Queen Christina: Charles XII. Gustav III.

In Strindberg's "Kristina" (1903), a queen reared to be a man fights for her self existence, against her feminine nature and succumbing to it. The play is the unacknowledged basis for the Garbo film "Queen Christina." In this skillful study of a neurotic and complex woman, Strindberg reveals the power of his dramatic conceptions and the mastery he had acquired of his craft. The play was the last of a series of Strindberg's later historical dramas that are among the most powerful plays of the kind produced in modern times. The play centers on the scandals leading up to Kristina's abdication of the throne of Sweden in 1654, which was a product of chiefly two causes: accusations that she had stolen or squandered a five million doller tribute from the Peace of Westphalia and rumors of her impending conversion to Roman Catholicism. In the events leading up to her abdication, she is shown struggling against her old lovers and mentors, putting on ballets to distract from her financial misconduct, fighting against her feminine nature and succumbing to it. Her realistic, even naturalistic portrayal in the play cast Strindberg as revisionist historian of sorts: prior histories of Swedish monarchs all made them out to be noble, despite their flaws. For "telling it as it is," Strindberg is still hated by the Swedish right wing.