Talk:Alexander the Great vs Ivan the Terrible/Rap Meanings/@comment-62.154.225.234-20160718152016

The "first servant of [the] state" does not refer to Frederik being the first king of Prussia, but to his philosophical beliefs. Federik saw himself in the tradition of the enlightenment and cultivated what he called "enlightened absolutism". While not consistently applied to many areas, this was a significant break from medieval, feudalistic traditions. Frederik did not see himself as a a ruler whom everyone had to server, but instead lifted the ideal of "the state" above himself and declared himself to be the first (as in: has more duty than everybody else) "servant" of this ideal.

This concept was quite groundbreaking, and deserves to be explained properly in the list.