Good news re the Peter Keith bio: Gundling is going IN! After Selena prompted me to write more about the history of the Academy of Sciences and its fluctuations in prestige, I realized that FW tormenting the president of the academy would 1) reinforce how awful FW is, 2) show how much FW hated academics (even if he took Gundling seriously on practical matters), 3) be an excellent parallel to Fritz and show why he and Peter were having to hide a secret library and read at night, 4) add to the word-count in a relevant and interesting way, 5) justice for Gundling!! \o/
I have Sabrow's book on order, but alas, it won't arrive from Germany for another month or so. So I'm here to ask you historiographical questions, selenak.
1. Do you remember where I can find Fritz trash-talking Gundling? A letter to Wilhelmine?
2. Do you have a sense of when the wine barrel denial began and what the cultural shifts that led to it were? I feel like you've talked about this before, but I'm not finding it.
3. Anything you would correct or add to this summary of the historiographical tradition?
Contemporaries (Stratemann, Morgenstern) didn't feel any need to deny the wine barrel story. Fritz trash-talked Gundling (details to come when I can find the source), and Maupertuis referred to him as "ridiculous". Nineteenth-century historians (post-1848?) no longer felt they could defend this monarchical abuse of a commoner, so they started denying the worst incidents happened (Schneider). Wolff's publication of the Stratemann reports required him to reluctantly accept that Stratemann was an impeccable witness, but he and other historians continued to defend FW. For example, Göse attributed Gundling's treatment to his "odd personality" and the culture of his time, not to FW's agency. Many historians (Blanning, MacDonogh--any good 20th century German authors?) never acknowledged Gundling as a scholar, and instead simply treated him as a fool who was put in charge of the academy, at a time when it was effectively in abeyance as an institution of learning. More recent scholars have sought to redeem Gundling's reputation as a mistreated scholar (Sabrow, Clark), or as someone who embodied the roles of both scholar and fool (in the older, technical sense) (Outram).
Obviously I'll flesh it out, but that's the outline of the content I'd like fact-checked (and supplemented if possible).
I'll have to look up the Fritz quote, but I did already know where in Sabrow to check about the change in historiography, and I don't think the switch has to do with 1848 as much as with 1871, because the first outright denial essay about the wine barrel story is 1867, i.e. AFTER the Prussians beat the Austrians in the last Austro/Prussian war 1866, and just two years before the FrancoPrussian war and Unification. Meaning: Prussia was about to take over all of the German states and unify them under Prussian command. Therefore, the Hohenzollern dynasty had to be The Best And Worthiest, etc., by the moral standard of Victorian/Wilhelmnian times, and since what FW did to Gundling couldn't be explained as being FOR PRUSSIA and FOR MAKING FREDERICK GREAT, the way what he did to Fritz was, it couldn't have happened this way. The relevant passage in Sabrow, p. 151 ff:
"Ist Gundling in einem Weinfasse begraben worden?" lautet die Frage, die der Potsdamer Lokalhistoriker Louis Schneider sich 1867 stellte. (...) (M)it wachsendem Abstand vom Geschehen verdichteten sich die "Zweifel" der Allgemeinen Deutschen Biographie von 1878, "ob die behaupteten Spottinschriften Gundlings Sarg denn wirklich geziert hätten", allmächlich zu der sicheren Annahme der Neuen Deutschen Biographie von 1966, "daß insbesondere das berüchtigte Begräbnis Gs in einem Weinfaß in dieser Form kaum stattgefunden hat."
(And then Sabrow cooly adds:
"Einse sorgsame Prüfung des Geschehens ist also angezeigt, und sie wird dadurch erleichtert, daß vor wenigen Jahren im Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle ein Brief des Potsdamer Pfarrers Johann Heinrich Schubert entdeckt wurde, der fünf Tage nach Gundlings Tod geschrieben wurde, und die sich anschließenden Vorgänge aus der Perspektive eines unmittelbar Beteiligten beleuchtet. Schuberts ausführliches Schreiben räumt nicht nur jeden Zweifel aus, daß der arme Hofgelehrte tatsächlich in einem Weinfaß unter lästerlichsten Umständen aus der Welt verabschiedet wurde, sondern gibt zudem einen atmosphärisch dichten Eindruck von den Spannungen und Ängsten, unter denen auf könglichen Befehl die ganze Stadt Potsdam an dem unerhörten Ereignis teilzunehmen veranlaßt war."
(Sabrow doesn't quote Stratemann, the other guy writing only days after Gundling's death - even the rhymes ridiculing Gundling on the barrel, he quoted earlier from Fassmann's account.)
The FW defense from modern historians: Kloosterhuis basically goes the "well, Gundling was a self degrading alcoholic, what can you do?" route as I recall.
Jochen Klepper, who wasn't a historian but a novelist but who formed the 20th century FW image with his novel "Der Vater", went the "Lear and his fool" route, i.e. Gundling is a a self degrading alcoholic AND a truthteller, FW keeps him along because he knows Gundling tells him the truth he doesn't want to see, but Klepper doesn't include the worst of the treatment.
Selena, you are a godsend (as always)! I knew you'd have the goods.
Fritz: I tracked down Francke talking about how, when he visited and dined with the royal family, in the absence of FW, young Fritz was doing the most tormenting of Gundling. Francke, btw, wholly disapproves of all this punching down.
ein Brief des Potsdamer Pfarrers Johann Heinrich Schubert entdeckt wurde
Aha!! That's what I was looking for. I knew there was a more reliable contemporary source than even Stratemann, I just couldn't remember what it was. Thank you.
The FW defense from modern historians: Kloosterhuis basically goes the "well, Gundling was a self degrading alcoholic, what can you do?" route as I recall.
Ah, right, Kloosterhuis *does* talk about Gundling. I'd forgotten that, since he doesn't in the Katte book, but he does in his Tobacco Parliament work, right.
But Mitford takes the cake, again. When writing about Gundling's escape attempts and how he always came/was dragged back:
In fact Gundling could not have borne to leave— he was a masochist and the Tabagie was the joy of his life.
Masochist! Joy of his life! Please get therapy, Nancy.
Oh, and speaking of gems I found while researching Peter today, here's MacDonogh: "While Wilhelmina's bile was normally reserved for her father and brother, her mother is generally sympathetically portrayed."
Someone is clearly incapable of recognizing anything but physical abuse as abuse.
McDonogh: Head. Desk. I mean, SD is certainly introduced sympathetically as a young crown princess, then queen, doing her best while her husband's needless jealousy is stoked by evil courtiers, but as the saga goes on and we see her described as a mother, good lord. But yeah, it's like with bad fanfic writers, who think if they don't add physical violence, it can't have been abuse.
Question, though: if Wilhelmine had still been alive at the great sibling reunion in the 1770s when Ulrike was visiting and they were making that ill advised trip to Dear Old Wusterhausen, which parent would she have regarded as better and worse? I mean, if she hadn't wisely stayed in Potsdam with Fritz, which I totally think she would have done. But say she was along when the sibs - mostly but not exclusively Heinrich vs Amalie - were going at it? Mom or Dad? Because on the one hand, Wilhelmine did have a different experience with FW than the younger sibs (I assume if Heinrich could recall FW's homecoming in the August of 1730, Amalie would have been able, too, but other than that she wouldn't have been exposed to the worst of FW at all, and her own issues with Mom were not related to her not marrying SD's prefered candidate. (That I know of.))
Hmmm. Honestly, I think Wilhelmine might have refused to get sucked into the argument. This is the woman who wrote:
One day, when (SD) had maltreated me again and I cried in a corner of my room, (Charlotte) adressed me: "What's the matter with you?" "I'm desperate", I said, "because the Queen can't stand me anymore; and if this continues, I'll die of grief." Charlotte then replies: "How silly you are! (...) I only laugh when she scolds, and that's the best way to handle it." "Then you don't love her," I said, "for if one loves someone, one can't be indifferent to their opinion."
And you summarized an essay writer's comments on the passage thus:
Jarzebowski deduces mixed feelings from narrator Wilhelmine - on the one hand, there's (barely concealed) envy for the more distant relationship the younger sibs have towards their parents, on the other, there's the need to believe that this is solely possible because they love (and are loved) less, that the sisters have given up the ability to love in order to achieve this immunity.
Wilhelmine might also have believed that if one loved two parents, one did not get into an argument with one's siblings about which parent was worse. And Wilhelmine was desperate to believe she loved and was loved by both her parents. So I see her as the one scolding Heinrich and Amalie for obviously not loving both their parents.
I could be wrong! But I could see her side-stepping the whole thing (assuming she went to Wusterhausen at all, which, yeah, I doubt it).
Good points all around. I agree, she'd most likely not go to Wusterhausen at all or if she did for some reason scolding Heinrich and Amalie for having such an argument at all.
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timeasmymeasure
Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-23 03:46 am (UTC)I have Sabrow's book on order, but alas, it won't arrive from Germany for another month or so. So I'm here to ask you historiographical questions,
1. Do you remember where I can find Fritz trash-talking Gundling? A letter to Wilhelmine?
2. Do you have a sense of when the wine barrel denial began and what the cultural shifts that led to it were? I feel like you've talked about this before, but I'm not finding it.
3. Anything you would correct or add to this summary of the historiographical tradition?
Contemporaries (Stratemann, Morgenstern) didn't feel any need to deny the wine barrel story. Fritz trash-talked Gundling (details to come when I can find the source), and Maupertuis referred to him as "ridiculous". Nineteenth-century historians (post-1848?) no longer felt they could defend this monarchical abuse of a commoner, so they started denying the worst incidents happened (Schneider). Wolff's publication of the Stratemann reports required him to reluctantly accept that Stratemann was an impeccable witness, but he and other historians continued to defend FW. For example, Göse attributed Gundling's treatment to his "odd personality" and the culture of his time, not to FW's agency. Many historians (Blanning, MacDonogh--any good 20th century German authors?) never acknowledged Gundling as a scholar, and instead simply treated him as a fool who was put in charge of the academy, at a time when it was effectively in abeyance as an institution of learning. More recent scholars have sought to redeem Gundling's reputation as a mistreated scholar (Sabrow, Clark), or as someone who embodied the roles of both scholar and fool (in the older, technical sense) (Outram).
Obviously I'll flesh it out, but that's the outline of the content I'd like fact-checked (and supplemented if possible).
Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-23 10:03 am (UTC)I'll have to look up the Fritz quote, but I did already know where in Sabrow to check about the change in historiography, and I don't think the switch has to do with 1848 as much as with 1871, because the first outright denial essay about the wine barrel story is 1867, i.e. AFTER the Prussians beat the Austrians in the last Austro/Prussian war 1866, and just two years before the FrancoPrussian war and Unification. Meaning: Prussia was about to take over all of the German states and unify them under Prussian command. Therefore, the Hohenzollern dynasty had to be The Best And Worthiest, etc., by the moral standard of Victorian/Wilhelmnian times, and since what FW did to Gundling couldn't be explained as being FOR PRUSSIA and FOR MAKING FREDERICK GREAT, the way what he did to Fritz was, it couldn't have happened this way. The relevant passage in Sabrow, p. 151 ff:
"Ist Gundling in einem Weinfasse begraben worden?" lautet die Frage, die der Potsdamer Lokalhistoriker Louis Schneider sich 1867 stellte. (...) (M)it wachsendem Abstand vom Geschehen verdichteten sich die "Zweifel" der Allgemeinen Deutschen Biographie von 1878, "ob die behaupteten Spottinschriften Gundlings Sarg denn wirklich geziert hätten", allmächlich zu der sicheren Annahme der Neuen Deutschen Biographie von 1966, "daß insbesondere das berüchtigte Begräbnis Gs in einem Weinfaß in dieser Form kaum stattgefunden hat."
(And then Sabrow cooly adds:
"Einse sorgsame Prüfung des Geschehens ist also angezeigt, und sie wird dadurch erleichtert, daß vor wenigen Jahren im Archiv der Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle ein Brief des Potsdamer Pfarrers Johann Heinrich Schubert entdeckt wurde, der fünf Tage nach Gundlings Tod geschrieben wurde, und die sich anschließenden Vorgänge aus der Perspektive eines unmittelbar Beteiligten beleuchtet. Schuberts ausführliches Schreiben räumt nicht nur jeden Zweifel aus, daß der arme Hofgelehrte tatsächlich in einem Weinfaß unter lästerlichsten Umständen aus der Welt verabschiedet wurde, sondern gibt zudem einen atmosphärisch dichten Eindruck von den Spannungen und Ängsten, unter denen auf könglichen Befehl die ganze Stadt Potsdam an dem unerhörten Ereignis teilzunehmen veranlaßt war."
(Sabrow doesn't quote Stratemann, the other guy writing only days after Gundling's death - even the rhymes ridiculing Gundling on the barrel, he quoted earlier from Fassmann's account.)
The FW defense from modern historians: Kloosterhuis basically goes the "well, Gundling was a self degrading alcoholic, what can you do?" route as I recall.
Jochen Klepper, who wasn't a historian but a novelist but who formed the 20th century FW image with his novel "Der Vater", went the "Lear and his fool" route, i.e. Gundling is a a self degrading alcoholic AND a truthteller, FW keeps him along because he knows Gundling tells him the truth he doesn't want to see, but Klepper doesn't include the worst of the treatment.
Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-23 06:14 pm (UTC)Fritz: I tracked down Francke talking about how, when he visited and dined with the royal family, in the absence of FW, young Fritz was doing the most tormenting of Gundling. Francke, btw, wholly disapproves of all this punching down.
ein Brief des Potsdamer Pfarrers Johann Heinrich Schubert entdeckt wurde
Aha!! That's what I was looking for. I knew there was a more reliable contemporary source than even Stratemann, I just couldn't remember what it was. Thank you.
The FW defense from modern historians: Kloosterhuis basically goes the "well, Gundling was a self degrading alcoholic, what can you do?" route as I recall.
Ah, right, Kloosterhuis *does* talk about Gundling. I'd forgotten that, since he doesn't in the Katte book, but he does in his Tobacco Parliament work, right.
But Mitford takes the cake, again. When writing about Gundling's escape attempts and how he always came/was dragged back:
In fact Gundling could not have borne to leave— he was a masochist and the Tabagie was the joy of his life.
Masochist! Joy of his life! Please get therapy, Nancy.
Oh, and speaking of gems I found while researching Peter today, here's MacDonogh: "While Wilhelmina's bile was normally reserved for her father and brother, her mother is generally sympathetically portrayed."
Someone is clearly incapable of recognizing anything but physical abuse as abuse.
Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-24 07:37 am (UTC)Question, though: if Wilhelmine had still been alive at the great sibling reunion in the 1770s when Ulrike was visiting and they were making that ill advised trip to Dear Old Wusterhausen, which parent would she have regarded as better and worse? I mean, if she hadn't wisely stayed in Potsdam with Fritz, which I totally think she would have done. But say she was along when the sibs - mostly but not exclusively Heinrich vs Amalie - were going at it? Mom or Dad? Because on the one hand, Wilhelmine did have a different experience with FW than the younger sibs (I assume if Heinrich could recall FW's homecoming in the August of 1730, Amalie would have been able, too, but other than that she wouldn't have been exposed to the worst of FW at all, and her own issues with Mom were not related to her not marrying SD's prefered candidate. (That I know of.))
Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-24 04:26 pm (UTC)One day, when (SD) had maltreated me again and I cried in a corner of my room, (Charlotte) adressed me: "What's the matter with you?" "I'm desperate", I said, "because the Queen can't stand me anymore; and if this continues, I'll die of grief." Charlotte then replies: "How silly you are! (...) I only laugh when she scolds, and that's the best way to handle it." "Then you don't love her," I said, "for if one loves someone, one can't be indifferent to their opinion."
And you summarized an essay writer's comments on the passage thus:
Jarzebowski deduces mixed feelings from narrator Wilhelmine - on the one hand, there's (barely concealed) envy for the more distant relationship the younger sibs have towards their parents, on the other, there's the need to believe that this is solely possible because they love (and are loved) less, that the sisters have given up the ability to love in order to achieve this immunity.
Wilhelmine might also have believed that if one loved two parents, one did not get into an argument with one's siblings about which parent was worse. And Wilhelmine was desperate to believe she loved and was loved by both her parents. So I see her as the one scolding Heinrich and Amalie for obviously not loving both their parents.
I could be wrong! But I could see her side-stepping the whole thing (assuming she went to Wusterhausen at all, which, yeah, I doubt it).
Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-25 08:40 am (UTC)Re: Gundling historiography
Date: 2024-11-24 06:36 am (UTC)Yeah!
And then Sabrow cooly adds:
:/ Glad he's on the #JusticeforGundling hashtag...