Posted on 12/08/2006 11:24:32 AM PST by Leifur
Here are the basics of the history of Iceland. With a special emphasis of US - Icelandic connections and the US military presence here and its end in this year, and the disillusionment of many Icelanders, specially on the right, because of this towards the US wich they have supported for long time.
874: Scandinavian/british isles vikings and their celtic slaves began settling the country.
930: Mostly settled, the Icelandic Free State was established, a governing system without a king or any executive branch whatsoever. A very individualistic system of governance, that ensured peace and prosperity here for 300 years. Its main body was the Althing, establised this year.
1000: Christianity established as state religion instead of Paganism. Due to pressure from the norweegian king, but was easy as propably the majority of the population where christians, that is the former celtic slaves. Most of their descendants had soon become subsistance farmers here as the system had quicly made slavery obsolete as a practical institution.
1264: We lost our independence to the Norweegians, because of a small civil war that the Norweegian King had fueled. Taxation due to the church was most likely instrumental in destabilising the system, creating rivaling chieftaining families.
?: The Kalmar Union between the Danish and Norway made us subjects to the Danish.
1550: The execution of Jón Arason (every Icelander can trace him as their ancestor) the last Chatholic bishop by the Danish established Lutherianism as state religion.
This was followed by ever more oppressive system of government aimed at making us a tax colony of Denmark, in wich the church was instrumental in destroying many cultural institutions. That hand in hand with worsened weather, and then many volcanic eruptions made us very few in numbers and poor.
Thus the current population can all trace their ancestors together in the 8th to 10th generation.
summor of 1809: Winds of change reach Iceland, a young Danish adventurer establishes a short lived republic here based on the ideals of the American and French revelutions. Was possible because of the countries isolation due to the Napolonic wars, but Denmark had become an ally of Denmark. The british sent a warship here, and arrested this man and sent him eventually to Australia and put danish control here back. But this brought new thinking to the country.
1830: Icelanders began effectively championing for Icelandic freedom, but not with weapons. The Icelandic Free State was romanticed and the idea was to reestablish it.
1845: We managed to make Althing (wich had run continously since 930 except for few years prior to this) a advisory body to the Danish King.
1874: Iceland got its own constitution and more freedom in commerce
1901: Home rule established.
1918. All but independence reached, as the Kingdom of Iceland, with the Danish king as head of state. The Danish were still though responsible for foreign affairs.
?: During WW2 the british establish a presence here after Denmark is overrun by the Germans. Later, six months prior to the attack of Pearl Harbor and the formal participation of the US in the WW2, the US reliefs the British here and become our protectors by establishing a military presence here. Shortly before the Normandy invasion there where ca as many military men here as there were male Icelanders, or about 70 thousand man.
1944: Iceland declares independence, but we had had de facto independence (under US protections) since the Germans overran Denmark.
1952: US establishes a cold war base here (and Iceland joins NATO even though we don´t have a military) after having left the country briefly (officially) since the end of WW2 (never completely though), with the support of the nationalistic right (as in independence nationalism/patriotism of those that sought for our independence), but this move split the formerly majority independence movement between the right wing Independence Party (wich I am a member of and is supported by about 35 to 40% of the nation) and those nationalists/patriots that loathed a foreign military presence here but they eventuelly migrated to the left and became the basis of the communist movement here.
This move split the nation in half and surged the support of leftwingers, and due to the socialistic influence our economy spiralled over the next forty years, although with brief relatively good years in between because of high prises of our main export, fish. There was huge inflation here in this time, measured in three numbers.
1992: Mr. Davíð Oddson the head of the Independence Party became Prime Minister. He liberalised the economy, privatised most state run industries and paid down nearly all of our foreign depts, wich were considerable. Our quality of life surged so today we are number 4 in the world of countries with the best quality of life.
2003: Iceland is part of the Coalition of the Willing. Just a week prior to the general election the US declare that they are going to move their airplanes from Iceland, but according to the defence treaty (established in ´52) they were responsible for the air defence of the country. Thankfully, Davíð Oddson, managed to prevent this information getting out and also managed to get this decision reverted, but it propably did not help in concentrating his efforts to the upcoming elections, in wich we reduced our majority.
2005: Davíð Oddson steps out of government, wich is though still run by the Independence Party and its coalition partner.
2006: The US moves its military presence away from the country in a sudden move, leaving us defenceless even though the defence treaty is formarly still in place. This disillusions many staunch supporters of the US here on the right, who had defended the US and its presence here during the whole Cold War, and the Iraqi and Afghan invasions. Specially how sudden this came, how we came to know about it and many other things, specially how unwelcome our moves of promising to pay for and gradually taking over many aspects of the defences here, by learning from and with the help of, the US in defending ourselves, wich we haven´t done for centuries.
2007: Iceland heads for general elections in the spring, but most projections predict that the current, long held coalition will lose its majority to the anti-american left, under the control of people who had championed against the US presence here during the Cold War and claimed that they were only here for their own gain, but not to protect us as, the right claimed and beliewed until their departure.
OK, the history was fascinating, but where are the pics of hot blonde, blue-eyed Icelandic women???
Hey, you are a small country, and you have to have reasons to challenge your heritage. Who am I, an internet poster. I really appreciate you taking the time to post to me. Just maybe I'll learn something about my family, and just maybe you'll get more history on your country. I'm really happy to have met you.
I grew up with Thorsdottor.
:-)
I lived for one year at Hofn Naval Installation, on the southeast coast of Iceland, in the 1980s. It was the most ruggedly beautiful place I have ever lived in or near.
Maybe this is my long lost relative, and I'll get tones of money when he dies?
Thank you for kind words. It is surely not easy for a small nation of 300 thousand to preserve its culture and language, specially now that we are so thoroughly submerged in the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere all around us and most of us speak English. But as long as the independence party is strong and true to its values, Iceland should keep its independence. But free trade agreement with the US f.e. could help us stay clear of the EU´s aims of subjugating us. The military presence also helped.
About the cheap energy sources, we have used it a lot, even to the point of it beeing a hot debate weather we should do it any more, as hydroelectric dams are spoiling previously untouched natural landscapes. We are mostly using it to attract aluminium smelters, we allready have two big ones, one under construction and plans for one or two more, although due to the political situation they are likely in my opinion to be scrapped, also because the other ones want to expand.
I once heard that if we did not have hot water running to our houses cheaply, the standard of living would be considerable less here, I think it was five times higher energy prices than now if we had to use other sources. I lived in the Vestfjords, wich had at least much higher electric bills, as there is not abundance of hot water there, due to it beeing an geologically older than the rest of the country.
I heard once a story about a man moving from the Vestfjords after having lived in a big individual house there he moved to an apartment building in Reykjavík. There he had to take on the responsibility of beeing the House Manager or head of the House Council or what it is called. When he got the electric bill for the whole building he paid it and thought he escaped well that month, not realising he was paying for the all building, not only his own apartment.
There are ideas beeing researched of bringing with deeper drilling hot water to towns in the West- and Eastfjords, where there hasn´t been much hot water. Some even claim that if drilled deep enough, and the proper technologie to control the pressure, hot water could be brought to the whole world from below ground.
We have at least started to export our current technology, now most recently to a City in China with hot water in its vicinity.
I'm really glad to have met you!
Is this a hot topic, to stay clear of the EU, and all that?
He is most likely your relative. I think there are quite a few of the Richters here. Here is a list I got when I used the name Richter in the genelogical page:
Guðrún Richter Jónsdóttir 3. október 1816
Helga Richter Jónsdóttir 5. júní 1841 - 30. september 1914
Kristín Richter Samúelsdóttir 22. apríl 1876 - 14. september 1960
Randver Richter Kristjánsson 18. október 1908 - 28. maí 1937
Stefán Richter Gunnlaugsson 6. mars 1941
Randver Richter Ragnarsson 7. ágúst 1960
Stefán Richter Stefánsson 6. september 1960
Elísabet Richter Arnardóttir 5. maí 1969
Strangely I did not get the one I was talking about. I did not get anything from the ukrainic names, but smith rang some bells, but that is a very common name, maybe some other people of germanic origin came here also (Denmark and Germany where very connected in that time, Sleswich-Holstein beeing subject to the Danish King). Here are the oldest of them:
Ragnar Smith Gunnlaugsson 27. ágúst 1882 - 23. nóvember 1918
Ásta Smith Ólafsson 28. febrúar 1899 - 21. maí 1979
Bogi Smith Magnússon 27. apríl 1909 - 25. ágúst 1937
Nothing comes from McNulty, and Hólmfríður is a very common first name. The last is propably a misspelling of either Arnardóttir, Arnarsdóttir or Andradóttir, all of wich are part of our patrimonical naming system, wich most of the nation uses.
That is if the father is named Arnar as his first name, his son would be Arnarsson (son of Arnar) and his daughter Arnardóttir (dauchter of Arnar). Or if the father is named Örn (Eagle), his son would be Arnarson and his daugther Arnardóttir (the name Örn is in its four cases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case): Örn-Örn-Erni-Arnar, and it is allways the last case, Dativ that is used as a prefix to -son or -dóttir (-daughter). Or if the father is named Andri (a rather recent name I beliewe-yes, the oldest one is from 1930 accoring to the website) his son is Andrason and his son is then Andradóttir.
Whew.
What you can do is send them at Íslendingabók mail and ask them to dig out your relatives or at least your ancestors. I think they do this regularly for foreigners, but you propably will have to pay them some fee. Here is some e-mail adress I found, but maybe as it was hard to find it, they are not in the habit of helping foreigners of Icelandic origins. Here it is:
islendingabok@islendingabok.is
Best wishes, I propably must be preparing to go to bed, and good luck if you want to find more about your ancestors this way here,
Leifur
This is fabluous! I'm going to have to compare this to the list my aunt sent, she has a list just like this. Just wait a couple minutes, I'll be right back.......
We on the right at least don´t like the EU, and its ever encroaching polices of ever closer union for its members. Thankfully we only have to follow a small part of their laws, we only having a trade agreement withtem, but whew, that is enough for us, and more than that.
For a nation that so recently regained its independence, if I can do anything about it, we sure as hell not are going to trade it in for anything, specially not to be ruled by Brussel, and the anti-american, overtly socialdemocratic elite running things there.
This is interesting, I beliewe many of the Richters here are engineers and scientists, at least the one I mentioned, his dayjob is a scientist I think. As we are a small nation, there isn´t much money in being a celebrity here, and he was only a minor, having run this show as a part time job, and the show was small, short and not shown very often.
You are a woman? Me finding that out thinking otherwise brings to mind Borat´s reaction to women ;). It surprises me, just because I had, with of course no basis, just automatically assumed you were male. Sorry :).
What is your position toward feminism, and the Equal Rights Amendment? Similar law was passed here and has become a religion so to speak, as is feminism nearly.
I'm going to re-type my family's history, you can decide for yourself. Give me a couple hours, I have to retype from old data. This should be cool.
I have seen pictures, it is a beutiful place, it is one of the last parts of the country I haven´t been to though. Sadly the installation you propably worked in was torn down recently. Some wanted it to be allowed to remained as an important historical landmark, but as way to often, many don´t want to preserve some of our history.
Check Aurther Richter. He'd be born about 1900 or so.
Where was that? She must have been the daugher of someone named Thor, or Þór. What where the names of her family? How did that come to be that you grew up with her? Where is she now?
Sorry, they are reserved as a limited natural resource and its export is banned, or at least should be ;). They will be limited to only Icelanders, and or naturalised Icelanders that show the commitment of wanting to become Icelanders.
That would at least make it easier for me to get one of them for myself...
Her father came over here (California) from Iceland. Really, her last name was Thoroddsson; but if she'd been born there, she'd have been Thorsdottor (I think that's what she told me.).
She would go back with her dad every few summers. The pictures were so odd because EVERYONE LOOKED JUST LIKE HER!!!
I guess the gene pool was small; but she was a beauty!
The last I knew she was married in Los Angeles somewhere. We graduated in 1970, so it's been more'n a week.
;-)
I am very interested in it, but sadly Home schooling is not legal here in Iceland.
I have though one question or possible reservation about it, will it not hinder assimilation of immigrants if allowed? I have heard that is the case among muslim immigrants in Norway where it is allowed. If we are going to make our immigrants into Icelanders we must do it in the schools when they and or their descendants are young.
Maybe a solution could be found between the two though, that is the freedom of teaching your children as you want, and the neccasity for everyone to learn Icelandic and the basic things about the countries culture and heritage.
Hehe, people here can be alike, at least in first sight. Some have claimed this to be bad thing, strangely.
Yes, so her fathers name must have been:
Þór Þóroddsson,
and she then having to take her fathers paternal name as a family name in the US (your method of assimilation of us), but here she would have been named her first name and then Þórsdóttir, that is the daughter of Þór, the son of Þóroddur, the son of...
So you are saying that she is one of our lost people, being lost to the outside world? Hopefully she is teaching her children Icelandic, she spoke it did she not? That is the most important thing, that is the basis of our identity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.