Gunno Eurelius Dahlstierna Biography | Poet

Gunno Dahlstierna (September 7, 1661 – September 7, 1709), Swedish poet, whose original surname was Eurelius, was born in the parish of Ör (now part of Mellerud Municipality ) in Dalsland, where his father was vicar. He entered the University of Uppsala in 1677, and after gaining his degree entered the government office of land-surveying. He was sent in 1681 on professional business to Livonia, then under Swedish rule. A dissertation read at Leipzig in 1687 brought him the offer of a professorial chair in the university, which he refused. Returning to Sweden he executed commissions of land-surveying directed by King Charles XI, and in 1699 he became head of the whole department. In 1702 he was ennobled under the name of Dahlstierna. He wandered over the whole of the coast of the Baltic: Livonia, Rügen and Swedish Pomerania, preparing maps which still exist in the office of public land-surveying in Stockholm. His death, which took place in Pomerania on his forty-eighth birthday, is said to have been hastened by the disastrous news of the Battle of Poltava .