rheinsberg | Entries tagged with peter the great

Overall impressions: definitely far more informative than the previous August(us) biography we've come across. The subtitle indicates where Blanning is going with this. Another subtitle could have been "His times and life", since there is certainly a lot about contemporaries not August(us) - Charles of Sweden and Peter the Great, most prominently - but since they vehemently influence his life, justifiably so. Still, it is noticeable that the biography starts with our hedonistic hero already an adult and later gives only the briefest of summaries of his childhood and youth. There is more than enough about the Great Northern War to satisfy Mildred, but also, justifying the other part of the title, about Saxony in general and Leipzig and Dresden in particular as cultural hotspots and amazing achievements in that sense under Augustus. In terms of August's private life, Blanning announces he has no intention to cover every mistress and provides just details on the most important ones, Aurora von Königsmarck (his fave), Fatima (the Turkish one) and of course Countess Cosel (he's a bit baffled about the severity of her fate and doesn't think the marriage promise alone explains it). Ditto for the kids, which, alas, means nothing about the Countess Orzelska. (Possibly having deflowered Fritz doesn't compete with having been France's military hero and ancestor of George Sand.)

( Why young Augustus puts his brother's lover's mother through a Witch Trial )

( Young Augustus Goes Catholic and Gets Poland )

( Poland: Impossible to Govern (Not just for Saxons) )

( The Perils of Pissing Off Charles of Sweden )

( The Case for Augustus the Artist )

( Quotes, Quotes, Quotes )

mildred_of_midgard

So in the 18th and late 17th century we see a whole bunch of kids whose parents are obsessively religious, and their kids turn out the opposite: freethinkers, libertines, or both.

- We all know about FW and his free-thinking kids. Even AW, whom he was relatively nice to, had the attitude that too much religious ostentation was a bad thing, although so was mocking religion *cough* Fritz.

- We know about Cosimo III de Medici and his two libertine sons (and GG was something of a freethinker until his deathbed conversion).

- We have recently learned about Pietists Christian VI and Sophia Magdalena of Denmark and their libertine children, Frederik V and Louise the possibly-pregnant-out-of-wedlock. Frederik, incidentally, was not a Deist, there are a lot of references to God and praying in his letters...but let's just say he was not his parents when it came to religion.

- Struensee's father was Francke's successor as pastor in Halle. Struensee, talking to a pastor before his execution, said his father was much too hard on him. Winkle, the academic biographer I'm currently reading, just says that that was normal. He also says that FW was a perfectly normal father, and that nothing that happened to Fritz was unusual.

More convincingly, Barz, the romanticizing biographer, says Struensee père was the kind of authoritarian father whose children have to either turn out exactly like him or exactly opposite him, no middle ground. And sure enough, one son turned out just like him and the rest abandoned religion and became Deists or atheists. Struensee also had a reputation as a libertine; he seems to have been pretty sexually active, although rumors of his decadence in other ways may have been exaggerated.

But there are also some cases where a more liberal upbringing resulted in a child who felt the need to go in an extreme religious direction. This write-up is mostly about Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, but there's also the other obvious case: Tsarevitch Alexei, murdered son of Peter the Great. We'll cover Ferdinand's education in the first post, since I have far more detail about it, and then do a compare-and-contrast with Alexei's in the second post.

( Ferdinand of Parma )

( Tsarevitch Alexei )

Sources
Der Infant von Parma: oder Die Ohnmacht der Erziehung, a monograph by Elisabeth Badinter, whom

selenak reminded me was the author who once wrote a biography of MT without learning German. So, you know, grain of salt about her scholarship, but at least this one isn't set in Germany. (There's not a lot of Italian in her bibliography, but a little.)

"Heinrich von Huyssen (1666–1739) als Hofmeister des russischen Thronfolgers Aleksej", an essay by Svetlana Korzun, in the collection of essays Die Flucht des Thronfolgers Aleksej: Krise in der „Balance of Power“ und den österreichisch-russischen Beziehungen am Anfang des 18 Jahrhunderts," edited by Iskra Schwarz. I was hoping for more on the flight of the crown prince Alexei from this collection, but it's more about the crisis in the balance of power and Austrian-Russian relations at the beginning of the 18th century. So a lot of stuff I already knew.

Johann Friedrich Struensee: Arzt, Aufklärer und Staatsmann; Beitrag zur Kultur-, Medizin- und Seuchengeschichte der Aufklärungszeit, a book by Stefan Winkle.

selenak

The two books are written a few decades apart, with "Empress Elizabeth" published in 1986, i.e. a year after Gorbachev in earnest practiced perestroika and glasnost, and the preface (not by the author) declares it to be very much a product of glasnost applied to history, doing away with both the Marxist pov and with the dea that the post-Peter the Great era until Catherine the Great's ascension is not worth studying. For me, the most obvious difference between the two books is actually that the second one, "The Five Empresses" is far more anecdotal, chatty and emotionial in nature. "Empress Elizabeth" may not be Marxist, but it does apply thematic structures the way I'm used to from current day German biographies (for example of FW, F1 or the Great Elector) I've read in recent years, i.e. foreign policy, domestic policy, private life - which means we go back and forth in time a few times - while "Five Empresses" does not.

( Some more general observations about both books and their author's opinions )

Anyway. Anisimov manages to bring his various characters to life, and he's good at establishing where their various strengths and weaknesses come from.

( Anna Ivanova: Romanov Cinderella Goes Autocrat )

Mostly, Anisimov brings up the quotes to back up his opinions, but not always. For example: after presenting the Peter I/Catherine I relationship as a love match on both parts backed up by excerpts from their earthy, mutually fond correspondence through the years, he arrives that point in the story where Catherine takes a non-Peter young lover, who happened to be the younger brother of Peter's first love, one Villm Mons. This is after Alexei's death and when speculating why she took that insane risk which easily could have gotten her killed painfully once Peter found out (in effect, he did kill her love, but not Catherine), our narrator suddenly questions whether she loved Peter at all, and points out the former Martha the peasant, war captive, did not have much choice, being handed from man to man until ending up with Peter, and doing anything but please the most powerful man in the land was out of the question. True enough, but might I suggest a third possibility: she both wanted the life with him and loved him until she saw him torture his own son to death. Even if she disliked Alexeii and saw him as a rival for her own children, including her at this point living son (something Anisimov assumes but does not back up with a quote), once you've seen a man do that, I could well see it killing any attachment beyond self preservation.

( The First Miracle of the House of Brandenburg - Russian Take )

( Elizaveta Petrovna: Charismatic Hedonist Conservative )

( How the French Envoy Overrated Himself )

( How To Handle Your Holstein Nephew and Rival )

( How to Not Raise a Tiny Terror Grandson: By Catherine The Great )

In conclusion, thank you, Mildred, these were two instructive books. Since the author is remarkably not nationalistic - for example, when talking about the Anna Ivanova period is remembered as the time where Germans dominated the court, he points out that firstly, the Germans in question all came originally from different German states, had lived in Russia for many years and were at each other's throats, i.e. were rivals, not a unified German party, and secondly, it was in this very era that the Russian nobility got the massive concessions from the government which plagued every ruler since because they daren't take all those privileges away again, so the Russian nobles had the least cause to complain, as opposed to the general Russian population -, I am somewhat afraid to check whether he's still alive, and how he's doing these days....

mildred_of_midgard: Surprisingly well, at least according to his university page! 74 years old, tenured professor at the HSE University campus in St. Petersburg, tons of publications, named Best Teacher in 2014 and 2015, Winner of the HSE University Best Russian Research Paper Competition in 2021...

Of course, what's not listed on the page (or even what's listed in Russian that may give clues), I cannot say. But at least not in prison, mysteriously dead, mysteriously disappeared, or in exile.

mildred_of_midgard

Charles Whitworth was a British envoy in the first quarter of the 18th century, on whom I read a bio earlier this year. My write-ups were unfortunately scattered enough that there's no really good introduction. But below is what I've got.

The book in question is Charles Whitworth: Diplomat in the Age of Peter the Great, by Janet Hartley.

( Book Review )

So then there was the time Whitworth destroyed a factory in Russia.

( Whitworth destroys a factory )

Some addenda:

( Mercantilism )

( Timber )

selenak: I guess in our fictional 18th century envoys get together, we just have come across a new category to compete in: worst posting ever?

( Several contenders )

Whitworth also plays an important role in the Rheinsberg posts on the Great Northern War and on Count Rottembourg.

mildred_of_midgard

( Teaser )

( Overview )

( HolsteinPete, aka Peter III of Russia, connections )

( Holstein genealogy )

( Swedish genealogy )

( Secret meetings )

( The Great Northern War and the Spanish Succession )

( Charles in Saxony )

( Georg Heinrich von Görtz )

( Frederick IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp )

( Johann Patkul )

( FW and Whitworth )

selenak

I.e. family letters between Sophia of Hanover, most enterprising of great grandmothers, her daughter Sophie Charlotte, the first Queen of Prussia, her son-in-law Friedrich I., first King, her grandson Friedrich Wilhelm (aka Tiny Terror FW, not yet graduated to paternal horrow show FW), and grand daughter Sophia Dorothea.

First, some notes on the edition, preface and person of the editor. ( Georg Schnath thinks Sophie's baroque frankness is just too coarse for the Roaring Twenties )

So much for the editor and the edition. Now to the content.

( The letters summarized by yours truly )

And now have some actual quotes:

( Why cousin James won't be King for much longer, and young FW's (lack of) education is revealed )

Tiny Terror FW was nine at the time. Take your pick as to whom to believe. When SC dies in February 1705, F1 and Sophie write to each other almost daily trying to comfort each other.

Sophie also adds: The one thing I will ask most humbly from your Majesty is that I'll be allowed to embrace the dear Crown Prince here again after a while, for he is all that is left of the blessed Queen. And in a letter two days later: I will always seek in your Majesty and the dear Crown Prince what I have lost so painfully and unexpecdetly and what will never leave my heart. However, yet two days later there's a little push there amidst the affection and sorrow, for: Her late Majesty's thought and concern was always that the Crown Prince, as virtuously and well he's been raised, should practice writing somewhat more, which he can learn best of your Majesty as your Majesty excels in it.

Yet three days after that, February 28th 1705, we get our canon on teenage FW's romantic affections for Caroline, future Queen of England, which means I apologize to Klepper and Morgenstern for believing they led their romantic imagination carry them away on this subject:

( FW: Teenager in love? )

1705 was a year of horrors for F1, since in December, his daughter from his first marriage, who had married the Prince of Hesse-Kassel, dies the day before Christmas. In the next spring, an alchemist promising to have the secret of gold making shows up in Berlin, leading young FW to sensibly comment to Granny that if a man could make gold, surely he wouldn't have to live on the road trying to win the favor of princes, and why people who shall be Dad don't get that is a mystery to him. In the summer, F1 and FW of 1706 come to Hannover again to visit Sophie, and she uses the opportunity to propose her alternate match for young FW, which is, of course, SD.

( A marriage made in... Hannover )

( SD and FW, the early years (as reported to their grandmother) )

Future G2 gets to be with Marlborough at Oudenarde, while FW, now that the baby is dead, is clung extra hard to by fretting F1. This does not make FW happy.

( Young FW wants to join the war effort but becomes a topic of gossip in Versailles instead )

On to reveals of FW/SD early married life. Now, en route to the front FW will pass through Hannover and visit Grandma.

( Does it make sense to love one's husband? )

felis contributes quotes from the simultaneous early marriage correspondence between SD and FW:

( I have nothing to reproach myself with )

selenak

This biography, whose title says "Sophie Charlotte: Preußens erste Königin", is actually more the biography of two women, Sophie of Hannover and her daughter Sophie Charlotte. Partly because Sophie lived a far longer life - including outliving her daughter, who died at only 36 years of age - but also because Sophie left snarky memoirs and lots and lots of letters, whereas many of Sophie Charlotte's personal letters, aside of her correspondance with Leipniz, got disappeared over the years, which means we have a far more detailed picture of the first of the triad whom one historian referred to as "the three great Hannover Sophies" (the third one is of course SD).
( A Tale of Queens and Duchesses Ruling Their World )