Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna

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Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (19 July 1750 – 29 July 1818) was a Swedish poet, diplomat, and courtier who is remembered as one of the leading poets of the Gustavian era. Born at the Skenäs estate in Södermanland, he was the eldest of four brothers in the noble Oxenstierna family. He spent his youth surrounded by the beauty of nature, which would later inspire much of his poetry. His maternal uncle, Gustaf Fredrik Gyllenborg, and his tutor, Olof Bergklint, encouraged him to pursue writing, and he admired poet Gustaf Philip Creutz.

Oxenstierna studied at Uppsala University, graduating in 1767 with a kansliexamen (administrative degree). While at university he wrote a diary (1766–1768) that later appeared in print, showing a melancholic yet nature-loving and poetic personality. After university, he worked at the Royal Chancellery and began a diplomatic career. He served as acting Commission Secretary in Vienna (1770) and then as regular Commission Secretary (1772), around the time of King Gustav III’s coup. He also carried out diplomatic missions in several German states and became known for his French language skills.

In Stockholm, he held numerous high offices. He was a senior Chamberlain (1783), a member of the College of the Chancellery (1785) with responsibilities for Pomerania and Wismar, and in 1786 he joined the Privy Council and headed the Chancellery. When the Privy Council and the Chancellery were dissolved in 1789, he became Head Steward for the queen and, during the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790), served in the cabinet. After Gustav III’s assassination in 1792, Oxenstierna became Riksmarskalk (Marshal of the Realm). He later had brief political comebacks in 1798–1799 and again in 1809 and 1815 as a committee chairman, but he was never a dominant political leader. People noted that he could be distracted and sometimes wrote official documents in verse.

Oxenstierna was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1804 and was a member of the Swedish Academy (seat 8). He is also known for translating John Milton’s Paradise Lost into Swedish. He married Lovisa Kristina Wachschlager in 1791 and they had one child.

He died in Stockholm in 1818 at the age of 68.