Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan
Illustration — Portrait of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan, sometimes shortened to Wilhelm Jordan (8 February 1819 in Insterburg in East Prussia, now in Russia25 June 1904 in Frankfurt am Main), was a German writer and politician.
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan

The original uploader was Morty at German Wikipedia. · Allgemeine Illustrierte Zeitung, S.596 · Public domain
- Born
- 1819. · Chernyakhovsk.
- Died
- 1904. · Frankfurt.
- Nationality
- Kingdom of Prussia.
- Occupation
- poet, writer, politician, translator, aesthetician and journalist.
- Fields
- literature and journalism.
- Languages
- German.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Illustration — Portrait of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan, sometimes shortened to Wilhelm Jordan (8 February 1819 in Insterburg in East Prussia, now in Russia25 June 1904 in Frankfurt am Main), was a German writer and politician.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
No house-authored Note is published until its assertions and sources pass the VALÉORINE evidence contract. The documentary article remains available in full while that enrichment is being consolidated.
Documentary enrichment in progress · no unsupported statement published
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Evidence Panel
wikipedia incomplete · checked 25 September 2026
- Identity
- resolved
- Independent source families
- 0
- Admitted assertions
- 0
- Open conflicts
- 0
Authority files
wikidata · Q71754 · wikipedia · Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan
In this article
Life
Life
• Illustration — Wilhelm Jordan as a student in Königsberg Jordan was the son of the pastor Charles Augustus Jordan and attended gymnasiums in Gumbinnen and Tilsit. From 1838 he studied theology at the University of Königsberg and became a member of the Corps Littuania. His university friends included the liberals Rudolf von Gottschall and Ferdinand Gregorovius – Jordan and Gregorovius read out the poem of welcome on behalf of the student body at the ceremony of homage for the king and queen of Prussia. Thrilled by Feuerbach and Hegel, Jordan gave up his preacher course and switched to philosophy and the sciences. After graduating Doctor of Philosophy at the Albertus-Universität (1842) he moved to Berlin to work as a writer. In 1843 he was convicted of liberal anti-Christian writings and moved from Berlin to Leipzig, where in 1845–1846 he worked for the magazine Die begriffene Welt. He was expelled from Leipzig in 1846 for his political activities and moved to Bremen, where he worked for the Bremer Zeitung, becoming its foreign correspondent in Berlin and Paris. From 18 May 1848 to 20 May 1849 he was the liberal member for Freienwalde in the Frankfurt Parliament, which he called the "great university of my life". There he joined Heinrich von Gagern and called for a greater German Empire led by Prussia. For this reason, in a speech on 24 July 1848 in a debate about the 'Drang nach Osten', he argued against restoring an independent Polish nation state and against supporting the Polish struggle for independence. Poles, he claimed, would soon join Russians and "life and death" struggle would ensue with Germans. Jordan claimed that "German race" is superior to most of "Slavic races" and claimed that Germans have a "right of conquest" and "right of strength" over other nations naming Poles as "lesser" one. On this matter he called for a "gesunden Volksegoismus" (a healthy Volk-egoism), which quickly became a buzzword for his opponent Robert Blum and was also developed into the "national egoism" advocated by the Polish nationalist Roman Dmowski. Jordan was also on the Marinerat in the Reichshandelsministerium (Reich trade ministry) and worked on building a national fleet. After his retirement, he went on many lecture tours, popularising the Nibelungenlied among other things; one of these lectures took him to the US in 1871. On his eightieth birthday, his birthplace of Insterburg made him an honorary citizen.
List of works
List of works
• Irdische Phantasien (lyric poem, 1842) • Schaum (lyric poem, 1846) • Demiurgos (Mysterium, 1852) • Die Witwe des Agis (play, 1857) • Die Nibelungen (epic poem, 1867) • Durchs Ohr (Lustspiel, 1870) • Strophen und Stäbe (lyric poem, 1871) • Artur Arden (play, 1872) • Hildebrandts Heimkehr (epic poem, 1874) • Epische Briefe (1876) • Andachten (lyric poem, 1877) • Sein Zwillingsbruder (Lustspiel, 1883) • Tausch enttäuscht (Lustspiel, 1884) • Die Sebald (novel, 1885) • Zwei Wiegen (novel, 1887) • Feli Dora (verse novella, 1889) • Edda (translation of the Elder Edda, 1889) (republished, Arun-Verlag, Engerda 2002) • Deutsche Hiebe (lyric poem, 1891) • Die Liebesleugner (Lustspiel, 1892) • Liebe, was du lieben darfst (Lustspiel, 1892) • Letzte Lieder (lyric poem, 1892) • Demiurgos. Ein Mysterium. Sechstes Buch (1854). Leipzig 1999. Stirneriana Heft 16.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1819–1904
The full dated record · 3 entries
1819
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan was born on 8 February 1819.
1904
Dies at Frankfurt.
1904
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan died on 25 June 1904.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Chernyakhovsk.
Birth place
Frankfurt.
Death place
Publications
• Illustration — Signature as Dr. Wilhelm Jordan His literary works are rooted in 19th-century historicism and profoundly influenced by Ludwig Klages and his school friend Theodor Lessing. His plays, poems and novels are dominated by philosophical and scientific ideas. His main work was his Nibelungen-Epos, written in Stabreim (alliterative verse) - in it, he used the Old Norse saga of the same name and the Lay of Hildebrand as his main sources but subjected the action to a time-related psychological interpretation. In the 19th century he was often seen (in the words of René Simon Taube) as "a precursor of Nietzsche and pioneer of Darwin in Germany". Today his work is little-known, except for his 'mysterium' Demiurgos and his translation of the Elder Edda, both still in use due to their sensitive language and epic depth. His Demiurgos cannot, as is generally claimed, be considered as the "first serious biography of Max Stirner". It is more of a literary sketch rather than a biographical account of Stirner's life, especially since he is only mentioned in one section rather than throughout the work.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
institutional register
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q71754: Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan
Unverified · Wikimedia Foundation
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Wikidata, structured authority record Q71754: Carl Friedrich Wilhelm JordanWikimedia Foundation
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
38,558 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Carl EwaldAuthor
- Carl Ferdinand AllenAuthor
- Carl Friedrich von RumohrAuthor
- Carl Friedrich von WeizsäckerAuthor
- Carl Frode TillerAuthor
- Carl Gustaf af LeopoldAuthor
- Carl Gustaf TessinAuthor
- Carl Gustaf von BrinkmanAuthor
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.