Jónas Hallgrímsson
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Jónas Hallgrímsson (16 November 1807 – 26 May 1845) was an
Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
ic poet, author and naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Icelandic journal ''Fjölnir'', which was first published in
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 ...
in 1835. The magazine was used by Jónas and his fellow '' Fjölnismenn'' to promote Icelandic nationalism, in the hope of giving impetus to 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 ce ...
. Jónas remains one of Iceland's most beloved poets, penning some of the best-known Icelandic poems about Iceland and its people. Since 1996, Jónas's birthday has been officially recognised in Iceland as the '' Day of the Icelandic Language''. On 16 November each year, the ''Jónas Hallgrímsson Award'' is awarded to an individual for their outstanding contribution to the Icelandic Language.


Biography

Jónas was born in the north of Iceland, in Öxnadalur in
Eyjafjörður Eyjafjörður (, ''Island Fjord'') is one of the longest fjords in Iceland. It is located in the central north of the country. Situated by the fjord is the country's fourth most populous municipality, Akureyri. Physical geography The fjord is ...
. He was the son of Hallgrímur Þorsteinsson, a curate, and Rannveig Jónasdóttir. He was the third of their four children; his siblings were Þorsteinn (born 1800), Rannveig (born 1802) and Anna Margrét (born 1815). In 1816 Jónas' father drowned in a lake and Jónas was sent to live with his aunt. In 1821 he returned home to Öxnadalur to be confirmed, before going away to a school in
Skagafjörður Skagafjörður () is a deep fjord and its valley in northern Iceland. Location Skagafjörður, the fjord, is about 40 km long and 15 km wide, situated between Tröllaskagi to the east and the Skagi Peninsula to the west. There are t ...
, where he was taught by the Reverend Einar H. Thorlacius. He studied there for two years, and won a scholarship to attend the school at
Bessastaðir Bessastaðir () is the official residence of the president of Iceland. It is situated in Álftanes, about from the capital city, Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, ...
for a further six. After passing his final examinations in 1829, Jónas moved to Reykjavík and was employed by a sheriff as a clerk, living in his home. During this time, he also worked as a defence lawyer. It is said that sometime in the winter of 1831–1832, Jónas proposed to a woman called Christiane Knudsen, but he was rejected. He was heartbroken. In 1832 he sailed to Denmark, and passed the entrance exam for the
University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
. He began working for a law degree, but after four years switched to literature and natural sciences, excelling in both subjects. In 1835, along with fellow Icelandic students
Brynjólfur Pétursson Brynjólfur Pétursson (15 April 1810 – 18 October 1851) was an Icelandic lawyer and government official. He was one of the '' Fjölnismenn'', a group of Icelandic intellectuals who spearheaded the revival of Icelandic national consciousness an ...
,
Konráð Gíslason Konráð Gíslason (3 July 1808 – 26 January 1891) was an Icelandic grammarian and philologist, and one of the '' Fjölnismenn'', a group of Icelandic intellectuals who spearheaded the revival of Icelandic national consciousness in the 19th c ...
and
Tómas Sæmundsson Tómas Sæmundsson (7 June 1807 – 17 May 1841) was an Icelandic priest, and one of the '' Fjölnismenn'', a group of Icelandic intellectuals who spearheaded the revival of Icelandic national consciousness and gave rise to the Icelandic Independ ...
, he founded the patriotic journal ''Fjölnir''. After graduation he was awarded a grant from the state treasury to conduct scientific research in Iceland, a project which he worked on from 1839 to 1842. He continued to pursue his interest in the natural history of Iceland, and to work on ''Fjölnir'' throughout his life, dividing his time between Denmark and research trips to Iceland. It was in ''Fjölnir'' that many of his poems and essays first appeared. Jónas also worked as a translator of foreign material, including scientific works. In these can be found many of the Icelandic words coined by Jónas. One of these, for an example, is ''reikistjarna'', meaning planet. This is a compound word from the verb ''að reika'' (to wander) and the noun ''stjarna'' (star). On 21 May 1845 in
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 ...
, Jónas slipped on the stairs up to his room and broke his leg. He went to the hospital the next day, but died of
blood poisoning Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...
, aged only 37.


Style

Jónas is considered one of the founding fathers, and best examples, of
romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in Iceland. The imagery in his poetry was strongly influenced by the Icelandic landscape. He is also known for introducing foreign
metres The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
, such as
pentameter Pentameter ( grc, πεντάμετρος, 'measuring five ( feet)') is a poetic meter. А poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five feet, where a 'foot' is a combination of a particul ...
, to Icelandic poetry. :Charming and fair is the land, ::and snow-white the peaks of the jokuls laciers :Cloudless and blue is the sky, ::the ocean is shimmering bright, :But high on the lave fields, where ::still Osar river is flowing :Down into Almanna gorge, ::Althing no longer is held, :Now Snorri's booth serves as a sheepfold, ::the ling upon Logberg the sacred :Is blue with berries every year, ::for children's and ravens' delight. :Oh, ye juvenile host ::and full-grown manhood of Iceland! :Thus is our forefathers' fame ::forgotten and dormant withal. ''Iceland'' Translated by Gudmund J. Gislason Beck, Richard, editor, ''Icelandic Lyrics: Originals and Translations'', Thorhallur Bjarnarson, Publisher, Post Box 1001, Reykjavik 1930


Controversy over Jónas' Remains

In 1946, the bones of Jónas Hallgrímsson were moved from Copenhagen to Iceland in a controversy known in Icelandic as the ''beinamálið'' ('bones question'). While ostensibly a national triumph, the reburial has been argued to have been an enormously problematic exercise in
hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
by Iceland's post-independence elites and “instead of uniting the nation, the episode uncovered a great divide within the people of Iceland.” The main campaigner behind this was
Sigurjón Pétursson Sigurjón Pétursson (9 March 1888 – 3 May 1955) was an Icelandic wrestler. He competed in the light heavyweight event at the 1912 Summer Olympics. Sigurjón later became an industrialist: by 1946 he was the owner of a textile factory at ...
, an admirer of Jónas who claimed to be in telepathic communication with the dead poet and wanted to re-bury his remains in Öxnadalur, where Jónas grew up. Sigurjón came up against serious opposition from a number of the political élite, including
Ólafur Thors Ólafur Tryggvason Thors (19 January 1892 – 31 December 1964) was an Icelandic politician of the Independence Party, who served five times as prime minister of Iceland. Career The son of Margrét Þorbjörg Kristjánsdóttir and Thor Philip A ...
, who was then
Prime Minister of Iceland The prime minister of Iceland ( is, Forsætisráðherra Íslands) is Iceland's head of government. The prime minister is appointed formally by the president and exercises executive authority along with the cabinet subject to parliamentary suppor ...
. The government informed him that Jónas' bones were state property, and would be buried at the national burial ground at
Þingvellir Þingvellir (, anglicised as ThingvellirThe spelling ''Pingvellir'' is sometimes seen, although the letter "p" is unrelated to the letter "þ" (thorn), which is pronounced as "th".) was the site of the Alþing, the annual parliament of Iceland f ...
, alongside the poet
Einar Benediktsson Einar Benediktsson, often referred to as Einar Ben (31 October 1864 – 12 January 1940) was an Icelandic poet and lawyer. Einar Benediktsson's poetry was a significant contribution to the nationalistic revival which led to Iceland's independenc ...
. However, the government proved unwilling to finance the excavation and transportation. Sigurjón covered most of the cost, even paying for Matthías Þórðarson, the director of the
National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...
, to oversee the excavation. The process was a lengthy one, because a father and son had been buried on top of Jónas in 1875, and another couple in 1900, and they needed to be excavated first. Finally, Sigurjón was able to transport the remains to Iceland. He drove north with them, intending to bury them in Öxnadalur in defiance of the government, but the priests there refused to perform the rites. The coffin stood in a church for a week before being driven back south and buried in the government's chosen spot on 16 November, Jónas' birthday. Since 1996, the date has been celebrated in Iceland as
Icelandic Language Day Icelandic Language Day ( is, dagur íslenskrar tungu, English: "day of the Icelandic tongue") is a festival celebrated on 16 November each year in Iceland to celebrate the Icelandic language. This date was chosen to coincide with the birthday of the ...
. The controversy, its motivations and outcomes were satirised by, amongst others, Halldór Laxness's 1948 novel ''
Atómstöðin The Atom Station ( is, Atómstöðin) is a novel by Icelandic author Halldór Laxness, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. The initial print run sold out on the day it was published, for the first time in Icelandic history. Pl ...
'' and Milan Kundera's ''
Ignorance Ignorance is a lack of knowledge and understanding. The word "ignorant" is an adjective that describes a person in the state of being unaware, or even cognitive dissonance and other cognitive relation, and can describe individuals who are unaware o ...
''.Jón Karl Helgason, 'A Poet’s Great Return: Jónas Hallgrímsson’s Reburial and Milan Kundera’s ''Ignorance''', ''Scandinavian-Canadian Studies/Études scandinaves au Canada'', 20 (2011), 52-61 (p. 53), http://scancan.net/article.pdf?id=helgason_1_20 (PDF), http://scancan.net/article.htm?id=helgason_1_20 (XHTML).


References


Sources


Jónas Hallgrímsson, Selected Poetry and ProseThe University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
presents this publicly accessible digital resource. It includes a wide range of materials that introduce the work of Icelandic poet and
natural scientist Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatabili ...
Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807–1845), generally acknowledged to be the most important and influential Icelandic poet of modern times.
Jónas Hallgrímson.is
(In Icelandic)


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallgrimsson, Jonas 1807 births 1845 deaths Jonas Hallgrimsson Jonas Hallgrimsson Jonas Hallgrimsson Jonas Hallgrimsson Accidental deaths from falls Jonas Hallgrimsson 19th-century male writers