landofnowhere | (Reply)

From:

To rephrase her take in AITA terminology, she says that although biographers of her time consider Voltaire to be NTA, really ESH and in some ways Frederick acquitted himself better.

I was going to ask you before and forgot: what do these acronyms mean? I mean, I can guess a bit from the context, but I would like to know the exact words.

Also, on the assumption that it means biographers of her time think of Voltaire was the more wronged one when it was really Frederick - that depends on which 19th century biographers of which nationality we're talking about. German-speaking historians who were all very uncritical Friedrich fanboys in most of the 19th century completely sided with him, and in the 18th century in their own life time the Germans found Voltaire ungrateful (since they thought Frederick was already doing him a big favour by having offered him a place at his court to begin with) and the French were offended that Voltaire was so unpatriotic as to go in the first place, though there was also the overwhelming sense that these two deserved each other among people not fannish for one or both. (And then partisans of either were stunned when they started to be pen pals again after all the trash talking of each other.)

Now, I'm very willing to believe French 19th century historians were whitewashing Voltaire and vilifying Frederick, and George Sand reacted against that. (Not having read the German historians who were whitewashing Frederick and vilifying Voltaire.) But for me, while both acted badly and hilariously in their epic breakup (and not only then), what it comes down to is this: only one of them was an absolute monarch who could and did abuse his power during said breakup. Frederick having Voltaire and his niece arrested in Frankfurt - which wasn't even part of his realm where he had the power to do so, so in addition to everything else, this was a diplomatic incident - in order to get his poems back was blatant power abuse. That he could have done even more without impunity because he had an army and Voltaire did not doesn't make it better but emphasizes that Voltaire, while anything but a saint, still was armed only with the power of trashtalking in that fight, so really: keep those zingers coming, Voltaire, he's earned them, and then some.

(Frederick's post-break up attitude towards Voltaire can be summed up by the scenes described by more than one witness from the 7 Years War where it's "Voltaire's the worst! Let me tell you the details of how he's the worst! OMG, what's this, a new Voltaire letter to me! Gimme! Must read! Must answer! Go away, leave me alone with my latest Voltaire letter!")