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Frederick the Great

King · Prussian · 18th c.

King of Prussia (1712–1786). An Enlightened absolute monarch who declared "the king is the first servant of the state." In the Seven Years' War he resisted the combined forces of Austria, France, and Russia to keep Silesia. A patron of arts and letters who corresponded with Voltaire, he is the paradigmatic figure of the tension between Enlightenment ideals and the demands of power.