strix alba (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strix_alba) wrote2016-10-29 01:37 pm
strix_alba) wrote2016-10-29 01:37 pm
Entry tags:
sidhebeingbrand: holmesianpose: annicron: henryiiofficial: gl...
via http://ift.tt/2e89wzB:
sidhebeingbrand:
holmesianpose:
annicron:
henryiiofficial:
glitteringgoldie:
if u ever get disheartened just remember people in the 19th Century were painting hot Napoleon/Tsar Alexander boyfriend yowz before our great-grandparents were even conceived
annicron I thought of you
THANK YOU i had been thinking of this post and how to find it again
OMG IS THIS REAL????
Oh hey this one may be right up your alley? When it comes to history I am a Filthy Casual, but I do know sort of why Napoleon and Tsar Alexander’s relationship was a thing in the public collective?
So Alexander was still in his ‘young sexy aristocratic-but-liberal’ phase in the early 1800s. He runs hot and cold on Napoleon until ‘04 Napoleon straight up execute the Duke of Enghien on shoestring evidence, horrifies Europe (again), and Alexander decides to Fight this French Shit-Starting Shit-Starter with all he has.
Meanwhile Napoleon would still really, really like Russia on his side, since sweeping reform is his jam and Russia is a pain in the ass to fight let alone try to annex, so he stays as friendly to Alexander as he possibly can while fighting a war against him. He opens negotiations, gets knocked down, gets up again, etc.
Alexander is having none of it, decides it’s his divine whatever to fight Napoleon, ignores everyone who tells him ‘Yo the French might be about to kick our asses, maybe neutrality?’ To which he answers ‘no, the Prussians and I will never get our asses kicked because God and the peace of Europe and I am young dumb and invincible.’
Then Alexander does indeed get his ENTIRE ass handed to him at the Battle of Friedland (aka the rout of Friedland), and sort of sheepishly decides to make peace. Napoleon soaks Prussia for all the territory they’re worth, but he’s still got his eye on a Russian alliance and he knows that Alexander is still young (30, at the time) and has big dreams. So: instead of twisting Russia’s arm he shows up with flowers and a box of chocolates and says ‘I know we’ve had our differences but I never forgot, let’s be allies’
Which brings us to 1807 and the treaty of Tilsit, conducted on a raft in the middle of a river.
IN SUMMARY:
Young firebrand hotty
His best frenemy Napoleon, they had a Thing but Alexander tearfully swears it’s over
Alexander SOMEHOW DEFEATED? UNPOSSIBLE
Napoleon gracious in his victory
Alexander welcomed into his arms, the exes reuniting
If you’re picturing a scene in a manga I promise you so were the French propagandists. This whole making-peace-on-a-raft caught the public imagination and illustrators got very invested in the idea of this classical romantic male friendship™ between Alexander and Napoleon. Partially this was because the French really hoped that the alliance would stick because fighting in Russia -sucks- and part of it I’m pretty sure was just that people have always, always, in all of the history of mankind, been into celebrity gossip and celebrity romances.
This is why during the period you get illustrations of it ranging from ‘intense eye contact over a treaty’ to ‘passionate continental kissing’. The word ‘brotherhood’ probably got thrown around a lot. Mentions of the intense friendship pop up in a Tale of Two Cities and Lord Hornblower (written 50 and 130 years later respectively) and that’s just the books I know? The narrative stuck, is what I’m saying.
But CONTEMPORARILY:
I don’t have a lock on the French or Russian mores in the early 19th century, and I can’t tell you how many of these artists privately sketched some naked followup illustrations and how many were thinking about sanitized non!gay Greek shenanigans. My gut tells me that if collective RPF fandom had been a Thing, the super popular tropes would be ‘Napoleon saves Alexander from peril’ and ‘Napoleon nurses Alexander back to health’ with a smattering of ‘Napoleon and Alexander United take over the world and everything is perfect’ and ‘they break up but UNITE AGAIN on another raft’.
I’m also imagining an 100K epic adventure h/c fic where maybe there was a lion (yes in the middle of a Russian forest shut up guys don’t like don’t read) that kills Alexander’s horse and Napoleon singlehandedly kills it and together they make their way back to civilization while IDK being captured by a cyclops and having other unlikely adventures. 1 million hits, 60K kudos, lots of fanart.
In conclusion though: yes, for a few years there Alexander and Napoleon being bosom companions was very much a thing, though it would take a less cazh historian (POSSIBLY YOU?!) to figure whether the popular notion was SanitizedGreeks or SodomyGreeks or whether the difference particularly mattered to people at the time.
(And in the end It all kind of fell apart. Alas. #it all ends on elba, #never forgotten, #angst.)
sidhebeingbrand:
holmesianpose:
annicron:
henryiiofficial:
glitteringgoldie:
if u ever get disheartened just remember people in the 19th Century were painting hot Napoleon/Tsar Alexander boyfriend yowz before our great-grandparents were even conceived
annicron I thought of you
THANK YOU i had been thinking of this post and how to find it again
OMG IS THIS REAL????
Oh hey this one may be right up your alley? When it comes to history I am a Filthy Casual, but I do know sort of why Napoleon and Tsar Alexander’s relationship was a thing in the public collective?
So Alexander was still in his ‘young sexy aristocratic-but-liberal’ phase in the early 1800s. He runs hot and cold on Napoleon until ‘04 Napoleon straight up execute the Duke of Enghien on shoestring evidence, horrifies Europe (again), and Alexander decides to Fight this French Shit-Starting Shit-Starter with all he has.
Meanwhile Napoleon would still really, really like Russia on his side, since sweeping reform is his jam and Russia is a pain in the ass to fight let alone try to annex, so he stays as friendly to Alexander as he possibly can while fighting a war against him. He opens negotiations, gets knocked down, gets up again, etc.
Alexander is having none of it, decides it’s his divine whatever to fight Napoleon, ignores everyone who tells him ‘Yo the French might be about to kick our asses, maybe neutrality?’ To which he answers ‘no, the Prussians and I will never get our asses kicked because God and the peace of Europe and I am young dumb and invincible.’
Then Alexander does indeed get his ENTIRE ass handed to him at the Battle of Friedland (aka the rout of Friedland), and sort of sheepishly decides to make peace. Napoleon soaks Prussia for all the territory they’re worth, but he’s still got his eye on a Russian alliance and he knows that Alexander is still young (30, at the time) and has big dreams. So: instead of twisting Russia’s arm he shows up with flowers and a box of chocolates and says ‘I know we’ve had our differences but I never forgot, let’s be allies’
Which brings us to 1807 and the treaty of Tilsit, conducted on a raft in the middle of a river.
IN SUMMARY:
Young firebrand hotty
His best frenemy Napoleon, they had a Thing but Alexander tearfully swears it’s over
Alexander SOMEHOW DEFEATED? UNPOSSIBLE
Napoleon gracious in his victory
Alexander welcomed into his arms, the exes reuniting
If you’re picturing a scene in a manga I promise you so were the French propagandists. This whole making-peace-on-a-raft caught the public imagination and illustrators got very invested in the idea of this classical romantic male friendship™ between Alexander and Napoleon. Partially this was because the French really hoped that the alliance would stick because fighting in Russia -sucks- and part of it I’m pretty sure was just that people have always, always, in all of the history of mankind, been into celebrity gossip and celebrity romances.
This is why during the period you get illustrations of it ranging from ‘intense eye contact over a treaty’ to ‘passionate continental kissing’. The word ‘brotherhood’ probably got thrown around a lot. Mentions of the intense friendship pop up in a Tale of Two Cities and Lord Hornblower (written 50 and 130 years later respectively) and that’s just the books I know? The narrative stuck, is what I’m saying.
But CONTEMPORARILY:
I don’t have a lock on the French or Russian mores in the early 19th century, and I can’t tell you how many of these artists privately sketched some naked followup illustrations and how many were thinking about sanitized non!gay Greek shenanigans. My gut tells me that if collective RPF fandom had been a Thing, the super popular tropes would be ‘Napoleon saves Alexander from peril’ and ‘Napoleon nurses Alexander back to health’ with a smattering of ‘Napoleon and Alexander United take over the world and everything is perfect’ and ‘they break up but UNITE AGAIN on another raft’.
I’m also imagining an 100K epic adventure h/c fic where maybe there was a lion (yes in the middle of a Russian forest shut up guys don’t like don’t read) that kills Alexander’s horse and Napoleon singlehandedly kills it and together they make their way back to civilization while IDK being captured by a cyclops and having other unlikely adventures. 1 million hits, 60K kudos, lots of fanart.
In conclusion though: yes, for a few years there Alexander and Napoleon being bosom companions was very much a thing, though it would take a less cazh historian (POSSIBLY YOU?!) to figure whether the popular notion was SanitizedGreeks or SodomyGreeks or whether the difference particularly mattered to people at the time.
(And in the end It all kind of fell apart. Alas. #it all ends on elba, #never forgotten, #angst.)