Wilson Collection: Karl Kertbeny and Karl Ulrichs

(Partial translation: [Hungarian poet] Petofi’s Death Thirty Years Ago in 1849…Historical-Literary Data and Discoveries Compiled by K.M. Kertbeny, 1880)

Under construction.

Karl Kertbeny and Karl Ulrichs

Viennese writer Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the word “Homosexualität” (“homosexuality”).[1] He debuted it publicly in his 1869 pamphlet calling for homosexual emancipation. He first used it in an 1868 private letter to a German journalist named Ulrichs. He also coined the word “Heterosexualität” (heterosexuality).[2]

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs dared to “come out” publicly. “With [his] breast pounding,” he did it before an audience of German jurists in 1867.[3] In mid-century he published pamphlets defending what he termed “Urning” (or in English, “Uranian”) love, a concept inspired by Plato's Symposium.[4][5]

Ulrichs denounced “despotic majorities” who oppress minorities.[6] Jailed for his homosexual-rights activism, he declared, “I am an insurgent. I rebel against the existing situation, because I hold it to be a condition of injustice...I call for the recognition of Urning love...from public opinion and from the state.”[7]

References 1. Rictor Norton, The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity (Washington: Cassell, 1997), 67. 2. Ibid. 3. Hubert Kennedy, Ulrichs: The Life and Works of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1988), 107. 4. Norton, Myth, 65. 5. Ibid., 66. 6. Kennedy, Ulrichs, 172. 7. Ibid., 70.