Daily horrors whenever one catches up with the news, both on a global and national level, makes for an increasing need to find some way to fannishly relax. (Mind you, there are no safe zones from current day insanity in fandom, either. Some weeks ago yours truly was horrified to learn the claim that the Orange Felon supposedly likes Sunset Boulevard, one of Billy Wilder's masterpieces. I'm still in denial about that - maybe he just likes some songs from ALW's musical version? How would he even have the patience and focus to watch an entire movie with no action scenes, no sex scenes and lots and lots of sharp dialogue, not to mention no macho hero in sight? What Billy Wilder, who as a young man watched the country he was in go from a Republic to a fascist state, but who was with all cynisim pretty idealistic about the US where he found refuge would have said about the present, I don't want to imagine. At the very least, he'd demand a rewrite. I mean: like all VPs during the Munich security conference, the current one a few days ago visited Dachau. I'm not exaggerating, it is what every single US VP attending the Munich security conference has done. Like the rest of them, Vance got a guided tour by one of the few still living survivors. If it filtered through that Dachau, one of the very first German concentration camps which when it was built and put to work in 1933 included as its very first inmates Social Democrats, Union Representatives and Communists, i.e. the very people Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (Germany's Marine Le Pen wannabe) declared to be Nazis to an audience of billions, Vance didn't say. Instead, he went from visiting a concentration camp to meeting Weidel, i.e. the leading woman of a certified right extremist (or if you want to be less polite, Neonazi) party, and then held forth at the conference where he claimed to defend free speech (you know, while his boss kicks out reporters daring to say "Gulf of Mexico" and erases trans people out of existence) and told Europeans they're the true anti democratic dictators and should work with their Nazi parties already.

Billy Wilder, at his most cynical, would not have written such caricatures as are currently in charge of dismantling democracy not just in the US but nearly everywhere. Btw, the retort by our current secretary for defense, Boris Pistorius, was this:





Aaanyway. I find history podcasts not just interesting in general but at such times as these oddly comforting in a "this, too, shall pass" way. (I am not referring to the history of the 20th century, of course. That currently provides a "this, too, shall come back" vibe.) Since it's been a while, some impressions on my English language favourites:

History of Byzantium: got into something of a depressive slump after the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, but that's history, and it is now back to the narrative. (Decline-and-fall-like as it has to be.)

Not just the Tudors: continues to be very entertaining, and most guest speakers Susannah Libscombe interviews are good, with the occasional dud; most recently there excellent episodes on the various males of the Borgia family, and then for Lucrezia she changed her interview partner and alas her new interviewee was, shall we say, less than stellar.


History of the Germans: has since last I wrote been reordered so there are thematic seasons, i.e. if you're just interested in, say, the Ottonians or the Hanseatic League, you can listen to just those seasons. On a personal level, my experience with this podcast has been that the seasons that deal with parts of history I'm not so familiar with captivate me more than those I do already know a lot about, but not because the later is badly researched (au contraire), it's just that I love getting intrigued and learning more. So of course I have favourites. In the recent year, I loved the Interregnum season (starring among others Rudolf von Habsburg, the first Emperor of that family, going from simple count to HRE buy "waving a marriage contract in one hand and a sword in the other" as he tactically married his many female relations to lots of dying-out-older nobility, Ludwig the Bavarian (proving that getting excommunicated by the (Avignon) Pope is no longer the big deal it used to be as he employs, as Dirk puts it, half the cast of The Name of the Rose, and Karl IV, he after whom the bridge and a lot of other things in Prague are named after) and the current season, The Reformation before the Reformation, which you get the whole late medieval enchilade of corrupt popes and antipopes, the Council of Konstanz (good for book swapping, not so good for actual radical reforms, ask Jan Hus, who gets burned during it) and then the Hussite Revolution in Bohemia.

Revolutions: Mike Duncan's second podcast which used to be finished with the Russian Revolution but now has been resumed by him with a highly entertaining sci fi season, the Martian Revolution. Its backstory sounds a bit inspired by The Expanse as well as lots of the historical revolutions he has covered. If the CEO of OmniCorps whose blinkered know-it-all-ness, ego and lack of anything resembling human empahy triggered the Martian Revolution sounds a bit like a current tech bro in charge of the White House, I'm sure it's entirely coincidental.

Based not directly on history but on a historical novel, The Flight Portifolio by Julie Orringer, this is a new miniseries available on Netflix telling the story of Varian Fry and several of his co-workers in the Emergency Rescue Committee who between 1940 - 1941 saved more than 2000 refugees, mostly, though not exclusively, anti-Nazi artists, writers and intellectuals. As with most fictionalisations of rl events, some of the rl people didn't make the cut - in the series, the main rl characters other than Fry are Mary Jayne Gold, Albert Hirschmann (who is both himself and merged with another rl character who doesn't exist in this version, Gold's lover Raymond Couraud), Lisa Fittko and as the sole helpful instead of obstructive member of the US Consulate at Marseille,
Hiram Bingham. Whereas not only Couroud but Miriam Davenport don't show up. There are also fictional main characters: two ex-soldiers-turned-hotel-workers-turned-resistance fighters, Paul Kandidjo and his younger brother, Varian Fry's not-so-ex-boyfriend Thomas Lovegrove. Of the many, many famous people the ERC saved or tried to save, similarly while others are name dropped we only "meet" a tiny selection (which makes dramatic sense), to wit, Walter Benjamin, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, Marcell Duchamps, Walter Mehring, and Marc Chagall.

(I was sad Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger as well as Heinrich and Nelly Mann didn't make the cut, or for that matter Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler Werfel, because them being saved is actually how I knew about Varian Fry, but like I said: I can understand the series limiting the cameos.)

Now I haven't read the original novel, though having watched the series, I googled and found out that when it got published in 2019, it providing Varian Fry with a (fictional) male lover was attacked in the New York Times, only for Fry's real life son to write to the NYT and say that yes, actually, his father did have (real life) male lovers. Here's an interview with the author, Julie Orringer, talking about why she made the choices she did, from the Paris Review. Not having read the novel in question, my own review is based strictly on the miniseries.

( Detailed observations of the tv series ensue )

All in all: won't become the Casablanca of tv series, but is vey watchable and hopefully will introduce more people to some rl heroes who did consider it their business to help refugees in the darkest of times.

Several things accumulating during a busy week, mainly:

1.) Andor season 1 finale: ( Spoilery thoughts. )

2.) I also finished all the episodes of the History of the Germans podcast released so far. (It's reached the near midpoint of the 13th century so far.) And can only repeat my reccomendation. It's history narrated entertainingly and comprehensively, yet without any dumbing down or patronizing, and I enjoyed both the episodes about eras I knew little or nothing about (early Ottonians, for example) and those I knew a lot about (Hohenstaufen). While using the various kings and Emperors as narrative red threads, the author also covers a lot more aspects of the eras - the completely changing role of the papacy, for example, going from its nadir (the Popes were only puppets of essentually two Roman noble families, often in their early 20s or even teenagers, and had zilch authority outside of Rome, with the Emperors installing bishops and abbots - this era is also known as the "pornocracy", I kid you not) to the Innocent III "All monarchs including the Emperors are my lowly servants" theocratic power height. The podcast is also good at paying due tribute to various female power players (as for example, but by no means exclusively, Empresses Adelheid and Theophanu whom I've written about before) and pointing out that while nineteenth century historians defined the various noble familiies jockeying for power through their patriarchs, several of them at the time defined themselves through their most powerful female ancestor instead. And there's just lots and losts of intrigue, backstabbing, scheming, and dysfunctional families. While reading through other people's reviews, I see they keep expressing amazement the (German, but doing this in English) author has a sense of humor. To which I say: guys, the rumors of our seriousness have been vastly exaggarated, and also, Erich Kästner, Heinrich Heine and Kurt Tucholsky would like a word.

yhlee asked me about my favourite German dishes, which I hadn't written about before and thus am happily able to reply to in detail. Now, several of my faves wouldn't count as German (what with being Italian), but I do love products of our local cuisine as well. Here are a few of my all time favourites, with illustrations and thus hidden beneath a cut.

( Delicious meals await your click! )


The other days

When luring mildred_of_midgard into participating in ficathons over a year ago, I used the bribe of indicating this might be the occasion for fanfiction starring Peter (von) Keith to happen. Peter usually, if he shows up at all in historical fiction, plays a minor supporting role in the big 1730 tragedy of Frederick the Great's youth, the escape attempt plus ensuing bff (and probable lover) execution and prison stint, as the other friend and possible lover who did make it out of Prussia alive. Since for understandable reasons most 1730 dealing fiction is focused on Frederick and Katte (the tragically executed (boy)friend), having to deal with this other guy involved is something probably deemed as just too confusing and/ior disrupting the OTP intensity, and thus Peter ends up either being confused with his younger brother (who was physically present during the disaster of an escape attempt and 'fessed up about it), or left out altogether. (I've even seen a tv series where Peter, his brother and Katte are made into the same character.)

However, as it turns out - and as mildred_of_midgard found out and chronicled in this post - there is actually a lot to learn about Peter (and his relationships) if you care to look, and I have always had a soft spot for those characters who survive a tragedy and then have to rebuild their lives from scratch, who know they might not have the great central starring role in the drama they're caught up in but do the best with the part they're given regardless, forging their own happiness. So it was my pleasure to (finally!) write the promised Peter (von) Keith story for her, for which there could only be one title:



The Boy Who Lived (5993 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century Frederician RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Peter Karl Christoph von Keith, Hans Hermann von Katte & Peter Karl Christoph von Keith, Francesco Algarotti/Peter Karl Christoph von Keith, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Peter Karl Christoph von Keith, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte, Caroline von Ansbach Queen of England, Petronella von der Schulenburg Lady Chesterfield, Francesco Algarotti, George II of Great Britain
Additional Tags: Character Study, Survivor Guilt, Angst with a Happy Ending, Exile, Escape, Jealousy
Summary:

In 1730, three young men try to escape Prussia: Crown Prince Friedrich, Hans Herrmann von Katte - and Peter von Keith. Only one of them succeeds. As Peter finds himself free (unlike Friedrich) and alive (unlike Katte), he also finds himself haunted by love and guilt while searching for a way to make his own future.

Now I had planned to write a lighthearted treat in the same fandom as well, around an idea I nicknamed in my head "Two sugar daddies, no waiting", but this year I really did not find the time. Otoh, I was spoiled as a reader both with the wonderful Voltaire and Frederick as BNFs in modern fandom AU which cahn wrote for me, and by the just as hilarious "Challenge yourrself to relax", a Corporate AU Mildred wrote for cahn in which Frederick as a CEO is only slightly less driven and dysfunctional than he was as King...but at least there are coffee mugs for his long suffering supporting cast. :)

Die Eiserne Zeit/Age of Iron is a docudrama miniseries in six parts, mainly a German-French co production originally shown at ARTE and now also available at Amazon Prime, about the 30 Years War. It tackles the extremely difficult task of getting across an international war with a myriad of different parties involved which kept changing goals over the decades in a way that's accessible to a tv audience which doesn't just consist of academics well read about 17th century Europe by providing the viewers with a couple of (historical) people whose personal stories they can follow through part or in a few cases all of the war. By and large, the series does this very well. Mind you, the first episode is by far the most stiff, possibly because two of the main people presented, the Winter King and Queen - Elizabeth Stuart (sister of Charles I) and Friedrich of the Palatinate), whose short lived rule in Prague kicks off the war along with the earlier defenestration - do not come across as interesting in the same way the characters later episodes will focus on. But I'd stll reccommend watching it, because it does explain the set up well, and also it introduces one of the charactes who make it through the entire war, all thirty years of it, mercenary Peter Altendorf, who is one of the few common soldiers able to read and write at the time and who kept a still preserved diary which is a great primary source on what the war was like on a day to day level. Altendorf was a Lutheran but fought mostly for Catholic armies; he was married twice, and his wives (and children, all of whom from his first marriage died when still babies or toddlers) were part of the army. (Especially the longer the war took, the more women tried to escape the fate of rape and murder by marrying a soldier and sticking with an army as part of the baggage trains.)

The other people we're mainly following: Peter Paul Rubens, painter, diplomat, spy (only the first two episodes), Père Joseph, Capuchin and Richelieu's top agent, Barbara Gseller, an innkeeper in Biberach who is so well documented because she'd end up denounced as a witch (some of the worst waves of witch prosecution happened during the 30 Years War in Germany) (and would as one of the very very few escape from this alive), and Anna Maria von Haugwitz, whose parents die in one of the notorious masacres of the war but who ends up marrying Swedish general Wrangel, one of the most influential and richest men to emerge from it. The usual 30 Years War VIPs like Catholic General Wallenstein or Swedish King Gustav Adolf, or Cardinal Richelieu also show up, but more in cameos; the series really tries for a middle-and-ground level perspective (except for the opening episode with the two royals). These storylines rarely intersect - when they do, it's briefly, like Rubens and Pere Joseph playing chess and trying to sound each other out in Paris, or the Swedes coming through Biberach which means Anna Maria and her husband are briefly in Barbara Gseller's inn - but they do succeed painting an intense picture and making you care what happens to these people. Hagendorf's relationship with his wives is surprisingly affectionate and partner-like - once when he's seriously wounded after a battle his wife goes plundering in his stead, for example, which is essential since that's what they live from, with regular salaries only rarely getting paid -, and there is a great poignancy in Barbara Gseller being the only one who is polite, even kind to the executioner whom no one else wants to sit near, let alone drink with when he comes into her inn, which pays off in the episode where she gets denounced, and when in the last episode after she incredibly (but not inventedly, I looked it up afterwards) has survived her trial, she sees him again, I caught my breath.

In between, you get interviews with various historians - Germans, French, Swedish - and close ups of documents as can be expected. Inevitably, there's a lot left out - for example, the entire literature that emerged from this war, so no mention of the original pre Brecht Mother Courage, the one by Grimmelshausen -, but it does give you a good idea of what the main causes and (shifting) goals of the war were and what it was like for the people caught up in it. If it's available in your area, I can reccomend it.

The other series I recently consumed was the BBC's radio dramatisation of all eight (at the time they did this, i.e. no Legacy of Spies) John Le Carré novels featuring George Smiley, from Call to the Dead to The Secret Pilgrim, with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley. I enjoyed it a lot, some installments inevitably more than others, and was fascinated by some of the choices caused by the medium. A key one was the way these dramatizations Smiley's wife Ann. In the novels, she's except for one scene in Smiley's People never there in the present day narration, but much thought about by Smiley, or recalled by him and other people. In the radio plays, she's performed by Anna Chancellor, and shows up as Head!Ann frequently in Smiley's thoughts, when she argues with him, teases or encourages him, and provides part of his inner voice. Which not only makes the inner monologues dialogues - good choice in an audio version - but also provides the elusive Ann with more dimension than "promiscous society girl". It also makes it understandable that Smiley can never quite let her go emotionally even when they are separated, and not just because Chancellor even in a voice only performance is able to get across she's charming, but because she's given emotional insight and an irreverent humor (taking its cue from real Ann telling George in their "Smiley's People" present day scene "I'm a comedian, George, I need a straight man"), and gets a lot of the best lines. (You can also tell the producers got fond of Anna Chancellor as Ann; in The Secret Pilgrim, which is told from Ned's pov and is basically a collection of short stories, only some of which feature Smiley, they included her one more time anyway by letting one of the stories be told by Ann to Ned when they're unexpectedly at the same party, instead of letting Ned come across it while sorting files.) Since much of the Le Carré universe is so very male, it also provides the stories with a female presence who neither ends up dead nor victimised nor is Connie Sachs, and all this without changing the stories themselves. (Since Ann is still mostly absent except in Smiley's head.)

Simon Russell Beale is very good in the main part, and so are the other actors, though not for the first time, I wished German characters wouldn't be portrayed by actors faking German accents when the dialogue in-story isn't in English (since Smiley is fluent, and so is Alec Leamas). Though I can forgive htis more easily in a radio version, where an accent immediately signals to the listener where the character in question is supposed to come from without this having to be described.) Listening to the stories themselves, I was struck by the fact that as early as The Looking Glass War, Le Carré had a go at the poisonous nature of British WWII nostalgia. Having finished listening, I wondered whether anyone ever wrote a Le Carré/The Americans crossover, but after some superficial checking, I don't think so. Hm. Note to self: try it, at some hypothetical point in the future when you have the time again.

I had a (happily) exhausting week travelling through the Mark Brandenburg. Now, I've just put up four extensive photo posts complete with explanations at rheinsberg, which I'll link you to, but for everyone wanting just a short overview:

( Beneath the cut, along with links to the big posts )

I continue to blame Cahn and Mildred and various debates. Also my thing for dysfunctional siblings and their messed up relationships.

Promises To Keep (3595 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia, Henry of Prussia & Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Henry of Prussia, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia & Henry of Prussia, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Augustus William of Prussia, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Other(s)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Friedrich Wilhelm I von Preußen | Frederick William I of Prussia
Additional Tags: Dysfunctional Family, Seven Years' War, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brother Feels, Survivor Guilt, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Loyalty
Summary:

It's 1758, the Seven-Years-War rages, and the royal family of Prussia is tearing itself apart. Wilhelmine, Friedrich's favourite sister, wants to reconcile the feuding brothers. But Wilhelmine is dying…

Wedding kidnappings. At least in my part of Germany. During the festivities after the wedding, the challenge is to separate the bride from the groom, whisk her away to some restaurant or pub and there, together with any other guests involved in the enterprise, drink as many drinks as you can (as long as you're not the driver, I suppose) until the groom has tracked you down, for he has to pay for them.

I was told the family legend of how my father deduced where my mother was taken to. He grabed one of the friends who he knew would know, and drove with him up and down one of the seven Bamberg hills (we're not called the Franconian Rome for nothing). My not yet Aged Parent - my parents married at age 20 and 22 respectively - didn't drink alcohol, most of their friends did, so by this fiendish method the friend got sick and ready to confess very quickly.

The first wedding kidnapping I witnessed, as a teenager, also involved my AP, this time as the kidnapper, because none of the bride's other friends managed to get a hold of the bride independentlyl from the groom. My Dad just asked her to dance and discreetly waltzed her away. Yours truly and my mother were with the groom and the other pursuers later.

Since then, I've witnessed some more bride-nappings, but not recently. Maybe the habit is dying out, and yes, obvious gender roles are obvious, why not kidnap the groom for a change, etc., but those bride-nappings I witnessed were always playful fun for everyone concerned.

The Other Days

I received two magnificent stories and am an extraordinarily happy reader.

My Yuletide gift takes place in the 'verse of Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries, focusing on his youngest sister, Dominique, and the relationship she builds with the woman she dreaded for a long time before knowing her. (To put it unspoilery for Hambly readers who haven't gotten there yet.) It's also an excellent case fic, as Dominique and Chloé solve a mystery together, and the author even included some of my other prompts, to wit, Dominique's relationship with her and Ben's older sister, Olympe, which I've often wondered about.

The Affair of the Necklace (6298 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dominique Viellard & Chloe Viellard
Characters: Dominique Viellard, Chloe Viellard, Olympe Corbier, Rose Vitrac January
Additional Tags: casefic, Mystery, Crossdressing
Summary:

Chloe Viellard had often proved herself impervious to awkwardness. When she arrived, she did not even glance towards the stairs; simply sat down in the armchair that Dominique showed her to and said, without preamble, “I have been thinking of how it might be proven who stole the Garneau jewels."

Now this story alone would have already have made my Yuletide. But then there is also the treat I received:

Counterpoint for Two Flutes (6467 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
Additional Tags: Music, Flute - Freeform, Mother Love, Healing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Mood Swings, Yuletide Treat, Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

Crown Prince Friedrich's escape attempt having failed, the King's judgment took all that the Prince loved from him, and now the Prince is languishing under house arrest, bereft of even music. Young army musician Fredersdorf finds himself trying to help the Prince in every way he can think of, no matter how small.

I'm a big, big fan of stories where people who've gone through a terrible tragedy manage to rebuild something of their shattered lives and - without forgetting the past - start to live again, slowly starting to risk new emotional relationships again. I'm also a great fan of characters, fictional and reality-based, who manage to combine kindness with being also eminently practical and competent. The relationship between Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf and Frederick II manages to find all these criteria. (Having read the correspondance, I told some friends that basically Fredesdorf strikes me as Prussian Pepper Potts, and they agreed.) This is basically the historical hurt/comfort tale of my dreams.

The archive is here, and I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the week when I'm not visiting family... but first I must reread my wonderful gifts!