Icelandic history in a nutshell

Guðmundur Hálfdanarson

Professor of History and

Dean of the School of Humanities

The Icelandic story

• “National narratives”– Who are “we”?

– How did “we” come about?

• The Icelandic national narrative– Glorious past

• 9th-13th centuries

– Foreign oppression• 13th-19th centuries

– National(ist) renaissance• Since late 19th century

Jón J

ónsson A

ðils

Settlement of Iceland

• The settlers: – “Norwegians”, originating in

western part of Norway• Through the British Isles

– “British-Irish” women• Political reasons?

– unification of Norway• Demographic pressure

– Viking expansion

• Late 9th century (874 AD)– Earlier settlement

• Historical documents vs. archaeological evidence

• Fully settled in the 10th century– 10-20,000 settlers– c. 40-60,000 inhabitants around

1100

Commonwealth Period (c.930-1262/64)

• Þjóðveldisöld – “Free State” – “Commonwealth”

• Alþingi (c. 930)– two weeks every

summer at Þingvellir– court– Lögrétta (right the law)

• Legislative assembly?• National “parliament”?

– trade fair

W. G. Collingwood, 1897

Stateless society

• Laws but no centralized executive power– A state has monopoly over

the use of force• Goðar (Chieftains)

– originally some religious function

– 36-39– hereditary titles– personal relationship, not

geographic districts• From personal rule to semi-

states– 13th century: Sturlungaöld

• struggle for hegemony• cooperation with Norwegian

kings• A nation state?

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Commonwealth Period – literary achievements

• Oral traditions– eddic poetry– scaldic poetry

• Literature– c 1000: Christianity

• 1056, first Icelandic bishop (Ísleifur Gissurarson)

– laws and learned literature– Íslendingasögur (Icelandic sagas)– samtímasögur (contemporary sagas)

• Whose literature?– Icelandic, Norwegian, norrænn, Germanic …– ownership of cultural heritage

Fighters, from Flateyjarbók

End of the Commonwealth Period

• 13th century: Civil war• 1262-64: The Old Covenant

(Gamli sáttmáli)– Iceland becomes part of

Norwegian monarchy– A social contract …– … or later fiction?

• Emerging state power (goðar sýslumenn)

• Legal restructuring– Járnsíða (1271/73)– Jónsbók (1281-early 14th c.) Manuscript of Jónsbók, from around 1600

(Reykjabók)

“The Dark Ages”

• Signs of decline (14th c. and onwards)– Cultural decline– Growing isolation– Economic decline

• harsher climate• ecological deterioration

– soil erosion– woods depleted

• Signs of “humiliation”– Poverty and famines– Demographic stagnation

or decline

Growing royal hegemony

• Late 14th century: Iceland part of Danish monarchy– 1380: Danish and Norwegian

crowns merge

• 1550: Lutheran Reformation– Jón Arason, bishop in Hólar,

decapitated with his two sons– the king the head of the

church

• 1602: Trade monopoly• 1662: Royal absolutism

– the king sovereign

• Danish oppression or European statemaking?

18th century: times of trouble

• 1707: Small pox epidemic (Stórabóla)

• 1750s: harsh weather famine• 1783-5: Famine of the Mist

(Móðuharðindi)– 1783-4: Skaftáreldar (Skaftár Eruption)

• Lakagígar – close to Vatnajökull– Life-stock dies from poisonous gases

• “It was so dark because of the smoke and mist that it was difficult to travel … The sky was red as blood, both when the sun came up in the morning and when it set in the evening” (contemporary source).

• Was Iceland inhabitable?

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Icelandic society in ca. 1850

• Social structures– Peasant society

• 90% living on farms• 95% tenants

– Small elite• Royal officials (mostly Icelandic)• Landowners

– No real bourgeoisie– No towns or urban centres

– Sparsely populated and limited populationgrowth

• Economic structures– Agriculture dominates– Fisheries important, but subservient to

agriculture

• Culture– Only one school in the entire country– Strong literary tradition

• High levels of literacy

Icelandic farm – from Illustreret Tidende, 1881-82

19th Century Tourists: Was Iceland a Part of

“Europe”?

• 19th-century tourism– British, French, German,

Scandinavian, American …– Visiting the “Other”

• Comparing the “periphery” to the “center”

• New travel patterns

– Scenes of the Sagas– Spectacular nature– Reykjavík and “the Golden

Circle”

• Travel books– Sources on perceptions rather

than “reality”

Where are thine olden fame …?

• “In character the people are phlegmatic, conservative to a fault, and desperately indolent. They have particular knack of doing what has to be done in the clumsiest manner imaginable.”

• “Iceland has withered under the same paralyzing influence [as Greenland], and the whole character of the people has been deteriorated by the grinding want of the necessaries of life, so that there is now none of the energy and enterprise among them which were the distinguishing feature of the early population”.

Baring-Gould, Iceland. Its Scenes and Sagas (1863)

“We are not Skrælings”

• Icelanders sensitive to the opinions of others

• Sigurður Guðmundsson, “the Painter”• “… the honor of the fatherland is at risk,

and it is imperative for us to cleanse us of the opinion of foreigners, claiming that we are destitute and have nothing but mud huts to crawl into as skrælings; this opinion will stick to us if we do not show, black on white, that it is a lie …” (1864)

• “Europeans” vs. the rest• Let’s built a national museum!

Beginning of Icelandic politics

• Copenhagen, early 19th century• Centre for Icelandic intellectual life• University of Copenhagen• Political fermentation

• The French Revolution• Democratic demands

(representation)• Liberal demands (freedom of

expression)

• Romanticism• Nationalism• The nation is the source of political

legitimacy• Danish national construction

• Icelandic reaction• Students and candidates• Political and cultural periodicals University of Copenhagen

The 19th-century nationalism

• The nationalist dogma– all nations should be sovereign

• “What we once had been, we could become again”

• The dilemma– the Icelanders could not govern

themselves• they lacked the necessary infrastructures

– roads, schools, hospitals, harbours …• they lacked the economic base• they needed political connections to the

external world

• Could the ties with Denmark be cut? • Jón Sigurðsson (1811-1879) and the

Icelandic nationalist movement – Lived in Copenhagen for most of his

adult life– National-liberal– Negotiation rather than conflict

The two faces of the ‘sjálfstæðisbarátta’

The political struggle

• 1845: Alþingi (re)established

• 1851: Iceland rejects to be integrated into a Danish nation-state

• 1874: King Christian IX ‘gives’ Iceland its constitution

• 1904: Home rule

• 1918: Iceland sovereign state in union with Denmark

• 1944: Iceland independent republic

The socio-economic struggle• Breaking the cycle of poverty

and stagnation– Establishing the base for a

sustainable modern state

• The first ‘industrial revolution’– Mechanized fisheries

• The second ‘industrial revolution’– Electricity

• New relations to the external world– WWII– The Cold War

The first ‘industrial revolution’

• 1902: The first Icelandicmotor boat

• 1905: The first Icelandicsteam trawler

• 1930s: The Icelandic fishingindustry fully mechanized– marine products as propor-

tion of all exports:• 1890: 54%• 1900: 77%• 1940: 95%• 1960: 92%• 1980: 75%• 2000: 63%• 2010: 39%• 2017: 38%

Natural resources – the sea

• Until 1900 – underused resource• Early 20th century: industrialized

fisheries– 1933: 518,000 tons of cod

• more than half caught by foreign vessels

– 2008: 151,000– 2016: 264,000

• 1948-75: “nationalization” of the fishing banks– 1948: Landgrunnslög (Continental

Shelf Law)– 1952-75: fishing limits extended

from 4-200 miles– scientifically managed fisheries

• Fisheries still hugely important– Cultural and ideological importance

Collision of an Icelandic coastguard vessel

and a British warship

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Population in Iceland and Reykjavík area, 1901-2010

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The second industrialrevolution

• Electric dreams– New natural resources– The poet Einar Benediktsson

• Transform the waterfalls into light

• 1965: Búrfell and Straumsvík– First major industrial project– Hydroelectricity into

aluminium

• 2009: Kárahnjúkar and Reyðarfjörður– The last mega power station?

• 2017: Aluminium 39% of Icelandic exports

Búrfell Power Station

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International conditions – WWII

• 10 May 1940: The British army occupies Iceland– Denmark occupied by the Germans

9 April

• June 1941: Defense treaty with the US government– Security of the N-Atlantic– Over 50,000 Allied soldiers at the

peak (120,000 Icelanders)

• Economic and cultural revolution– New lifestyles – Full employment– Fundamental basis for the Republic

• Geographical location– Still a new economic resource

Iceland and the Cold War

• Iceland – the reluctant ally• 1946: The Keflavík Agreement• 1949: Iceland a founding

member of NATO• 1951: Defense Treaty with the

United States– foreign army on a hallowed

ground– the Keflavík base and the

Icelandic economy

• 1990s: The end of the Cold War

• How to organize Icelandic defense?

Austurvöllur, 30 March 1949

The Icelandic Republic

• Founded 17 June 1944– During WII

– Danish disappointment

– Nationalist euphoria

• Characteristics– Large country

– Few people• 126,000

– Narrow economic base

– Weak infrastructures

– Boundless optimism!

The present and the future• Globalization and the nation state

– European cooperation but not full participation• Importance of national identity• Protective resource policies

– Economic immigration• Relatively high proportion of immigrants

– 2000-2017: 5,313,7% born outside of Iceland

– 2000-2017: 2,6 9,0% with non-Icelandic citizenship (12% first and second generation immigrants )

– Mostly from EU/EEA

• Nordic welfare stat with a twist– Social Democrats relatively weak

• Wealth and instability – Extremely volatile economy

• Weak currency• Small economy

– Tourism: a new “industrial revolution”• 2000: 303,000 tourists• 2010: 489,000 • 2013: 807,000• 2017: 2,224,603

Takk fyrir!