Master Olof: A Drama in Five Acts | Page 3

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.

While, in the main, Strindberg made the events of his play accord with
what was accepted as historical fact when he wrote, there are
anachronisms and inaccuracies to be noted, although to none of them
can be attached much