Peter III and Catherine the Great

[NovaKart]

I'm not very knowledgable about Russian history at all but I watched the movie The Scarlet Empress (1934) last night and I could tell that it didn't much care about historical accuracy but I was curious if their portrayal of Peter III was accurate. He was shown to be creepy and a grinning idiot type and also rather sadistic.

Wikipedia doesn't really clear up the issue much. According to wikipedia he was portrayed this way by Catherine the Great in her memoirs which was the historical viewpoint of him for a long time but more recent historians have questioned this.

I knew Catherine the Great had many lovers but according to wikipedia she had many lovers even before Peter died and I was a bit surprised it was tolerated. Did they generally have such a permissive attitude in Russia at the time?

Any thoughts on this overall subject?

 

[Dachs]

Pyotr III was pretty creepy. Like Yekaterina's son Pavel, he also had an unfortunate obsession with military drill, which led him into a man crush on army martinet types in general and Friedrich II in particular. Maybe two-thirds of the post facto depiction of Pyotr is true, and the rest of it is incoherent nationalistic twattery made up by a bunch of Russians who have an unrealistic bug up their collective ass about the way the Seven Years' War ended. I can elaborate if you want.

I could tell you significantly less about Yekaterina's love life, although it is true that it was...extensive, although probably not as extensive as the rumors claim. I imagine that at least a third of that stuff, probably more, is the misogynistic assumption that, if a powerful woman listens to the advice of a male advisor, the only reason she's doing so is because he's totally boning her. You run into that a lot with the Byzantine empress Eirene and even with Victoria.

 

[Tee Kay]

This actually calls for a Historical Filth article.

 

[Lone Wolf]

There had been attempts by some liberal Russian historians to rehabilitate Peter the III. They come partially from criticism of the memoirs of Catherine and her friends - duchess Dashkova and Bolotnikov the enlightenment thinker - and partially from a desire to one-up the conservative Russian historians.

These liberal historians like to point on Peter's Manifest of Noblemen's Freedom, which, they claim, laid ground for the liberal nobles of Russian enlightenment and, later, early 19th century.

 

[aronnax]

Was Peter III, the monarch that kidnapped tall people for his own personal brigade of really tall men?

 

[Dachs]

That would be Friedrich Wilhelm I.

 

[Traitorfish]

What was that whole Gotta Catch Em All thing that 18th century monarchs had with tall soldiers, anyway? Did it at any point serve any practical use, or was it just because they looked more impressive?

 

[Joecoolyo]

What was that whole Gotta Catch Em All thing that 18th century monarchs had with tall soldiers, anyway? Did it at any point serve any practical use, or was it just because they looked more impressive?

Fighting a guy a whole head taller than you sounds pretty damn scary.

 

[LightSpectra]

The Potsdamer Riesengarde, in addition to being the best basketball team that existed before basketball, also had a similar effect on morale as any other elite unit in military history (the Persian Immortals, 1st SS Division Leibstandarte-Adolf Hitler, La Vieille Garde, the Janissary corps, et al.): although excellent for the critical attack in a large operation, they're primarily there to as an idealized unit, something for footmen to aspire to and for the enemy to dread. How much more effective they were in actual combat is debatable.

 

[fing0lfin]

What was that whole Gotta Catch Em All thing that 18th century monarchs had with tall soldiers, anyway? Did it at any point serve any practical use, or was it just because they looked more impressive?

They could handle muzzle-loading rifles/muskets easier. But actualy the Potsdam grenadiers weren't a formidable fighting force and saw little combat action.

 

[say1988]

What was that whole Gotta Catch Em All thing that 18th century monarchs had with tall soldiers, anyway? Did it at any point serve any practical use, or was it just because they looked more impressive?

It wasn't an 18th century thing. They just put it most into practice. Today, there are height restrictions on soldiers serving in the Korean Joint Security area.

It follows the logical assumption that bigger (not fat) means stronger, more powerful and more impressive.

 

[Lord Baal]

It wasn't an 18th century thing. They just put it most into practice. Today, there are height restrictions on soldiers serving in the Korean Joint Security area.

It follows the logical assumption that bigger (not fat) means stronger, more powerful and more impressive.

And more difficult to fit into a tank, car or fox-hole, requiring more food, more cloth for clothing, more leather for boots, etc..