Strindberg-Museum, Drottninggatan 85, S-111 60 Stockholm
Kymmendö in the Southern archipelago of Stockholm, by boat from Dalarö, 35 km south of Stockholm
Content
The Swedish author August Strindberg (1849-1912) spent the last four years of his life in a building he called The Blue Tower, situated in the Centre of Stockholm. The reconstructed apartment, consisting of three rooms, and his library of some 3,000 works are today the core of the Strindberg Museum. There are also exhibitions presenting various aspects on Strindberg’s life and work.
The museum arranges furthermore temporary exhibitions, guided tours, lectures, theatre performances and other events. There is also a bookshop with books about Strindberg as well as his own writings.
Stockholm and its archipelago is a main topic in the works of August Strindberg, esp. the novels Hemsöborna (1887), the most popular of all novels by Strindberg, Skärkarlsliv (1888), and I havsbandet (By the Open Sea, 1890).
Strindberg’s model for his novel Hemsöborna, one of his most popular ones, were the relations among people on the island of Kymmendö in the Southern archipelago of Stockholm. Spiced with comedy traits, in the style of Dutch genre painting, but presented as an ”intermezzo scherzando“, The People of Hemsö gives a vivid picture of the struggle for life with the decline of Madame Flod and her farm hand Carlsson, who gets married with her and wants to take power on the island, but drown in the icy waters.
The island of Kymmendö is worth an excursion and can be reached both from Stockholm or the port of Dalarö by boat.
Literature: Anita Persson, Vandra med Strindberg. Prisma 2004
Tegnérlunden: staty av den unge Strindberg av Carl Eldh, rest 1975