Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts

by August Strindberg

Immediately after his election, the new King called Lars Andersson from Strängnäs to become his first chancellor. Later on, he pressed Olof, too, into his service, making him Secretary to the City Corporation of Stockholm—which meant that Olof practically became the chief civil administrator of the capital, having to act as both clerk and magistrate, while at the same time he was continuing his reformatory propaganda as one of the preachers in the city's principal edifice, officially named after St. Nicolaus, but commonly spoken of as Greatchurch. As if this were not sufficient for one man, he plunged also into a feverish literary activity, doing most of the work on the Swedish translations of the New and Old Testaments, and paving the way for the new faith by a series of vigorous polemical writings, the style of which proclaims him the founder of modern Swedish prose. Centuries passed before the effective simplicity and homely picturesqueness of his style were surpassed. He became, furthermore, Sweden's first dramatist. The Comedy of Tobit, from which Strindberg uses a few passages in slightly modernized form at the beginning of his play, is now generally recognized as an authentic product of Olof's pen, although it was not written until a much later period.

Strindberg's drama starts at Strängnäs, at the very moment when Olof has been goaded into open revolt against the abuses of the Church, and when he is saved from the consequences of that revolt only by the unexpected arrival of King Gustaf and his own appointment as City Secretary. From the slightly strained, but not improbable, coincidence of that start to the striking climax of the last act, the play follows, on the whole, pretty closely the actual course of events recorded in history. To understand this course, with its gradually intensified conflict between the King and Olof, it is above all necessary to bear in mind that the former regarded the Reformation principally as a means toward that political reorganization and material upbuilding of the country which formed his main task; while to Olof the religious reconstruction assumed supreme importance. This fundamental divergence of purpose is clearly indicated and effectively used by Strindberg, and we have reason to believe that he has pictured not only Gustaf Vasa and Master Olof, but also the other historical characters, in close accordance with what history has to tell us about them. Among the chief figures there is only one—Gert the Printer—who is not known to history, and one—the wife of Olof—who is so little known that the playwright has been at liberty to create it almost wholly out of his own imagination.

At the juncture represented by the initial scenes of the play, Olof was in reality thirty-one years old, but he is made to appear still younger. The King should be, and is, about twenty-seven, while Lars Andersson is about fifty-four, and Bishop Brask about seventy. Gert must be thought a man of about sixty, while Christine must be about twenty. The action of the play lasts from 1524 to 1540, but Strindberg has contracted the general perspective, so to speak, giving us the impression that the entire action takes place within a couple of years. I have tried to work out a complete chronology, and think it fairly safe to date the several parts of the play as follows:

The first act takes place on Whitsun Eve, 1524, which means that the exact date must fall between May 10 and June 13 of that year, and probably about June 1.

The first scene of the second act occurs in the early evening of a Saturday in the summer—probably in June—of 1524. The second scene is fixed at midnight of the same day, and the third scene on the following morning, which, in view of the fact that Olof is to preach, we may assume to be a Sunday.

The first scene of the third act seems to take place four days later, but Olof was not married until February, 1525,—to "Christine, a maiden of good family,"—and it was only during the winter of 1526-27 that the Church reformers were given free rein by the King, and Olof himself was despatched to the University of Upsala for the purpose of challenging Peder Galle, the noted Catholic theologian, to a joint discussion. This was also the time when the first Swedish version of the New Testament was completed by Olof and Lars Andersson—an event referred to in the scene in question.

The exact date of the second scene of the third act is St. John's Eve, or June 24, 1527, at which time occurred the important Riksdag at Vesterås, where the King broke the final resistance of the nobility and the Catholic clergy by threatening to abdicate. The debate between Olof and Peder Galle took place at the Riksdag, Galle having evaded it as long as he could.

The date of the fourth act is very uncertain, but it seems safe to place it in the summer of 1539, when Stockholm was ravaged by an epidemic of a virulent disease known as "the English sweat."

The first scene of the fifth act is laid on New Year's Eve, 1539, when Olof and Lars Andersson were arrested and charged with high treason for not having informed the proper authorities of a plot against the King's life. This plot was an old story, having been exposed and punished in 1536. Their defence was that they had learned of it through secret confession, which they as ministers had no right to reveal. The trial took only two days, and on January 2, 1540, both were sentenced to death.

The second scene of the final act must be laid in the spring of 1540, as the ceremony of confirmation has generally taken place about Easter ever since the Swedish church became Lutheran.