Frederick II of Prussia

1755-1757 at the country estate in Weinzierl, Vienna. It just so happened around the same time of the year when quartet music began to rise in popularity, the String Quartets, Op. 50 composed by Joseph Haydn in 1787 was dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia. He was an amateur cellist, that became interested in Haydn’s work. The quartet was also performed many times in the history, such as at the Viennese apartment of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia’s wife on the Christmas Day of 1781.…

regards to political powers, the Swiss Confederacy and United Provinces of the Netherlands were now recognized, by law, as being independent. Furthermore, Brandenburg-Prussia emerged as a powerful German state, despite the suffering it faced throughout the course of the Thirty Years’ War. That said, by granting Brandenburg-Prussia status as a powerful state, the Treaty of Westphalia further encouraged the fractions and disunity of Germany. The Thirty Years’ War concluded with recognition of the…

Her Imperial Highness Catherine II was Russia’s longest reigning Empress, having risen from minor German nobility to ruler of the Russian Empire. Centuries after her eventful rule, Catherine II is commonly known as Catherine the Great. In Russia’s history, only three monarchs have been awarded this title; the most famous being Peter the Great, the father of Catherine’s predecessor, Empress Elizabeth. For Peter, being awarded the title of “Great” was based on his combat prowess combined with…

Leonhard Euler was a famous eighteenth century physicist who was responsible for developing many concepts that are now part of modern mathematics. He is acknowledged for many of the articles and books that he wrote over his lifetime. Leonhard was one of the top mathematics of the eighteenth century and the greatest mathematician to come out of Switzerland (Leonhard Euler Biography n.pag). Leonhard Euler was born on April 15, 1707 in Basel Switzerland. His parents were Paul Euler and Marguerite…

Admiration for the policies instituted by the English Revolution was noted by the French as early as 1782 when the French foreign minister noted that England “in its constitution and in the establishments which it has permitted her to form, resources which are lacking to us.” (B. Stone, p. 14). The French minister further laments about English “advantages which our monarchical forms do not accord us (B. Stone, p. 14). Louis XVI’s reign of France from 1774 to 1792 was characterized by financial…

Catherine the Great Catherine the Great, Yekaterina Alekseyevna in Russian, was bound to the heir to the Russian throne at the young age of 14. Sophie Friederike Auguste Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst was a German- born princess. At the beginning of her reign, she overthrew her husband Peter after he began cheating on her. Now without Peter she accomplished several things for Russia and was a principal leader of the Russian Royal Family. Being born German and ruled Russian Catherine the Great is a…

The Enlightenment lacked spontaneity and it was rather a result of the few individuals who viewed society through a lens that was not exclusively related to Christian teachings and greatly contributed to the development of reason. There a wide variety of philosophes who contributed to the debates on liberty; however, the French philosopher, Voltaire (née François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778), is among the most influential of the philosophes. As a member of the Moderate Enlightenment, Voltaire…

Louis XVI reigned France from 1174 to 1792 and was characterized by financial instability. However, the lack of wealth was not depicted in the lifestyle of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The royals and the nobility were living in wealth and due to an unfair tax system, only the poor paid taxes. Furthermore, two decades of poor grain harvests, drought, and increasing bread prices had started unrest among peasants. A number of ill-advised financial maneuvers in the late 1700s worsened the…

War throughout history has been limited as opposed to absolute. Limited war by its nature is the opposite of absolute war, and absolute war is a theory that fails as a construct. This essay discusses the two groups or types of war (absolute and limited) and the category subsets of those two groups that Carl von Clausewitz first discussed in his treatise On War. Categories of war, as defined by Carl von Clausewitz, are absolute war, ideal war, limited war, real war, war to disarm the enemy, war…

For almost all of the last 1200 years, Central Europe has been a multiethnic space governed by overlapping political entities. We usually don 't think of it that way, because the Cold War created a new dichotomy o (advanced, democratic) Western Europe and (feudal, primitive, totalitarian) Eastern Europe, even though Vienna is about 150 miles southeast of Prague. Even before the Cold War, Central Europe had gotten a bad rap, since historians touted the nation-state as the teleological endpoint of…