Iceland and Images of the North

Images of the North, Sublime Nature, and a Pioneering Icelandic Nation

Marion Lerner, “Images of the North, Sublime Nature, and a Pioneering Icelandic Nation,” in Iceland and Images of the North, ed. Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson with the collaboration of Daniel Chartier, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, “Droit au Pôle” series, and Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2011. Images of the North, Sublime Nature, and a Pioneering Icelandic Nation Marion Lerner University of Iceland Abstract – This article sheds light on the issue of national identity as related to the Tourist Association of Iceland, which was founded near the end of the 1920s. Written Association sources illustrate how the leading participants interpreted their work ideologically, with nationalistic connotations. Not only did they see themselves as heirs of Iceland’s celebrated first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, but they applied this picture of themselves to the nation as a whole. While engaged in opening up the country—in particular its uninhabited highlands—and in building up a modern travel infrastructure, they interpreted these undertakings as parallel to Iceland’s initial settlement. They therefore viewed themselves as pioneers who had taken on the mission of pacifying the still frightening Icelandic environment and providing access to its resources. In this way, they would not merely contribute to modernizing their country, but also to cultivating a positive national self-image. This self-image was based to a large degree on self-assertion over nature, as well as on portraying the nation as the most northerly preserver of culture within European civilization. Curiously, this meant assigning attributes to Iceland’s own interior that depicted it as a “Far North,” a North that ought to be challenged and wherever possible conquered.1 Keywords – Image, landscape, nation, national identity, nature, pioneering, settlement, the North, the sublime, travelling Introduction In the first decades of the 20th century, the search for a viable national identity played a significant role in Icelandic society, permeating contemporary discussion on various levels. This search had clearly become pressing: while the fight for independence in the 19th century had generally been confined to ideology, the early 20th century saw actual changes such as the gaining of sovereignty and 1 Quotations in Icelandic translated by Philip Vogler. ICELAND AND IMAGES OF THE NORTH [ 230 ] finally, in 1944, the founding of the Icelandic republic. As Benedict Anderson has so convincingly shown, national independence movements tend in every case to present their nation’s history as a teleological development and to deploy political myths that buttress their struggle.2 Frequently, these myths refer back to a Golden Age or some appropriate historical origin. Mythically reworked past events or heroic figures serve to give an aura of legitimacy to the political goal of national sovereignty as one that has long and constantly slumbered in the “soul” of the nation. In the first decades of the 20th century, Icelandic intellectuals like the historian Jón Jónsson Aðils and others became quite influential by compiling the country’s history and introducing it to the public through their lectures.3 The present article endeavours to outline how the Tourist Association of Iceland (Ferðafélag Íslands), established in 1927, contributed to forming and moulding an Icelandic identity. Reference is made to extant writings relating to the Association, for example, formal speeches, minutes and rules, newspaper and magazine articles, trip reports, and in some cases autobiographical records. Since the period studied reaches from the initial decades of the century until around the mid-1940s, it covers the time just before national sovereignty was officially achieved. From its beginnings, the Tourist Association was not only seen as a travel or recreation club, but was rather ascribed a significant role in nurturing and unifying the Icelandic nation. Association materials turn out upon perusal to combine into a self-description of the nation as a whole. Moreover, they often call on the Icelandic people to cultivate a love for and pride in their country. Also of interest will be how a stereotypical image of Icelanders was connected to an image of the physical environment, and in turn to an image of the North. The Tourist Association of Iceland On 27 November 1927, the Tourist Association of Iceland was founded at a public meeting in Reykjavík, following preparatory work at preceding meetings by men highly influential in Icelandic society at 2 Anderson 1983. 3 Aðils 1903, 1906. SUBLIME NATURE, AND A PIONEERING ICELANDIC NATION [ 231 ] the time.4...