Monday, November 22, 2010
Frederick the Great's Relationships
I found the mention of Frederick the Great's intimate relationship with Voltaire to be quite interesting today. I discovered a little more information about this relationship in my research and learned about Frederick's other questionable relationships. Because Frederick showed no interest in his wife and was speculated to have a romantic relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte, historians believe that he was either bisexual or homosexual. In fact, Frederick's father was aware of his relationship with Katte and had both men arrested when he heard about their plan to run away. Consequently, the King ordered Katte to be beheaded outside of his son's prison window. Following this execution, the King forced his son to marry a woman who he truly did not love. Voltaire, Frederick's contemporary, became his lover and moved in with him in 1750. Despite their contentious disagreements and arguments, the men were "passionate lovers."
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I think this is also extremely interesting. The new ideas of enlightenment that Frederick was interested in showed that he was already different from his father. In addition to his differing ideas on government, he obviously had different ideas regarding sexuality. I think it is always fun to find out unexpected things out about people.
When Katherine and Blaine presented this yesterday, I was baffled. I agree, it is quite odd that Voltaire and Fredrick the Great had a strong relationship. One would think that such a passionate relationship would prevent Voltaire from writing critically about his lover, but that obviously was not the case. Voltaire critiqued everyone!
I also found this interesting because Julia and I studied Frederick last year in AP Euro, and we never learned about his relationships. Frederick was known as a passionate patron of the arts, and he defied several traditions by allowing freedom of the press. Based on my knowledge of his unique policies, I'm not really surprised that he could have been in a relationship with Voltaire.
The idea of Frederick and Voltaire being lovers is indeed shocking. However, some allusions to Frederick's homosexual nature can be found in Candide. The Prussian troops of Frederick the Great are referred to as the "Bulgars" in Voltaire's novella. The word buggery can be derived from this name, which refers to when a male has sexual relations with younger boys.
Woah, when I read this post I felt flabergasted. I guess when I was reading up on Frederick II a few days ago I didn't dig deep enough to unveil such juicy information. I never imagined that Voltaire nor Frederick would be homosexual but after Katherine's, Chrissy's, Chloe's, Olivia's and Samantha's post and doing some research of my own, I can see how this is a quite evident possibility.
I was also surprised when I heard about this relationship between Voltaire and Frederick. He criticizes him so soundly that I would have assumed they had never met. I am loathe to assume sexual relations between the two, because there is only circumstantial evidence; although even I can admit it is not weak.
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