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Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44
Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
I wondered if it might be a convenient delay tactic, too! And I sure would like the 50s interpretation. (Maybe Knobelsdorff's death and Peter's subsequent promotion were a catalyst for more correspondence and contact.)
That said.
Playing advocatus diaboli for a minute, I have one other, possibly disappointing, theory: the letter wasn't written to Peter but to Knobelsdorff, and Peter somehow inherited it together with the library.
How I got there:
The vague winter return date and the false news = Fritz on campaign. Not least because I'm not entirely convinced that 50s King Fritz would call the trip from Potsdam to Berlin a "retour/Rückkunft" (although he might do so if that's the word that was used in the letter he's clearly responding to) and also because the dates - between occasional day trips to Berlin on one hand and always spending the majority of December in Potsdam on the other - don't really add up for the time period.
(/Sidenote: Could "mehr" in the first line of the letter also be "wehr", as in who spread the news of his return, not whether? m/w might look similar, and also, see below.)
The construction/building and Fritz's response to it made me think of the 40s, when Knobelsdorff was told repeatedly to report on the building projects specifically to give Fritz happy things to think about. The creditors could easily be related to this as well, but I don't know how much Fritz would have micro-managed this issue during war-time instead of delegating it.
His depression = a result of the two 1745 deaths, specifically Keyserlingk's. It would make sense for him to feel like that grief would stay with him for years.
So: letter written to Knobelsdorff in September 1745, in the wake of Keyserlingk's death and prior to Knobelsdorff's October visit, which would then have been the direct result of the letter. Knobelsdorff wrote to Fritz in German both in 1737 and 1748, which would explain the German from King Fritz, and he knew both Jordan and Keyserlingk as well and might share Fritz's grief (there's some mutuality implied in "2 sich trösten").
Reference points:
Letter to Countess Camas, September 13th:
[...] But, madam, don't imagine that the embarrassment of affairs and critical events can distract from sadness. I can say from experience that it is a bad remedy. Unfortunately, four weeks have passed since the cause of my tears and my affliction; but, since the vehemence of the first days, I feel neither less sad nor more consoled than I was. [...] I do not know who may have divulged the rumor of my imminent return; for my part, I am entirely ignorant of it, and, to tell you the truth, I do not expect it until the end of November or the beginning of December. [...]
- So there's both the enduring sadness and the almost identical rumour/date discussion. Also, there's no direct mention of the war or of Jordan/Keyserlingk (or even death itself) in this anywhere, which I'm pointing out because both things not being mentioned at all in the Peter letter was one of the big counterarguments for my theory that I could see.
Letter to Fredersdorf 24th September 1745: "ich habe vielle Sorgen und chagrin, ich werde froh seindt, Knobelstorf zu Sehen" and "ich glaube nicht, daß ich werde vohr Ende November in Berlin seindt"
Unfortunately, there are no Fritz to Knobelsdorff letters left to compare things like the "er" for example.
There is of course the possibility that yes, it was written in 1745, but no, not to Knobelsdorff but to Peter after all. But I have to admit, after knowing what we do about the state of their relationship in 1742, that would be even more of a surprise than the 50s version.
So. Thoughts? *ducks in anticipation* ;)
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
Also, this explanation would account for all the different things listed in the letter, especially the „bau“, for which we did not find a good explanation in the Peter theories for either the 1720s or the 1750s.
Given Peter inherited Knobelsdorff‘s books, I think it‘s plausible for Knobelsdorff to have used the letter as a reading marker in a book and for Peter to find it later and keep it.
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
Yep, and Voltaire and Suhm in 1739.
Given Peter inherited Knobelsdorff‘s books, I think it‘s plausible for Knobelsdorff to have used the letter as a reading marker in a book and for Peter to find it later and keep it.
Or maybe even more plausible, Peter not to have found it (if it was a large library and the letter was folded up inside a page, he might not have gone through every page of every book), and someone else, like his son, to have found it. Would Peter have kept a letter showing that everyone but him was in favor? Maybe, but I find it even more likely that someone who didn't have his fraught history and raw emotions re Fritz would have gone, "Ooh, a letter from the great king! Must put it somewhere safe!" Might still have been Peter, of course, but I present this alternate possibility.
ETA: The evidence for Peter finding it is the order in which it's placed in the stack of letters, i.e. early 1750s, right after Knobelsdorff's death and Peter's acquisition of the library.
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
In reading your post, I was still ?? over the last line being used to Knobelsdorff as much as to Peter, but if they're comforting each other over *shared grief*, that makes a lot of sense. As does, as you point out, the idea that this specific grief (as opposed to depression in general) would stay with him for years.
(/Sidenote: Could "mehr" in the first line of the letter also be "wehr", as in who spread the news of his return, not whether? m/w might look similar, and also, see below.)
Yes, absolutely. The "h" would have primed me to read the word that's correctly spelled in modern German, but it does look exactly like a "w" now that I'm looking for it. It's got to be "wehr".
There is of course the possibility that yes, it was written in 1745, but no, not to Knobelsdorff but to Peter after all. But I have to admit, after knowing what we do about the state of their relationship in 1742, that would be even more of a surprise than the 50s version.
Yeah, no, that would be surprise me a *lot*, probably to the point of ruling it out. If it happened at all, surely it was post 1753.
Okay, I accept this as a working theory. Wow, that was a stunningly brilliant case on your part! It does a lot to console me for the loss of my reconciliation theory. (I always appreciate high-quality research.)
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
And yeah, the specific grief made more sense to me than King Fritz saying something like that about a general feeling of depression. (He also mentions to Duhan a month later that he'll regret both Jordan and Keyserlingk for the rest of his life.)
Also, even if it's not to Peter as hoped, it's still a significant find! As I said, no letters from Fritz to Knobelsdorff in Preuss, and this one would even be related to important events on the timeline!
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
Some days I miss the Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch, I bet they would find all our findings notable and publish them. ;) As it is, I am not up on modern German academic journals enough to identify good candidates for the papers I want to publish, and finding one/some is going to be its whole own thing. (Suggestions welcome.)
From a fannish perspective...well, the grief may not follow me for years, but you will have to forgive me at least a day or two of regret. ;)
And yeah, the specific grief made more sense to me than King Fritz saying something like that about a general feeling of depression.
Yes, this, exactly!
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
OH, I know! The Peter/Fritz narrative swerved from pleasing secret reconciliation to angsty letter-finding, totally without permission. Not cool. The perils of historical fannishness.
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?
OMG. SALON.
Re: Letter from Fritz...to Peter? - or not?