FeaturesHistoryInsight

Looking for a lost Queen's grave in Berlin

In Berlin, there is a missing queen. Her burial place in the historic Hohenzollerngruft [Hohenzollern vault] in Berlin Cathedral is disputed and may be lost. Elisabeth Christine, Frederick II’s (‘the Great’) unloved queen was a victim of historical banishment, in Frederick’s lifetime at least. Metaphorically, she remains in his shadow. Unlike the husband she revered, Elisabeth…
Read more
FeaturesHistoryInsight

A King's last journey

Frederick II, accorded the epithet ‘the Great’ already during his own lifetime, had in fact, a whole other life after death, aside from his legacy. The great King’s legend stalks the eighteenth century like a gigantic historic shadow, much as the oversize silhouette of…
FeaturesHistory

Royal dog letters

Frederick II, King ‘in’ Prussia, upon whom was bestowed the celebrated sobriquet of ‘the Great’ in his lifetime, was in his own words ‘a philosopher and want[ed] to be buried as such…” This was eventually carried out in 1991, in accordance with his wishes…
FeaturesHistory

Looking for a lost Queen in Berlin: Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia

Today, Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia (1715-1797) enjoys a kind of historical exile, banished to footnotes and paragraphs amidst the mountainous body of biographical material which exists about her exalted husband, Frederick II, King of Prussia, already christened ‘the Great’ by contemporary Europe and whom she prided herself on having been married to. It is a sad echo of the type of…
Read more