gay! because I was

ETA: Also, thank you for your tolerance for listening to things that are WRONG on the INTERNET! It is a great service to salon. (I think our comment count on this post almost doubled in the space of an hour. :P)

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

You are my heroine for listening till the end so I don‘t have to. Algarotti as the only lover (other than Katte) mentioned really looks like a shipper has struck. :)

(I think I‘ll do a boyfriends poll, if I can figure out good questions. Or write a filk. Or something. And then, separately from the longer term boyfriends, there‘s a special category for ill fated dashing hussars:

Glasow, Giorgi/Grigory, Deesen: Sigh.)

The lack of siblings, alas, I‘m used to. Usually when I talk to people I‘m lucky if they know about Wilhelmine, let alone any of the others, and to be fair: at the start of salon, I only knew Heinrich existed, had been gifted and gay and not getting along with Fritz, and that was it, and I would have had trouble naming any of the other non-Wilhelmine ones by name, let alone have any ideas of their personilities. Am similarlily unsurprised at the Partition of Poland - even the Stanislaus Poniatowski biographer whose book I read as part of my story research two Yuletides ago seemed to be under the impression it was a long term evil Fritzian Masterplan, and while he mentions Heinrich‘s trip to Russia briefly, it was in one sentence and in a „sent his brother Heinrich to Catherine“ way. (No mention of Heinrich arranging that trip behind Big Brother‘s back, let alone any longer term connection between Heinrich and Catherine.)

ROTFLOL on Zimmermann. BTW, was just reminded the other day that there‘s one non-Fritzian connection in which Zimmermann shows up in literary history - he kind of introduced a young Goethe to Charlotte von Stein by showing Goethe the silhouette he‘d made of her and told him about her. It‘s a small German speaking ancient regime world.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Though it has to be said: at least Peter von Keith gets a mention without any confusion with either of the Jacobite Brothers Keith or with some other Keith.

Score for Peter the often conflated!

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[selenak]

Indeed! And not only is he correctly stated as the co-conspirator who did manage the escape to England, but the phrasing "whereas Frederick got arrested, and Katte got also arrested" at least avoids the usual "they got arrested the same time at the same place" mistake, though I bet that's what the listeners now assume.

Re: Nancy Goldstone has nothing on this one...

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, everyone's been assuming it since at least the 1790s, when Nicolai had to set them straight, so the listeners are in good company.

(I think I assumed it myself before salon, or at least at one point I have a memory of assuming that, then looking up what happened, deciding it was too confusing for a fandom I wasn't in any more, and putting the book back down again.)