cahn

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I'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Okay, so, I've started the Struensee bio, and so far...

- It's definitely a biographie romancée. Even more so than the Henry the Lion one, because there's so much more material to work with.

- Goldstone levels of readability, Goldstone levels of accuracy. Did you know: MT married a Frenchman because the Habsburg/Bourbon conflict had already ended? You heard it here first!

- But the gossip is so gossipy! Eugene levels of gossip! With the caveat that the author is unreliable, I'm going to have to find time to share this. I'm bookmarking passages as I go, so I don't have to reread, which will increase our chances of a write-up.

- Back when she summarized Hartmann's book on Danish-Prussian relations for us,

selenak told us of his treatment of Struensee's rise and fall:

Now, how is this story told by Hartmann? As Struensee for entirely selfish reasons scheming his way to power and toppling masterful politician Bernstorff, and then thankfully getting his just deserts at the hands of Fritz fan Juliana. Why is Juliana a Fritz fan? Because Juliana is Juliana of Braunschweig-Wolffensbüttel, (much younger) sister to EC and Louise (Juliana was born in 1729). Fritz hasn't been keen on either Bernstorff or Struenseen, but he's not going to waste the opportunity of another fan on the throne of a neigboring country.

Now, what truly gets me is the presentation of Struensee as a selfish schemer taking over Denmark purely to enrich himself.

According to our author of the biographie romancée:

Johann Friedrich Struensee, son of a pastor from Prussian Halle and three years old when Friedrich ascends the throne, does not admire the Prussian king. But he was also shaped by this once-in-a-century phenomenon, and he incorporated his political ideas so faithfully into his own statesmanlike thinking that he appeared to many to be a copy of Frederick II. Struensee will probably never find out again that after his fall, no one else has spoken about him in such a caustic, poisonous, and utterly devastating way as this king: Fridericus Rex seems to refuse to be taken so shamelessly at his word by a petty bourgeois, and by one of his own former subjects.

Well, there's your answer! He didn't admire Fritz and Fritz spoke caustically about him, so clearly Hartmann won't give him the time of day.

I did order Hartmann, btw, because you said there was material about Denmark and the Great Northern War, and, well, I have to read it. ;) But I will read it through a skeptical lens.

* There is a lot of emphasis by the author of the Struensee bio that Fritz is not der Große so much as he is der Einzige. I laughed. Don't let me not write this book up, it's too much fun so far!

From:

selenak

LOL. Yes, since Stefan Hartmann is a committed Fritz-Fan himself and regards "History of my Time" and "History of the Seven Years War" (both by Fritz) as his main sources for all things Prussia, with their veracity never called into question, it's no wonder poor Struensee gets slandered by him as well, then.

MT married a Frenchman

*dies*

cahn, since you're currently with the Ottonians in the German History Podcast, you'll recall that the question as to whether Lothringia (i.e. Lorraine) is French or German is, err, only one of the main concerns for German Emperors from Charlemagne's great grandchildren onwards and, as Dirk says, will only be finally resolved in 1945.

Mind you, I do recall some people when MT promoted FS for HRE argued he wasn't German enough, but the people in question just didn't want another (married to a) Habsburg Emperor.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

cahn, since you're currently with the Ottonians in the German History Podcast, you'll recall that the question as to whether Lothringia (i.e. Lorraine) is French or German is, err, only one of the main concerns for German Emperors from Charlemagne's great grandchildren onwards

I was going to say, I know the relationship of Lorraine to France in the 18th century is complicated and in flux, but all you have to know is that it's not the same as the relationship to France in the present day! It's been complicated since like 843!

Also, the book was written in 1985, so 1945 was within living memory. No excuse!