Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: "She cried but she took": according to non-Germans

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, it's curious Luh ignored English and French bibliography

I am especially confused why he ignored the fact that the memoirs were written in French and went straight to talking about "sie weinte und griff dabei immer zu," and also why he used Brendan Simms' book as his example of modern German historiography, without even wasting a thought on the fact that it was written in English.

Now I'm envisioning Catt including a passage where he has Fritz say that you know, him and MT are at war NOW, but in a few years, he prophecies they will divide Poland between them, and then she'll try but she'll take!

Lol!

The Catherine novel/biography translated into German: you can send it to me, by all means, but I can't promise I'll read it within the next few weeks.

Oh, I don't care if you *read* it! If I wanted you to read it, I would just drop the public domain English translation pdf into the Frederician library and link you. All I want to know from the German copy I'm sending you is how the German translator rendered "Elle pleure et prend toujours." And I care about that because not only is Luh missing English and French historiography, he's also missing out on cases where this line appeared in German works before 1928 because they were translated from works in other languages. (Other languages, Luh: they exist. I was chortling because the very day I posted this comment, you wrote in a post in your blog, "because this is an English article, and thus German language works do not exist." I almost replied, "Like Jürgen Luh, but in reverse!")

Anyway, if you want to read it and have time, feel free; Horowski includes it in his bibliography, so it might be worth reading. But all I need from you is to look up this one line and tell me how it goes in German.

In conclusion: "She cried but she took" is the "Let them eat cake!" of supposed Frederician sayings on an international basis, clearly.

I'm really curious how common it is in Polish historiography, but alas, I cannot read Polish. And the one author I know would be the place to start, Konopczyński, wrote too late to be public domain.

Oh, interesting, *one* of his relevant books is online, his The History of Modern Poland, 1936. Let me see.

spory ojej zastosowanie w praktyce trwały jeszcze pól roku, albowem cesarzowakrólowa, wśród łez i narzekań na ten traktat, "taki nierówny, taki niesłuszny", zagarniała najwięcej ludzi i ziemi.

Disputes about its practical application lasted another half a year, because the empress-queen, amid tears and complaints about this treaty, "so unequal, so unfair", seized most of the people and land.

Okay, not quoting Fritz, but definitely based in the same tradition! I wish I could check Konopczyński's Frederick the Great and Poland, or his The Bar Confederation, or his The First Partition of Poland.