Icelandic Culture Research Articles

‘We Are Stuck in Our Own Heads’: Immigrant Women and Institutional Practices in Iceland

ABSTRACT Immigrant women in Iceland have reported experiencing discrimination and marginalization in society and when interacting with institutions. However, this topic remains under-researched in the Icelandic context. The present article explores how institutional representatives construct immigrant women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV), their needs and their barriers to support-seeking through ideas of Icelandic exceptionalism and Whiteness. The analysis is based on two data sets: 16 interviews with institutional representatives who provide services for immigrants and/or women who experience IPV and 16 #metoo stories published by immigrant women in 2018. The analysis reveals that institutional representatives focus on immigrant women lacking trust in institutions and knowledge about their rights and procedures because of misconceptions in the immigrant community and lies told by violent partners. This individualistic perspective leads them to emphasize their responsibility in teaching immigrant women about their rights and to trust institutions. The institutional representatives fail to acknowledge structural marginalization and institutional discrimination intersecting with immigrant women’s experiences of IPV and support-seeking. As the institutional culture is rooted in the believe that equality is the basis of the welfare state and that Icelandic culture is free from discriminatory practices, institutional representatives rarely incorporate intersectional perspectives into institutional practices.

Waterscape in Hjari Veraldar The 'Last Habitable Edge of the Earth'

Iceland is a geologically active land and home to some of the world’s most active volcanoes and the largest glaciers in Europe. Due to its harsh environmental circumstances, its inhabitants’ living conditions are unpredictable. Icelanders live in a sort of ‘rescue mood’, ready to face a variety of natural disasters, such as avalanches, flooding, heavy storms, eruptions, landslides and earthquakes. In this northern sea island, water is the most influential element in culture, language, economy, leisure, landscape, planning strategy, and islanders’ everyday life. Water comes in all forms, both as a provider and a threat. Based on this premise, this commentary is a synthesis image of the forms of water from an outlander point of view, reading an alien landscape in which the forms of water are one of the most enchanting interpretation experiences in the landscape. This anecdote is a narration of the forms of water concerning urbanisation, land and human in different subtle layers of Icelandic culture, economy and landscape design

A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

A Critical Companion to Old Norse Literary Genre

Linguistic thought of Medieval Iceland: The First Grammatical Treatise

This article presents the Russian translation of the First Grammatical Treatise, one of the most fascinating examples of Medieval Icelandic linguistic thought. The translation is accompanied by a detailed commentary and an introductory note aimed to help the reader plunge into the intellectual culture of twelfth-century Iceland and understand better the terminology and concepts used in the treatise.

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland. The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland. The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt

Epistemic Violence Toward Immigrant Women in Iceland: Silencing, Smothering, and Linguistic Deficit

This paper is an examination of how stories shared as a result of the #metoo movement in Iceland exemplify aspects of how culture and institutions in Iceland are complicit in the silencing of immigrant women who experience violence, both in intimate partner and employment situations. Through a critical analysis of 10 of the narratives shared by immigrant women in Iceland, the authors explore how testimonial smothering and silencing are both producing and reproducing epistemic violence in the women’s lives. We argue that the focus on linguistic purity of the Icelandic language maintains these exclusionary practices. Recognition of hegemonic practices is important in the continued development of a more equitable society and a first step in the inclusion of diverse voices in the continued development of the diversifying Icelandic knowledge society.

The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland

The Development of Education in Medieval Iceland

Эпоха Стурлунгов в современной исландской исторической прозе: Эйнар Каурасон

The period from 1220 to1262-64, the so-called Sturlung era, is significant in Icelandic culture, not only due to its dramatic political events, but also because by that time the great works of the Old Icelandic literature have been written down. In modern Icelandic historical fiction the most noticable text, devoted to the Sturlung era, is the tetralogy by Einar K?rason ("A Gathering of Foes“ 2001, "Fury“ 2008, "The Skald“ 2012 and "The Axe era“, 2014). It is based on the Old Icelandic "Sturlunga saga“, in particular, on "The Saga of Icelanders“ by Sturla Thordarson. The writing technique in the tetralogy s nevertheless antipodal to the saga manner: the events are described fragmentary, from the subjective point of view of a variety of persons, also the episodical ones; thus the complexity and the multifaceted character of the historical prcess is being stated. In each novel of the tetralogy there is one central character, the other narrators reflect upon. Snorri Sturluson, the most iconic figure of this era, is often mentioned, but is never among the narrators. The writing of sagas is being described (especially in "The Skald“), and the inner intentions of the 13th century scribes creating their texts turn out to be similiar to the intentions of modern authors. The narration manner and the universal thinking way of thecharacters neutralizes the historical distance between the narration and the readers. In modern Icelandic literature a firm narrative tradition of perception of the Sturlung era is absent, thus, the works of Einar K?rason can be regarded as the direct reception of the Old Icelandic sourse texts as they are, but not as an interplay with a set tradition of their perception. But such a tradition can be formed in future by this tetralogy.

The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans by L. K. Bertram

Reviewed by: The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans by L. K. Bertram Kirsten Wolf The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans. By L. K. Bertram. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020. ix + 228 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $26.96 paper. Research on North Americans of Icelandic descent has focused primarily—though not exclusively—on the language and literature of the immigrants along with the early history of their settlements in North America, primarily Canada. Accordingly, this book, which straddles history, ethnography, anthropology, folklore, and gender studies, is most welcome in that it "focuses on the unseen qualities—the immigrant habits, ideas, and traditions observed by so many Icelandic visitors and the distinctive, everyday popular culture that emerged in North American Icelandic communities" (5). The book is the result of extensive archival work in both Iceland and Canada, many interviews and interactions with descendants of the immigrants, and a critical assessment of previous historical research. In her lengthy introduction, Bertram provides among other things a brief history of the Western Icelanders, as they are typically called in Iceland. The story has been told many times, but Bertram tells it especially well, and what is novel about her story is that here and elsewhere she pays considerable attention to the Icelanders' relations and interactions with local Indigenous people. In the five chapters following the introduction, she turns to material culture, for "material culture, or the history of objects, offers a helpful alternative for understanding both everyday historical life and the complexity of historical populations" (19). The first chapter ("Dressing Up: Clothing and Upward Mobility in the Early Immigrant Community, 1870–1900") explores the role of clothing in the lives of the immigrants and the way in which they abandoned traditional Icelandic fashions in favor of North American garments. The second chapter ("The Coffee Pot and King Bacchus: Icelandic Drinking Cultures") examines the cultural and political history of drink—coffee and alcohol—in Icelandic North American society. As Bertram points out, the Icelandic immigrants were relatively united in their efforts to maintain their coffee culture on a continent where tea drinking was the norm. When it came to alcohol, they were very divided, and this resulted in the establishment of several temperance movements led mostly by women. In chapter 3 ("Unsettling Apparitions: Power, Ghost Stories, and Superstitious Belief"), Bertram turns to forms of culture less visible to outside eyes, that is, the belief in supernatural beings such as hidden people and ghosts. The focus of chapter 4 ("Main Street Vikings: Anglicization, Spectacle, and the Two World Wars") is the image of the Viking. During periods of anti-immigrant sentiment, the Icelandic immigrants emphasized their Viking heritage in literature, on roadside monuments, in parades, and so forth as a way in which to legitimize their settlement in the New World. The final chapter ("Icelandic Cake Fight: A Brief History of Vínarterta") discusses the vínarterta, a fruit torte considered a special Icelandic cake by North Americans of Icelandic descent, yet now virtually unknown in Iceland. As noted by Bertram, the cake remains a powerful symbol of Icelandic immigrant culture, yet it is also the subject of contention, as there are conflicting opinions about the correct or original recipe for the torte. [End Page 164] (In an appendix, Bertram prints a number of vínarterta recipes, including one from 1795.) A conclusion, notes, a bibliography, and a name and subject index round off the volume. The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans is a joy to read, and L. K. Bertram is to be congratulated on her fine work. There is much to be learned from this well-written and well-structured book. It is copiously illustrated with black-and-white photographs culled from individuals and archives. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Icelandic culture in North America. Kirsten Wolf Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic University of Wisconsin–Madison Copyright © 2022 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Themes of gospel and nativity in Icelandic biblical paraphrase

The article examines stanzas 27–33 from “Lilja”, an Icelandic biblical paraphrase written in the form of skaldic drapa and dating from the first half of the XIV c. The subject of the article is the sources of these stanzas and the nature of the skald’s work with the sources. Comparative textual analysis, which is the main method of work, has shown that the skald borrowed the general idea of the text from the Bible of Herman de Valenciennes, and stanzas 27–33, where the theme of the Gospel sounds, are an adaptation of a fragment from “Conception Nostre Dame” (“The Conception of the Virgin”) by Wace (lines 783–864). Analysis of the forms of speech and narrative strategies in stanzas 27–33 has shown their convergence with the forms of speech characteristic of “The Elder Edda” and the use of eddic narrative strategies by the skald. The noted interaction of the eddic and the skaldic traditions in «Lilja» suggests reconsideration of the traditional classification of the text as a skaldic work, despite the form of skaldic drapa and its semantic aureole. “Lilja” is regarded in the paper as a poetic biblical paraphrase born as a result of adaptation of the continental tradition of vernacular theology to the verbal culture of Iceland, i. e. as a manifestation of a new function of the art of poetry.

Household material culture in 19th-century Iceland: contextualising change in the archaeological record

SUMMARY The paper looks at changes in the composition of archaeological assemblages from 19th-century Iceland. It contextualises an increase in ceramics with other domestic materials by combining archaeological data with evidence from probate inventories. The study confirms that there was a marked change in domestic materiality in Iceland in the middle of the 19th century and suggests that further research into the origins and effects of this change needs to focus on how things depend on each other and their relationship with altered routines of household members.

Rökræða, stofnanir, þátttaka. Ágreiningsefni um lýðræði

Í þessari grein skýrir höfundur og ver þær lýðræðishugmyndir sem felast í greiningu hans á íslensku stjórnarfari og stjórnmálamenningu í aðdraganda og eftirmálum fjármálahrunsins 2008. Gerð er grein fyrir og metin gagnrýni þeirra Jóns Ólafssonar og Birgis Hermannssonar á röksemdir Vilhjálms og notkun hans á fræðilegum lýðræðislíkönum Jürgens Habermas til að greina íslensk stjórnmál. Færð eru rök fyrir því að greiningu Vilhjálms verði að skilja í ljósi þess að hún taki mið af þeim sérstöku aðstæðum sem sköpuðust hérlendis kringum fjármálahrunið og villandi sé að slíta röksemdir hans úr tengslum við það. Í skrifum Vilhjálms er til dæmis stöðugt minnt á mikilvægi ákveðinna lærdóma sem draga þurfi af rökræðukenningunni um lýðræði andspænis þeirri gagnrýni á stjórnarhætti og stjórnsiði hérlendis sem sett var fram í skýrslu rannsóknarnefndar Alþingis á orsökum hrunsins. Sú gagnrýni Jóns og Birgis að Vilhjálmur smætti lýðræði í stjórnsýslu og geri ekki ráð fyrir aðkomu almennings í hugmyndum sínum um lýðræði er sögð eiga rætur sínar í því að þeir slíti umfjöllun hans úr þessu tiltekna samhengi og dragi af henni villandi ályktanir um afstöðu hans til lýðræðis almennt. Einnig er ágreiningurinn rakinn til ólíks skilnings þessara fræðimanna á lýðræðishugtakinu. Vilhjálmur hafnar því að gera aðkomu borgaranna að ákvörðunum að þungamiðju lýðræðis á kostnað vandaðra stjórnarhátta og öflugra stofanana sem vernda mikilvæg lýðræðisleg gildi og gera borgurunum kleift að draga stjórnvöld til ábyrgðar. Loks eru reifaðar hugmyndir um borgaravirkni í anda rökræðulýðræðis og hvernig þær megi útfæra andspænis þeim ógnum sem steðja að upplýstri skoðanamyndun í samtímanum.

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire, HLS-EU-Q16: the Icelandic version

BackgroundHealth literacy (HL) is defined as the knowledge and competences of people to meet the complex demands of health in modern society. It is an important factor in ensuring positive health outcomes, yet Iceland is one of many countries with limited knowledge of HL and no valid HL measurement. The aim of this study was to translate the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire- short version (HLS-EU-Q16) into Icelandic, adapt the version, explore its psychometric properties and establish preliminary norms.MethodsThe HLS-EU-Q16 translation model included three steps: 1) translation-back-translation of HLS-EU-Q16 including specialists’ review (n = 6); 2) cognitive interviewing of lay people (n = 17); and 3) psychometric analysis with survey participants. The HLS-EU-Q16 includes 16 items, with scores ranges from zero (low/no HL) to 16 (high HL). Statistics included were descriptive, internal consistency measured by Cronbach’s α, exploratory factor analysis, and multivariate linear regression.ResultsAfter the translation and cognitive interviewing, 11 of the HLS-EU-Q16 items were reworded to adapt the instrument to Icelandic culture while maintaining their conceptual objectives. Survey participants were 251. Internal consistency of the translated and adapted instrument was α = .88. Four factors with eigenvalues > 1.0 explained 62.6% of variance. Principal component analysis with Oblimin rotation presented four latent constructs, “Processing and Using Information from the Doctor” (4 items, α = .77), “Processing and Using Information from the Family and Media” (4 items, α = .85), “Processing Information in Connection to Healthy Lifestyle” (5 items, α = .76), and “Finding Information about Health Problems/Illnesses” (3 items, α = .73). Lower self-rated health was an independent predictor of lower HL (β = −.484, p = .008). Preliminary norms for HL ranged from five to 16 (M 13.7, SD ± 2.6) with 72.5% with sufficient HL (score 13–16), 22% with problematic HL (score 9–12) and 5.5% with inadequate HL (score 0–8).ConclusionsThe Icelandic version of HLS-EU-Q16 is psychometrically sound, with reasonably clear factor structure, and comparable to the original model. This opens possibilities to study HL in Iceland and compare the results internationally. The translation model introduced might be helpful for other countries where information on HL is missing based on lack of validated tools.

Crisis and Belonging: Protest Voices and Empathic Solidarity in Post-Economic Collapse Iceland

This article explores the politics of belonging in Iceland in the context of an ethico-political project focused around increased transparency following the country’s 2008 banking collapse. By employing literature on autochthony (i.e., a return to, and interpretation of, “the local”), it examines the tensions that are reignited within and between nation-states during economic crisis. Through ethnography with ordinary Icelanders and the members of two protest movements, this research shows how Icelanders are cultivating a public voice to navigate the political constraints of crisis and reshaping Icelanders’ international identity from below in the wake of the collapse. To this end, the article accounts for the role of populist politics in re-embedding Iceland into the European social imaginary as an economically responsible and egalitarian nation. It then turns to highlight the push for meaningful democratic reform through collaborative, legislative exchange between the government and the people that resulted in a new—if not actually implemented—constitution. By exploring protest culture in Iceland, the article highlights the importance of public witnessing and empathic solidarity in building intercultural relations in an era of globalized finance and politics.

Between Scylla and Charybdis: on language situation and language policy in contemporary Iceland

    Iceland’s literary tradition, conservative linguistic heritage and ideologies of linguistic purism have been a major strand in Icelandic national identity. The preservation of linguistic and literary continuity is a principal objective of overtly expressed Icelandic culture policies. At the same time, the advent of globalisation has entailed increased everyday presence of an international language, along Icelandic, in important spheres of modern life. There are concerns that this has impact on reading habits, linguistic input, and language environment in general. Against this background, the present paper offers a description of prevailing Icelandic language ideologies, modern linguistic practices, language policies, and the possibilities and limitations of present-day language management efforts.

Deafness and Nonspeaking in Late Medieval Iceland (1200–1550)

Disability and Deaf studies offer differing yet complementing approaches toward the investigation of deaf and nonspeaking characters in late medieval Icelandic texts. Through these approaches, which focus on the individuals and their lives as well as their ability to communicate with the hearing world, this article shifts its attention to the experiences of these characters rather than any symbolic meanings their literary representation might hold. The article is divided into four main sections, considering prose from the Icelandic sagas and various legal sources. The first focuses on the communicative possibilities that deaf and nonspeaking people had recourse to in their private and public lives. The second examines the participation by deaf and nonspeaking people in the political and legal activities so prominent in medieval Icelandic culture. The third section turns to the race, class and gender considerations of society’s approach toward deaf and nonspeaking people, stressing the issues of gender, class, and race. Lastly, the article considers accounts of people miraculously acquiring and reacquiring speech and hearing through the mediation of saints.

Kościół katolicki na Islandii do roku 1264

The missionary action in Iceland did not end with the reception of Christianity by Althing in the year 1000. Further eff orts of the missionaries and their cooperation with Icelandic society were necessary to consolidate the adopted faith. The missionaries from Germany and England fi rst had a huge share here. Then, the native bishops and clergy took over this role successfully. The political and social stabilization of this period allowed Christianity to take root in the society of the Icelandic time of the independent Icelandic Community. This was confi rmed by the rise and development of monastic life, the development of Icelandic culture and education. The fi rst period of Christianity in Iceland allowed for laying solid foundations on which, even after the loss of sovereignty, Icelanders could preserve their cultural identity and national heritage.

Чипсы для белки Рататоск и походный набор для первопоселенца Ингольва. Рецепция древнеисландской культуры в поэзии Тоурарина Эльдъяртна

Чипсы для белки Рататоск и походный набор для первопоселенца Ингольва. Рецепция древнеисландской культуры в поэзии Тоурарина Эльдъяртна

“Some call Europe, and some call Eneá”: on the origins of the Old Icelandic learned prehistory

AbstractBy the 12thcentury, northern territories were fairly well known in practice, but there was an urgent need to explain the state of this region in written form. In most national narratives, there is an evident tendency to emphasise the similarity of local history with a more significant and more authoritative (Roman or sacred) history (Mortensen 2005). This paper deals with a very specific geographical image—“Europe, or Eneá”—that appears on two “textual maps” by an Icelandic historian of the 13thcentury, Snorri Sturluson, in hisEdda, an Icelandicars poetica(c. 1220), and in his large compendium of the kings’ sagas entitledHeimskringla(c. 1230). The author demonstrates that the toponymEneá, going back to the ancient hero Aeneas, was formed by Snorri himself as a result of his immersion in the local Icelandic culture and literature, where the Troy story had, by that time, occupied a significant place.

Los paréntesis como instrumento de poder. Las traducciones alemanas de la prosa islandesa en torno a 1900

Josef Calasanz Poestion was an influential author and translator from Icelandic into German. Among his translations was the first Icelandic novel, which he published several times. His translations are always accompanied by a series of paratexts, in which the translator’s presence is unusually strong. In these texts, he provides his readers with extensive knowledge of Icelandic culture and literature and positions himself as an authority on Iceland. Through frequent references to other writings, which he incorporated into annotations, introductions and other peritexts, he produced an extensive array of epitexts. He not only positioned himself as a figure of pedagogical authority vis-a-vis his readers, but also towards the Icelandic nation. His attitude toward Iceland is that of the center toward the periphery and is marked by an intra-European exoticism and orientalism.