The Icelandic Literary Society (Hið Íslenzka Bókmenntafélag), founded in 1816, is a society dedicated to promoting and strengthening

Icelandic language Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

, literature and learning. The society was founded in 1816, when the

Icelandic independence movement The Icelandic Independence movement (Icelandic: ''Sjálfstæðisbarátta Íslendinga'') was the collective effort made by Icelanders to achieve self-determination and independence from the Kingdom of Denmark throughout the 19th and early 20th ...

was in its infancy, at the instigation of

Rasmus Rask Rasmus Kristian Rask (; born Rasmus Christian Nielsen Rasch; 22 November 1787 – 14 November 1832) was a Danish linguist and philologist. He wrote several grammars and worked on comparative phonology and morphology. Rask traveled extensively to ...

and Árni Helgason. Its stated purpose was "to support and maintain the Icelandic language and literature, and the civilization and honor of the Icelandic nation, by the publication of books or by other means as circumstances would permit."Halldór Hermannsson, ''The Periodical Literature of Iceland Down to the Year 1874,'' ''Islandica'' XI (1918)
p. 26
The first meeting of the

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

branch was held on 13 April 1816, and the first meeting of the

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

branch on 1 August 1816. Rask was the first president of the Copenhagen branch; the first president of the Reykjavík branch (until 1848) was Árni Helgason.

Jón Sigurðsson Jón Sigurðsson (17 June 1811 – 7 December 1879) was the leader of the 19th century Icelandic independence movement. Biography Born at Hrafnseyri, in Arnarfjörður in the Westfjords area of Iceland, he was the son of Þórdís Jónsdótti ...

, an Icelandic cultural hero, served as president of the Copenhagen branch from 1851 to 1879. In 1912 the two branches were united and Björn M. Ólsen, president of the Reykjavík branch, continued as president of the whole society. The first book the society published contained ''

Sturlunga saga ''Sturlunga saga'' (often called simply ''Sturlunga'') is a collection of Icelandic sagas by various authors from the 12th and 13th centuries; it was assembled in about 1300. It mostly deals with the story of the Sturlungs, a powerful family clan ...

'' together with ''Saga Árna biskups Þorlákssonar'', in 1817. The Icelandic branch published its first book in 1849. Since 1970, the society has published Icelandic translations of key non-Icelandic academic and literary works, in a series titled ''Lærdómsrit hins íslenska bókmenntafélags'' which was initiated by the society's then president, , and

Þorsteinn Gylfason Þorsteinn Gylfason (12 August 1942 – 16 August 2005) was an Icelandic philosopher, translator, musician and poet. Þorsteinn distinguished himself in Icelandic public life with his writings in newspapers, journals and publications. His li ...

, who served as its editor in chief until 1992. The one hundredth book in the series was a translation of

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...

's novel ''

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge ''The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge'', first published as ''Journal of My Other Self'', M. D. Herter Norton (tr.). New York: W. W. Norton, 1949, 1992. Translator's Foreword, p. 8. is a 1910 novel by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The nove ...

''. The society publishes the magazine ''Skírnir'', which succeeded its first annual, ''Íslenzk Sagnablöð'', in 1827, and also acts as distributor for the ''

Íslenzk fornrit Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, or The Old Icelandic Text Society is a text publication society. It is the standard publisher of Old Icelandic texts (such as the Sagas of Icelanders, Kings' sagas and bishops' sagas) with thorough introductions and c ...

'' series (publications of the Old Icelandic Text Society). The society's bicentenary was celebrated in 2016 with an exhibition at the

National Library A national library is a library established by a government as a country's preeminent repository of information. Unlike public library, public libraries, these rarely allow citizens to borrow books. Often, they include numerous rare, valuable, o ...

."Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag 200 ára".

References

External links

* {{authority control Cultural organizations based in Iceland Learned societies of Iceland Organizations established in 1816