Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47

[cahn]

We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!

Comments

Endearments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thank you for this!

This intermingling of the erotic and the parent/child is something James later reproduces with Buckingham where he repeatedly in his letters intermingles husband/wife and father/child comparisons and signs himself "your Dad" (thus proving the Dad designation is that old in English) as often as anything else, and not just in the letters he writes to Buckingham and Charles both when they're on tour on their disaster trip to Spain. It's Freudian as hell but understandable under the circumstances.

Also thank you for repeating this and thus reminding me that I meant to tell cahn that Catherine and Potemkin also mingled husband/wife and parent/child comparisons. Catherine addresesd him as "Father and husband" a lot in her letters, and she was 10 years older than he was! He called her "Matushka", but that's the technical, deferential term for the czarina in Russian, so jury still out on Freudian implications. :P

However, as time went on, Potemkin spent more and more of his time on campaign (often in the Crimea) and Catherine was all "I have NEEDS!", she started taking younger lovers. Without giving up Potemkin. She would have one official lover (maîtresse en titre, as it were) in addition to Potemkin, and she would be having sex with him but also channeling her maternal needs* into him. And they all definitely used language wherein Catherine was the mother, Potemkin was the father, and Current Lover was their child.

Meanwhile, Potemkin was having sex on the side too, including with his nieces.

* Remember that Elizaveta took Paul away from Catherine at birth, and mother and son never bonded. And Paul identified with his murdered father and blamed his mother for his death. So she had a lot of unmet needs to channel there.

Oh, speaking of endearments, one thing I meant to report when I wrote up August III was this bit. Between the unclear pronoun references and the fact that my reading is not what I would expect, I'm not 100% sure of my reading, so can you double check me, selenak?

Friedrich Christians Briefe beweisen eine ungewöhnliche Anhänglichkeit und Liebe zum Vater, der eher verschlossen war und sich scheute, seinen Gefühlen Ausdruck zu geben. Die in seinen Briefen oft geäußerte Bitte, Friedrich Christian möge auf seine Gesundheit achten, machen den Eindruck einer Convenance. Gleiche Fürsorge brachte er den jüngeren Kindern entgegen, später auch der Frau Friedrich Christians, Maria Antonia, die er, wie es zwischen dem Ehepaar üblich war, mit "Alte" anredete. Maria Antonia nahm diese Bezeichnung von einem polnischen Lied, das sie in einem Brief an ihren Mann zitierte und ihn im Postskriptum "stary“ (Alter) nannte und mit "Twoja stara" (Deine Alte ) unter schrieb.

My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia. But that seems weird, so am I wrong about August III using it, and only the married couple were using it? [ETA: The last time I got so confused by pronouns in this book that I had to ask you to check my reading, it turned out the author was thoroughly confused and stating historically impossible things, so that's why I was confused. There was no reading that made sense.]

In any case, I was reminded of MT using this nickname for FS. We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples? (Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia are less than 2 years apart.)

Re: Endearments

[selenak]

My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia.

Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.

We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples?

Could be, since MT and FS aren't likely to know Polish songs. But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.

Re: Catherine and Potemkin, yes, in this case the Russian habit has to be considered - I remember all those novels and movies with "Mütterchen" for the Czarina and "Väterchen" for the Czar, so while Catherine never made Potemkin the Czar, she could have transfered this.

Re: Endearments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.

Okay, thank you! I wasn't sure if you could actually have "er" switch referent in the same sentence like that--usually German authors I read go out of their way to not do that because it's confusing! (This translator confused me a number of times with pronouns, I think it's a feature of him specifically.)

But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.

Interesting!