Iceland

ICELAND. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - It is the largest European island after Great Britain (102,819 sq. km.; more than four times the size of Sicily); it lies about 900-950 km. from Scotland and Norway, but only 330 from Greenland. With its northernmost points it touches the Arctic Circle.

The coastal perimeter is heavily indented with fjords and bays; the interior consists of a plateau (rising on average from 400 to 800 m.) of lava surmounted by numerous volcanoes, some of them active (Hekla, 1557 m.), and covered by extensive ice caps: the ice alone, in fact, absorbs more than 1/8 of the island's surface. Geysers, mud volcanoes and thermal springs are frequent (the latter widely used for heating and usable for motive power). The climate is relatively temperate, mitigated as it is by oceanic influences along the coast, but considerably more rigorous in the interior, with long, snowy winters and abundant precipitation.

Only 1/7 of the island is inhabited (along the coasts, especially in the southwest, or a short distance from them, as well as in the valley floors of the lower course of certain rivers), but rather than for the meager and precarious crops permitted by the subpolar position of Iceland (potatoes, turnips), it is destined for livestock raising, almost exclusively extensive and predominantly of sheep (few cattle and horses). But the fulcrum of economic activity is to be sought in fishing, one of the best equipped in Europe, which yields a substantial product (420 thousand tons in recent years) and sustains the only local industry (fish oil and fish meal). The presence of bauxite deposits opens broad possibilities for the establishment of other industries, all the more so since the island is assured ample hydroelectric resources (4 million HP). The merchant fleet in 1948 amounted to fully 1.3 million tons.

Iceland, which after 1918 constituted an independent monarchy linked to Denmark by personal union, has since 1944 been constituted as a democratic republic with an elective government and bicameral representation.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY

I. was first inhabited toward the end of the 8th century by Irish monks, who hoped to find refuge there after having been driven from the Shetland and Faroe Islands by the Vikings, who also reached I. in the 9th century and colonized it. The new colonists, coming especially from Norway and pagan, in 930 appointed an assembly (Althing), holder of legislative and judicial power, but a few decades later (in 965) the Althing was left with only the competence of legislation. The introduction of Christianity in I. dates back to 981. In 1262 the king of Norway Håkon Håkonson put an end to Icelandic independence. The island passed under Norwegian sovereignty and toward the end of the 14th century, with the Union of Kalmar, under Danish sovereignty.

The Lutheran Reformation at first met with much resistance, and only in 1550, with the condemnation to death of the last Catholic bishop Jón Arason, could the ordinances of Christian III be introduced in full. The Peace of Kiel (Jan. 1814), which obliged King Frederick VI of Denmark to renounce in favor of Sweden every right over Norway, did not change the "status" of I., which continued to depend on Denmark and slowly acquired the right to self-government. The ties with Copenhagen, considerably reduced in 1918 with the personal union between the two Kingdoms, were completely broken on June 17, 1944 with the proclamation of the Republic of I. The Constitution, which came into force that day, recognizes the Evangelical-Lutheran church as the State Church (art. 62), but also admits the other religious confessions.

Silvio Furlani

Bishop Frederick of Saxony and the Icelander Thorvaldur were the first missionaries of Iceland (981): but after five years they were driven out. In 996 St. Olaf, king of Norway, sent other missionaries. In the year 1000 the Catholic religion was proclaimed by the Althing, the national assembly, as the religion of the State. In 1056 Pope Victor II erected the episcopal see of Skálholt, which was later (1106) divided with the creation of the other diocese of Hólar. The two sees were at first under the jurisdiction of the northern patriarchate (archbishopric of Bremen-Hamburg); in 1104 they passed to the dependence of the archbishop of Lund, and finally, in 1154, to that of the archbishop of Nidaros (Trondheim). The last bishop of Hólar was Jón Arason, who was beheaded for the faith on 17 Nov. 1550, and an heroic end was also met by the last bishop of Skálholt, who died in prison at Sorø in Denmark. In 1544 the pseudo-Reformation was introduced there by force of arms by the king of Denmark.

From the death of the two bishops until 1856 no priest could go to Iceland, because the laws severely prohibited any Catholic ministry. From 1859 two priests were permitted to go to Iceland, solely to exercise the ministry among foreign Catholic fishermen. In 1874 the Danish government granted freedom of worship. After the death of the last of the two missionaries (1875) the few Christians, whose number fluctuated between 3 and 4 thousand, remained without assistance for about twenty years. Meanwhile in 1852 Pius IX had erected the apostolic prefecture of the Arctic Pole, which also included Iceland. On 28 July 1869 it was divided into the apostolic prefecture of Norway and that of Denmark and Iceland, which on 22 Febr. 1892 was elevated to an apostolic vicariate. Only in 1895, however, could the apostolic vicar send other missionaries of the secular clergy there. In 1903 the mission was entrusted to the Company of Mary of Montfort. The island was erected into an apostolic prefecture, being detached from the apostolic vicariate of Denmark on 12 June 1923, and was elevated to an apostolic vicariate on 6 June 1929. The State religion is the Lutheran, but the Catholic religion is a religion recognized by the State and enjoys the most complete freedom without any restriction. The Lutheran Church has a bishop who resides in Reykjavík, with jurisdiction over the whole island, plus two other bishops, who are simple country curates, whose function is to consecrate the bishop of the country.

Out of a population of 136,000 inhabitants, Catholics number 388; catechumens 8; priests: 2 native, 6 foreign; foreign brothers 2; nuns: 2 native, 55 foreign; schools 2, elementary, with 259 pupils; primary stations 2; churches 1; chapels 2.

Saverio Paventi

IV. LITERATURE

Populated from the end of the 9th century to the beginning of the 10th by Norwegian nobles who had come into conflict with their king, Harald Fairhair (Harald Haarfagre), Iceland soon saw the development of a type of civilization and culture which, although closely connected to the other Scandinavian lands (the first Norwegian colonists were soon joined by other Danes and Swedes) and open to the influences of nearby Ireland, bore its own particular stamp of aristocratic exclusivism and widespread democracy. The sagas and the Eddic-type poems recited among the people and the precious poems of the Icelandic skalds, the honor and pride of all the courts of the north, are in fact nothing but two different and complementary aspects of one and the same civilization, in which individuals, reduced practically to the same denominator by exile and enclosed in so many clans armed one against the other in the daily struggle for existence, were nonetheless not unmindful of their noble condition and of their common origin. It is an arduous and almost hopeless task to distinguish, in the written sources that have been preserved, the specifically Icelandic part from the Norwegian or rather Scandinavian substratum, so much so that it is customary to speak, more comprehensively, of a Norse literature.

Without delving into the question, it will suffice to recall that, while a great part of this literature, which was the common heritage of the Scandinavian north, disappears elsewhere with the advent of Christianity, after having been handed down orally for generations, it continued to be cultivated in Iceland and later found in Christian ecclesiastics, elsewhere often enemies of native traditions, its most faithful collectors. The songs of the Elder Edda (v.), or Poetic Edda, were for the most part composed in Iceland, collected in the 13th century by an Icelandic ecclesiastic and rediscovered in 1643 by Bishop Brynolf Sveinsson (Codex regius 2365 of the Royal Library of Copenhagen). Given the impossibility of a clear local or chronological distinction (the oldest songs go back beyond the 9th century, the most recent are contemporary with the collector), they are generally divided, according to subject, into mythical (or of the gods), heroic and didactic songs. In the first, alongside dark and complicated cosmogonic conceptions, there are burlesque or tragic adventures of completely anthropomorphized divinities, subject no less than mortals to a harsh destiny. Among the heroic songs, notable are those of the Volsung cycle, where there appears in flashes and allusions the tragic legendary matter of common Germanic stock that gave rise to the poem of the Nibelungs. Equal concision and a similar shortened and allusive technique are found in the didactic poem Hávamál ("Song of the Lord"), in which Viking morality is set forth in all its crude simplicity.

In the first part of his Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson (1178-1241) treats the same matter as the anonymous Poetic Edda, while in the second and third parts, more specifically didactic, he expounds with an abundance of detail and frequent exemplifications the poetics of his time: thanks to him a great part of skaldic poetry has thus come down to us, and from him we know how rigid and subtle the metrical rules were and how constrained in its richness was the language of the skalds (see among other things the use of the kenning, a metaphor of the most difficult interpretation). More bound than Eddic poetry and the saga to a given social class and a given custom (the skalds addressed the difficult and demanding public of the courts), skaldic poetry, which flourished only toward the end of the 10th century, had already almost disappeared a half-century after the advent of Christianity in Iceland (year 1000). Most famous among the skalds was Egil Skallagrímsson (900-83), author, among other things, of a beautiful lyric on the death of his sons, far removed from the encomiastic tone common to this poetry. One of the most famous sagas, the Egilsaga, tells of Egil, which, although handed down anonymously like most of the sagas, has been attributed to Snorri. Unlike the Eddic songs, of which often only the redaction is Icelandic, and unlike skaldic poetry, perhaps originating in Norway and spread throughout the north, albeit through the work of Icelanders, the saga is entirely native and characteristic of Iceland, even if the frequent poetic interpolations in the prose text have suggested Celtic influences. Handed down orally for generations and then transcribed, probably through the work of ecclesiastics, from the 12th century, the sagas are not only a literary document of the greatest importance (the memory of their precise and robust style is not yet extinguished in modern Icelandic prose) but also a precious historical testimony. From them one learns not only everyday life on the island, but of the exploits of the first colonists (Laxdoelsaga, "Saga of the inhabitants of the Salmon River valley"), of the voyages of discovery to Greenland and America (Saga of Erik the Red and of Leif), of the struggles between the different families (Njálssaga), of the rise and establishment of Christianity (Kristnisaga). Of historical value are especially the anonymous Landnámsbók, the Íslendingabók of Ari Thorgilsson (1067-1148), the Sturlungasaga and the Heimskringla ("Orb of the Earth") of Snorri, where the history of the kings of Norway is narrated from the legendary origins of the kingdom to 1177; particularly long is the narration of the life of St. Olaf, the protector of Scandinavian Catholics. Later are the sagas of fantastic subject (lying sagas), translation or rather reworking of Germanic legendary motifs (Volsungasaga), Scandinavian (Fridhjofssaga) and even Carolingian and Arthurian.

Following the loss of independence, and especially following the Union of Kalmar (1307), there is a decline also in the cultural and literary field: the imagination of the saga narrators seems entirely exhausted, and the Eddic and skaldic tradition is reduced solely to formal experience: the difficult alliteration, congenial to the spirit of the Germanic languages, is replaced by the easier rhyme (one recalls the Olafsrima, ca. 1350), but poetry is no longer by now a form of art sustained by inspiration, but rather the exercise of versifiers who seek only to escape from daily misery. After the

With the "reformation" there is an undoubted enrichment of the language (now modern Icelandic and no longer Middle Icelandic) through the translations of the Old and New Testaments by Oddur Gottskálksson and Bishop Gudhbrandur Thorláksson, but one must reach as far as the 17th century to find true poets in the persons of the Protestant pastors Stefán Olafsson (1620-88) and Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614-74). If the former is remembered especially for his love songs and convivial songs, in the psalms of the latter, where in the sufferings of Christ the only way of salvation is pointed out for tried and sinful humanity, one finds the most powerful echo of the profound misery that dominated I[celand] in those years; the enormous diffusion they immediately enjoyed is the best proof of how closely they adhered to the spirit of the age. After a few decades of silence the voice of Eggert Olafsson (1726-68) then rises, an educator and scientist even more than a lyric poet (he is remembered for the didactic poem Búnadharbalkur, "The Rustic Life"). German Romanticism reached I[celand] through Denmark, after the Napoleonic wars; having risen again from its misery after the abolition of the Danish trade monopoly, I[celand], which had practically found itself divided from Denmark from 1807 to 1814, is now ready to make the most of the nationalist suggestions inherent in the Romantic message. One can now truly speak of a political and cultural renaissance promoted in large part by poets. First among all, Bjarni Thorarensen (1786-1841), with his eye fixed on the Eddic tradition, does not lament the poverty of the country or the harshness of its nature, but exhorts his people to bear their own destiny with dignity and strength of mind. His confidence in life is full also in the lyrics of a more personal tone, such as the Sangen til Sigrun, a most beautiful love song. His Íslands Minni ("Remembrance of I[celand]") is considered a national song.

Even greater is the nationalist and patriotic optimism of Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807-45), a lyric poet and geologist of great worth: around the journal Fjöltnir, which he founded in Copenhagen in 1835, the young Icelandic intellectuals thus gather, inflamed with love for their own people and for their own land. Less optimistic are the poets of the following generation, and also less engaged in the political and social struggle. Cosmopolitan in culture and interests but profoundly Icelandic in spirit, although seduced more by the idea of the homeland's past than by that of its future, were Grímur Thomsen (1820-96)

and Matthias Jochumsson (1835-1920): the former a fine connoisseur of contemporary European literature, an aristocratic translator from classical Greek and author of impeccable ballads, the latter a translator of Byron and Shakespeare, also known as a prolific journalist, playwright and poet of religious inspiration.

A contemporary of these two poets is Steingrímur Thorsteinsson (1831-1913), author of well-known patriotic and religious songs and translator of H. C. Andersen. European realism reached I. towards the end of the century as well, together with the echoes of G. Brandes's lectures in Copenhagen: the Icelandic journals Verdundi (1882) and Haindallur (1883), both published in the Danish capital, became the standard-bearers of the new gospel. The first among the poets to join the new movement is Hannes Hafstein (1861-1922), not unmindful of his personal contacts with G. Brandes and with H. Drachman; notable for its fidelity to the native landscape is the lyric Ved Valagilselven. In the wake of G. Brandes is also Porstein Erlingsson (1858-1914), a socialist and freethinker, while Einar Benediktsson (1864-1940) opposes him in the name of a religious principle; the latter is perhaps to be considered the greatest modern Icelandic poet. Fantastic and brilliant (not by chance does he translate Ibsen's Peer Gynt), mystical and pantheistic, he is always pervaded by an immense love for his own language, which he regards as the text set by God to the melody of life. Isolated from the literary currents of the age and far from his homeland (he emigrated to Canada at a very young age), Stephan G. Stephánsson (1857-1927) meanwhile extols in his Andvåkur ("Sleepless Nights") the native land, still more beautiful in memory, and the mother tongue, still dearer in a foreign land. On the whole, the 20th century has so far been more favourable in I. to prose than to poetry; especially the novel, for the most part on local rural or historical subjects, already begun in the 19th century through the work of Jón Thóroddsen (his novels Piltur og Stålka, "Boy and Girl", and Madur og kona, "Man and Woman", are remembered), now acquires ever greater importance. Much read in I. are still the humorous tales of the poet Benedikt Gröndal (1826-1907), while

Gestur Pålsson (1852-91) enjoys European fame; in his novels he knew how to fuse the ancient tradition of the Icelandic saga with modern realistic technique. Noteworthy are the narrators Jón Stefánsson (1851-1915), Jacob Thorarensen (b. 1886), David Stefánsson (b. 1894), Jón Magnússon, Gudmundur, Gislason Hagalin (b. 1898), Gudmundur Fridjönsson (1869-1944) and Sigurdur Nordal (b. 1886). Very well known is the novel Gull ("Gold") by Einar Hjörleifsson Kvaran (1859-1938). Among contemporary prose writers, the first place perhaps belongs to Halldór Kiljan Laxness (b. 1902), author of the successful novel Salka Valka and of the trilogy Íslands Klocka (1943-46); let us also mention Pórberger Pordarson (1889). But the greatest public success has been enjoyed by Gunnar Gunnarsson (b. 1889), translated into Italian, who preferred Danish to his mother tongue. Of his vast output we recall the novels Af Borgslaegtens Histoire ("Chronicle of the People of Borg", 1911-14), Livets Strand ("The Shore of Life", 1915), Salige er de Enpoldige ("Blessed Are the Simple", 1920); Kirken paa Bjerget ("The Church on the Mountain", 1924-27). Interesting are his two historical novels Jón Arason, whose protagonist is the last Catholic bishop of I., and Hvide Krist (1934), in which the last years of Icelandic paganism are described. Danish is also the language of the novels of Jónas Gullaugsson (1887-1916), while Kristmann Gudmundsson (b. 1902) writes in New Norwegian; of him we recall Brudekjolen ("The Wedding Dress", 1927), Livets Morgen ("The Morning of Life", 1929) and Hvide Netter ("White Nights").

Unlike narrative prose, which was able to avail itself of the tradition of the sagas already artistically elaborated, dramatic art may be considered in its beginnings. The first passionate cultivator of the genre is Indridi Einarsson, whose drama Nyarsdóttir ("New Year's Eve") is remembered and to whom the creation of a dramatic theatre in the Icelandic capital is due; Jóann Sigurjónsson (1880-1919), author of the drama Lagneren ("The Liar"), and Gudmundur Kamban (1888-1945), playwright, novelist and lyric poet, made use of the Danish language instead. Among the modern cultivators of the lyric genre it will suffice to mention David Stefánsson (1895-), Tónas Gudmundsson (1901-) and Jóhanné úr Kötlum (1899). On the whole, Icelandic literature finds itself today in a period of ferment and development that bodes well for the future.

Alda Manghi

V. SCHOOL SYSTEM

Icelandic school instruction is compulsory from ages 7 to 14, according to the law of 1907. Pupils under 10 years of age are exempted from attendance if their home is far from the school; in this case elementary instruction is provided by "traveling schools." To facilitate elementary instruction there are boarding-school-type elementary schools lasting 12 weeks a year. Attendance from 7 to 9 years of age lasts 33 weeks; from 10 to 14 years of age, 24 weeks. Religious instruction is compulsory. By including religious instruction in the curricula of Icelandic schools, the intention was to alternate theory with practice. The pupil is urged to acquire a religious culture on his own, is led to give explanations of God, of creation, of the soul, by himself, and the teacher then has the task of correcting erroneous opinions.

Secondary instruction is imparted in lower secondary schools, in rural schools, in supplementary schools, in boys' schools, in district schools, in middle schools, in classical schools, in scientific schools and in mixed schools. There is a seminary for teachers.

Higher instruction is imparted at the University of Reykjavik, founded in 1911.

Miroslav Stumpf