{"id":216,"date":"2012-12-24T01:37:15","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T01:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/?p=216"},"modified":"2016-03-30T20:43:17","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T20:43:17","slug":"pall-bjoernsson-jon-forseti-allur-taknmyndir-thjodhhetju-fra-andlati-til-samtidhar-reykjavik-soegufelag-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/08-1\/c51-book-review\/pall-bjoernsson-jon-forseti-allur-taknmyndir-thjodhhetju-fra-andlati-til-samtidhar-reykjavik-soegufelag-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson, J\u00f3n forseti allur? T\u00e1knmyndir \u00fej\u00f3\u00f0hetju fr\u00e1 andl\u00e1ti til samt\u00ed\u00f0ar (Reykjav\u00edk: S\u00f6guf\u00e9lag, 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\t
\n\n\t\t<\/i><\/span> <\/a>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

When taking into consideration the warm reception the book has received, as well as the prestigious awards, one ponders upon whether the nation is relieved by the loss of its leading political patron? Or whether this acceptance unveils tolerance towards anyone who tries to tarnish the president’s image. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson deconstructs the very icon that was consciously constructed of J\u00f3n Sigur\u00f0sson for a political purpose. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The story begins in a society of inequality. The funeral procession in Reykjav\u00edk in the spring of 1880 when President J\u00f3n Sigur\u00f0sson (hereafter \u201cPresident J\u00f3n\u201d) and his wife Ingibj\u00f6rg Einarsd\u00f3ttir (1804 -1879) were reburied, was deliberately divided by class and gender. In the very farewell of the nation to President J\u00f3n, the occasion token was used for reproducing the existing social inequalities. Women were assigned a lower status in the celebrations to commemorate President J\u00f3n. Also, there was lack of consideration towards President J\u00f3n’s widow during the preparations for President J\u00f3n’s funeral in Copenhagen in December 1879, which was organised in such a way as to promote political consolidation. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson writes the book from a gender point of view, thus making it an uncomfortable reminder of the national patron’s lack of stand when it came to the one of the most controversial issues in political debate of the age.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson analyses how the political icon of President J\u00f3n was cultivated by the new media (newspapers) by appealing to emotions, whereby sorrow was converted into national mourning, remembrance into national commemoration, and funerals into national festivities. This analysis is welcomed by the reader who interprets the political presence of President J\u00f3n in modern politics after his death as a key-factor in a nation-building process. where the inhabitants of a country have been transformed into a political nation that is able to have a state of its own. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson does not specifically mention this, but President J\u00f3n himself lead actual Icelandic politics, which for decades prevented the parliament of Iceland (Al\u00feingi) from acquiring a treasury under its own power for the sake of implementing a nation-building policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The publication of the book has not resulted in the loss of the overnight loss of the icon of Presidet J\u00f3n as regards the legitimisation of political authority in modern society. On Iceland\u2019s national day of 2010, the Icelandic Minister of Education referred to his ideas on educational matters in a speech held at President J\u00f3n\u2019s birthplace in Hrafnseyri. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson questions, in a footnote, whether President J\u00f3n was a prime mover in educating the nation as hitherto believed. His school-policy did not gain ground in his lifetime. Quite the opposite, the focus on independence politics made it impossible for Icelanders to establish a comprehensive school-system as other nations did in that period. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson\u2018s book is not about President J\u00f3n himself, his life and actions. The book is about diverse exploitation of him as an icon, from souvenir production to image creation of big companies. The book is about Icelanders and how an image has been utilised for political purposes. In the beginning, this was done to preserve a society divided by class, gender, age groups and regions, characterised by the authorities\u2019 fear of common people\u2019s political organisation. The endeavor was to create a single opinion in a disparate society. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson infers how powerful a political weapon the image of President J\u00f3n was for those who wanted him in their camp. All stakeholders wanted to have a share in him as their icon of choice. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson also concludes how difficult it has been for state authorities to honour their duty to pay respect to the \u201cthe legacy of President J\u00f3n\u201d (pp. 183-211). We read about the problematic realisation of the objectification of the icon in such a way that it can be more than just that. For one, the difficulties in finding an objective for the rebuilding of President J\u00f3n’s birthplace at Hrafnseyri in a remote and depopulated area, or in justifying what kind of function it would have. However, the couple’s sepulcher in Reykjav\u00edk found its function, while the real success story is the statue standing opposite Al\u00feingi. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson’s book is a contribution to the analysis of the original legend of the birth of a Republic. President J\u00f3n himself spent most of his life in Copenhagen, the capital of the Danish North-Western-Atlantic empire. The icon-creators realised the importance of an untainted image of the unequivocally Icelandic J\u00f3n Sigur\u00f0sson. This can be interpreted as the solution of the paradox for nationalistic thinking of a national -hero who chose to live amidst the claimed oppressors. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The author uses in an original way the fact that the ship carrying the bodies of the couple for the funeral in Iceland had the name of the mythological Phoenix, the bird that in our culture symbolises renewal. President J\u00f3n was renewed. Here the reader calls for further analysis of the Jesus-like symbolism that can be found in the writings on President J\u00f3n in the first decades after his demise. There are many examples therein of religious symbols being replaced with political ones during a time of secularisation in Western societies. It is clear that the book rests on a theoretical analysis and that the discourse in Iceland on the ideological roots of the Republic calls for theoretical writings on this issue. Here, however, we merely have a description.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson quizzes the nation on President J\u00f3n as a good teacher would do. This is done by using questionnaire (N 1363, response rate 70%). The answers are analysed by gender, age, region and schooling. The result is that image is superior to knowledge. Only a minority knows well the life and work of President J\u00f3n and why he was given the title \u201cPresident\u201d. Highly educated males in the prime of life know President J\u00f3n best, other groups less so. However, the majority regard President J\u00f3n as an important unifying symbol for the nation, consider it right to honour his memory and are proud of him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The acceptance that characterises the response to the book P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson has written is justifiable. P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson enters a new field in the research on President J\u00f3n\u2019s legacy. The book is an elaborate treatise. You can appreciate this elaboration even just by looking at the carefully chosen pictures. Some are in colour. Viewed as a whole, the pictures tell us as critical a story as the written text itself. Interestingly, President J\u00f3n is revealed as two different characters in two different paintings, as a bronze statue in fabrication, alongside gentlemen, protesters, extremists, women, students, commoners and in a teargas haze. The narrative is lively. The footnotes are quite many and often replicating the text of the sources, thus deepening the premises for the descriptions in the text. The book offers lists of people’s names, pictures and sources. No misspellings or grammatical errors could be found. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

This review discussed whether the warm reception of a critical book on a national-hero at his bicentenary represents tolerance towards a new sentiment on President J\u00f3n or a liberation from his enduring authority. The book on President J\u00f3n written by P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson offers the nation a chance to reunite with an ex-national -hero and finds it difficult to understand why he is still so politically massive in spite of his physical absence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book P\u00e1ll Bj\u00f6rnsson has written entitled President J\u00f3n in Full? Icons of a National Hero From His Death to the Present,<\/em> deprives the Icelandic people of the icon of president J\u00f3n Sigur\u00f0sson (1811-1879) qua omnipotent father of the nation. This is done elegantly. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":333,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[107,647],"coauthors":[1144],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c51-book-review","tag-iceland","tag-jon-sigurdsson-nationalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1247,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/1247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nome.unak.is\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}