Karl Friedrich Köppen (26 April 1808 – 26 April 1863) was a German teacher and political journalist. He was one of the
Young Hegelians
The Young Hegelians (), or Left Hegelians (''Linkshegelianer''), or the Hegelian Left (''die Hegelsche Linke''), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1831, reacted to an ...
.
Life
Köppen was born in a pastor's family in Nieder-Görne, a small municipality in the
Altmark
:''See German tanker Altmark for the ship named after Altmark and Stary Targ for the Polish village named Altmark in German.''
The Altmark (; English: Old MarchHansard, ''The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time ...'', Vo ...
. He studied theology at the
University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.
The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...
from 1827 to 1831, but later turned to religio-critical
Hegelianism
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
. After his studies and military service in 1833, he taught at the secondary school Dorotheenstädtischer. In 1837, he met
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, with whom he developed a close friendship.
In 1840 he became one of the most active associates of
Arnold Ruge, the founder of the ''Hallischen Jahrbücher'' (1841: ''Deutsche Jahrbücher''). He wrote many reviews on political and scientific literature. Contemporary journalistic practice has been strongly influenced by his opinions reviews. He thus began a renewal of the Enlightenment as Köppen's criticism of classical literature, idealist philosophy and Romanticism. Köppen's views were deeply indebted to Karl Marx and he dedicated his book ''Frederick the Great and his Opponents'' to Marx.
He died in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
.
Works
*''Literarische Einleitung in die nordische Mythologie''. Berlin: Bechtold und Hartje, 1837
*
Friedrich der Große und seine Widersacher'. Leipzig: Verlag Otto Wigand, 1840
*''Die Religion des Buddha''. 2 vol., Berlin: F. Schneider 1857–1859
Vol. 1, Die Religion des Buddha und ihre EntstehungVol. 2, Die lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche
*''Hexen und Hexenprozesse. Zur Geschichte des Aberglaubens und des inquisitorischen Prozesses''. 2. Aufl., Leipzig: O. Wigand, 1858
*''Ausgewählte Schriften''. edited by Heinz Pepperle. 2 vol., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2003
References
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
*Hirsch, Helmut (1936). Zur Genesis der Karl Friedrich Köppen-Forschung. Ein unverzichtbarer Rechenschaftsbericht. In: Lars Lambrecht (ed.): ''Philosophie, Literatur und Politik vor den Revolutionen von 1848''. Zur Herausbildung der demokratischen Bewegungen in Europa (= Forschungen zum Junghegelianismus. Vol. 1), P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 355-. ISBN 3-631-30567-2
*Mode, H. (1978). C. F. Köppen, Pioneer of German Buddhist Research. A Friend of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In: ''The Maha Bodhi. International Buddhist Monthly''. Calcutta 1/1978
*Schmidt, Walter (1986)
Karl Friedrich Köppen, Friedrich Engels und die Terreur in der Großen Französischen Revolution
In: ''Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung 26'', 15–23. ISSN 0232-8577
*Marchand, S. (2023). "On Buddhist Studies in Nineteenth-Century Germany". In ''Learning from the West, Learning from the East''. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp 253–283
External links
in the catalog of the German National Library
The German National Library (DNB; ) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehens ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koppen, Karl Friedrich
1808 births
1863 deaths
19th-century German philosophers
Hegelian philosophers
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni