cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

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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.)

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

Damn you,

felis, for being such a good detective. :P This all makes way too much sense, and there's a reason I put "...to Peter?" in the subject: I was questioning more whether it was to Peter than whether it was from Fritz.

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.)

Edited Date: 2023-06-24 04:24 pm (UTC)

From:

felis

Aw, thanks. It just made too much sense to me, too.

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!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

From a scholarly perspective, it's great! First class, outstanding! I was actually going to comment, "Wait, does this mean salon has found and identified the first surviving Fritz to Knobelsdorff letter ever?"

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!

From:

felis

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. ;)

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.