Heinrich Göseken Stockholmis

Heinrich Göseken in Stockholm The Lutheran priest Heinrich Göseken, a well-known figure in Estonian linguistic and cultural history, lived and worked briefly in Stockholm during the mid-1630s. This period of his life has received little attention in scholarly literature, even though it led to Göseken, originally from Hanover, becoming engaged to Dorothea Siegel, the daughter of a Tallinn merchant and widow of the prematurely deceased Johannes Weidling, a former professor of Oriental languages at the University of Tartu. After relocating to Estonia and marrying Dorothea Siegel, Göseken began his distinguished career as a clergyman, language enthusiast, translator, and occasional poet. Before his time in Stockholm, Göseken studied at the Lippstadt Gymnasium, which he probably graduated in 1632 – a year later than previously thought – and continued his studies at the University of Rostock in 1633. Göseken arrived in Stockholm as a private tutor for the children of Johannes Rotlöben, also assisting Rotlöben in preaching in the German St. Gertrude Parish Church. In addition to being the pastor of the German congregation in Stockholm, Rotlöben served as the court preacher for the dowager queen. This article gives an account of the circumstances of the German congregation at the time in question, discusses Göseken’s living conditions in the Swedish capital, and attempts to investigate where he resided. Finally, it briefly discusses Göseken’s involvement in Queen Christina’s coronation in the autumn of 1650, where he and Bishop Joachim Jhering represented the Estonian Consistory. The representatives of Sweden’s Baltic Sea provinces used the occasion to present a petition to the queen, outlining proposals to improve the ecclesiastical and social conditions of the provinces.