ETA: If you want to play, please post new threads rather than replying to this one!
Truly, what holiday is better worth celebrating in a history community than a día de los muertos?
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AskHistorians goes to the ghosts as "r/AskHistoricalFigures"!
We encourage you to post AND answer questions as people of the past. Novelty accounts welcome! (Or you can just post with your main account, and tell us in the post whether you are asking/answering in character).
A few guidelines:
Keep your answers accurate and reasonably comprehensive, lest you make the mods cosplay as the Inquisition
Take this chance to think about history through the eyes of people besides Hitler.
...Really, just avoid taking on the mantle of Nazis (&c) or figures who are the focus of a major world religion
And thus...bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!
So, /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov, how useful would it have been to still have me around come June 22, 1941? ...and would that have interfered with your eventual career path?
EDIT: Ok, the post is finally up here.
As a declaration in advance so people have an idea of what questions might be answerable from me, here's the accounts I'm running today:
Here's the accounts I'm running for the event, if anyone want to ask about the periods the long departed are from
Well hello there, o Great Emperor of Great Qinq! Say you had your heart broken by a girl, and no earthly power can make this right. Do you have somebody to confide in on this private matter?
Also, what did you ate today and why was it the most exquisite meal you, the Great Emperor, had in your whole life?
Hey Benjamin Franklin, what’s your favorite beer and which one should I make next?
Stealing the idea from u/EnclavedMicrostate, here are my resurrected dead!
Historical Musicology:
/u/GiuseppeGuarneri, maker of some of the best instruments in his age, often left aside because Stradivari was more famous.
/u/HerrRichardWagner, the king of opera.
International Relations, Geopolitics and Policy, with a bit of a feminist and post-structuralist twist
/u/JuanaAzurduy, warrior, commander, lover, forgotten by her native country, her adoptive country, but not by me. One of the people responsible for the formation of several South American countries.
/u/M_Gilles_Deleuze, philosopher of freedom, Spinoza's biggest fan, proposer of one of the most important contemporary critiques to the concept of sovereignty.
/u/M_Michel_Foucault, yet another philosopher of freedom, the only post-structuralist who actually posed that structures were essentially inescapable. He fundamentally challenged every traditional notion of power, forcing the IR community to rethink many given discourses of power and truth about geopolitics.
Just to be clear, do we also have to ask as a historical figure, or can we just ask as ourselves? I notice most people have assumed you have to role-play in both asking and answering, but I don't know anybody well enough to take on their mantle, even for just a question.
We hereby decree that any and all questions relating to The King be directed to /u/Henry_V_Rex.
Novelty accounts are slightly too much work, so here's my character set:
Chief Jose Maria, died in battle in 1836, ally of the Texan Revolution
Manuel Alegre, former "Mission Indian", underwent repeated relapse until eventual abandonment. Active 1770s-1790s.
Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores y Viana, a missionary leader and advocate for the goodness of his native wards. Active 1746-17?? (1760s or 1770s, source does not seem to provide a specific year or decade, only the continuing record of the mission he founded)
Captain Rabago, an immoral soldier who antagonized the natives under his control at the missions and despised his post as a mission guard altogether. Flourished 1750s.
Orta, a Karankawa woman who married one of Jean Lafitte's pirates. Here to be used as a proxy for general Karankawa women broadly, as well as her own specific experiences.
Ka, a Karankawa medicine man who married a woman in Lafitte's company. Here to be used as a proxy for Karankawa clergy, and also his own specific experiences.
Kwash, a Karankawa hunter of the mid-19th century who had positive(ish) interactions with Texian homesteads. Here to be used as a proxy for Karankawa common men, as well as for his own particular experiences (and similar positive encounters between settlers and natives in the 19th century Texas coastal region)
EDIT: Apart from these specific, relatively obscure people and the specific, relatively obscure Karankawa, these historical figures can be used as proxies to ask about many things re: indigenous peoples of Texas, intertribal relations, trade; alternatively, mission life for natives, priests, and guards. These are just examples, of course, of the sorts of questions these characters could answer - they are obscure on a personal level, but deal with big topics.
Giovanni Alvise Falier (Senior Undersecretary to the Savi di Terraferma, Nobil Homo, Knight of the Senate, member of the Order of the Golden Stole, pluri-reccomendee to the order of St. Mark) at your service!
I will try to find the time to answer questions on topics that are familiar to me (I cannot say I understand all the things I read on this contraption; what is a Dinosaur, and who is this Lenin fellow?) but nonetheless I cannot guarantee my availability, as I am very busy at the present time. The committee of the Savi di Terraferma have seen it fit to appoint me to the extremely prestigious post of Podestà of the city and province of Belluno (the eight-most important post on the Terraferma) and I am making preparations for my arrival sometime before the spring rains in 1661.
How I came to be so such a prestigious opportunity is interesting. A dear colleague in the Terraferma subcomittee staff, Marco Fradello, whose courageous service in his uncle's secretarial office during the Candian War undoubtably mark him a war hero, made a few humorous and irreverent comments about my own lack of military experience at such a dire time in our conflict defending our dear overseas possessions against the horrid Turk, delicately presenting his aside in the presence of the chief Savo who unfortunately appeared to absorb the comments a little too earnestly. Instead of retorting that perhaps the prestige of the senior Fradello's ennobling and appointment to the Senate for heroism directing soldiery during the Siege of Candia might not quite carry the same implications of service to the Republic that three Doges in your lineage do (as is incidentally the case with the Faledri, even if one of them was beheaded for treason) instead I made the woeful error of proclaiming myself willing to accept any post for the good of the Republic. It would seem this declaration was taken very seriously.
While initially the committee had envisioned my reassignment to the bureau of the Stato da Mar, where I would deal in naval procurement and be based on the positively charming island of Corfù, I privately divulged that given our fleet's glorious victories in the Aegean perhaps my skills were not immediately needed by the Stato da Mar and I could best serve our most serene Republic dealing in topics of mainland administration that have so occupied my brilliant and high-profile career up to this point. Thus I now find myself assigned this wonderful opportunity to learn the minutiae of administrating our mainland's eight-most-important province.
In such an important and prestigious turn of my career, I will administer invigorating topics like dairy procurement from Belluno to Venice, inland river navigability, the transmission of tax revenues from the province to the capital, and addressing the grievances of the sophisticated and cultured local council. This appointment might even reveal to have more positive benefits than anticipated: My eldest son is of age for the naval lottery, but I believe he could best serve the Republic in an administrative capacity, as I do believe he takes after me in his predispositions. Unfortunately, he does not take after me in academic predispositions, but rather predisposition of constitution and social interests. In spite of years of tutoring (along with the expenditure of outrageous sums of money) in the past few months I have not been able to find a Maestrum in Padua willing to take him on and instruct him in some academic field or other (the potential field of study is unimportant, while his plausible reason for departure from Venice on the other hand is a matter of some more urgency; for the benefit of his education, of course). Fortunately, I can now employ his services in some capacity or other in the Podestal palace of Belluno, in the interest of preparing him for an administrative career (or preparing him for academia should this war still be going on, as the rigors of serving the Republic understandably require more preparation in times of crisis).
My daughter also presents a somewhat delicate issue. She is of fragile constitution (like my wife) and I do not know how the mountain air will agree with her. Unfortunately, I cannot leave her at the house in Venice, as she is of marrying age and I cannot risk her falling in with one of these dashing rapscallion recently ennobled for an act of foolhardiness in Candia. To make matters worse, cousins of my wife in Belluno have already written and unfortunately expect to host us until the Podestal Palace is freed of its old residents (who happens to be the good Francesco Zorzi, whom I am well acquainted with, as I am acquainted with all men of good standing rising through the ranks in the Republic). This would not be an issue, as she is a Brembo, who like the Falier are an ancient and prestigious dynasty deeply rooted in all parts of the Republic, however it would seem that these Brembi of Belluno have an unmarried son and have stated his express desire to "make a life in Venice."
As you can see, my life presents me with troubling issues at the present moment. However, as I have already expressed my willingness and desire to offer my thoughts to the readers here, I cannot retract my appealing offer of divulging the opinions of a high-level functionary of the Most Serene Republic on this, what did you say it's called? Ah, Website.