Frederick II or the Great of Prussia

choi

Germany in the 18th century | Prussian and Powerful; What made Frederick great?  Economist, Sept 12, 2015
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... ussian-and-powerful
(book review on Tim Blanning, Frederick the Great; King of Prussia. Allen Lane 2015 or Random House 2016)

Note:
(a) "FREDERICK II of Prussia * * * played music with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, debated with Voltaire * * * transforming Prussia from a mere ‘sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire’ into a great power. * * * he despised religion as a farrago of nonsense, avoided court life, doffed his hat to ordinary Prussians and encouraged inoculation against smallpox.
(i) Frederick II or the Great (1712 – 1786; reign 1740-1786))
(ii) Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Philipp_Emanuel_Bach
(1714 – 1788; initials: CPEB; a son of Johann Sebastian Bach [the father being the one we all know about])
(iii)
(A) Voltaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
([birth name:] François-Marie Arouet; 1694 – 1778; section 1.1 The name "Voltaire": The name "Voltaire," which the author adopted in 1718, is an anagram of "AROVET LI," the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of "le jeune" ("the young") [footnote])
(B) The Encyclopaedia Britannica; A dictionary of arts, science, and general literature. 9th ed. Vol 24. New York: The Henry G Allen Co 1890, at page 285
https://books.google.com/books?i ... eune%22&f=false
("The origin of the famous name has been much debated * * * The balance of opinion has, however, always inclined to the hypothesis of an anagram on the name 'Arouet le jeune,' or 'Arouet l j,' u being changed to v and j to i according to the ordinary rule of the game”)
(iv) Philip S Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution; Calvinism and the rise of the state in early modern Europe. University of Chicago Press, 2003, at pages 80-81
https://books.google.com/books?i ... 0Empire&f=false
(“The Peculiar Character of the Prussian State [section heading:] Most scholars of early modern state-building would agree that the Prussian state was unusual in certain ways and perhaps even unique. But it is important to be clear at the outset about how it was unusual. For one thing, the size of its army -- 83,000 men as of 1740 -- set it apart from its peers.  Only four European countries -- France, England, Russia, and Austria -- had larger land forces at this time. The size of the Prussian army is even more striking when one considers the size of the Prussian population and the character of the Prussian economy. With its 2.2 million inhabitants, Prussia was a good deal smaller than the other land powers and only a little bit bigger than the other Imperial Electorates (Kurfürstentümer) -- the seven German principalities that elected the German emperor.  In fact, in per capita terms, Prussia supports a (relatively) larger army than any other country in Europe, large or small.  This would be less remarkable if Prussia had possessed a vibrant commercial economy, such as the Netherlands or England. But it did not. In fact, its economy was actually quite backward. Even as late as 1800, commerce and manufacture made up less than 5 percent of Prussia's national income. Nor was the agricultural sector particularly productive; the soil in Brandenburg was so poor that the Electorate  was sometimes derided as the sandbox of the Holy Roman Empire") (footnote omitted)
(v) farrago (n)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/farrago

choi

(b) “He had a low opinion of both Shakespeare and Goethe [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)]. * * * He was also a bundle of contradictions. He wrote a vigorous treatise, ‘Against Machiavelli,’ enjoining kings to be peacemakers. Less than three months after it was published he invaded a neighbouring state, Silesia. * * * The only creatures he really liked were dogs, in particular his Italian greyhounds: he invented the phrase “a dog is a man’s best friend” and left orders that he should be buried in a tomb next to his dogs, instructions that were finally fulfilled, after a long odyssey, in 1991.”
(i) Silesia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesia
(now located mostly in Poland; Most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia in 1742; section 1 Etymology)
(ii) The Tomb of Frederick the Great
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tomb_of_Frederick_the_Great

German English dictionary
* Weinberghäuschen: not found in dictionaries
* Weinberg (noun masculine): “vineyard”
* Häuschen (noun neuter; Haus + -chen): "small house"  (a dictionary has "cottage")
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Häuschen

choi

(c) “Frederick built a baroque pleasure palace in Potsdam called Sanssouci
(i) Sanssouci
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanssouci
(built between 1745 and 1747; French phrase (sans souci))
(ii) French English dictionary
souci (noun masculine): "worry, concern"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/souci

(d) “his father. Frederick William I [1688–1740; reign 1713-1740] was a monster * * * [who] later forced him to marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick Wolfenbüttel-Bevern * * * This anti-father fixation put the great into Frederick. But it also turned him into a brute who bullied his siblings just as he had been bullied himself and turned his most talented brother, Henry, into an implacable enemy.
(i) Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El ... f_Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern
(a daughter of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg)
(ii) Wolfenbüttel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenbüttel
(about 13 kilometres south of Brunswick)
(iii) Bevern, Lower Saxony
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevern,_Lower_Saxony
(Bevern Palace, located in town, was in the 17th and 18th centuries the residence of a cadet line of the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, known as Brunswick-Bevern)

(e) “Goebbels commissioned portraits of the three architects of the Reich: Hitler, Frederick and Bismarck.”

Joseph Goebbels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels