I woke up this morning to the news that Icelanders rejected the latest proposal to resume talks about joining the European Union. According to RUV and the New York Times, over 80% of the country voted in the referendum, the largest voter turn-out since 2009, which is when the country was dealing with the effects of the financial crisis.
The final tally of the vote was 52.5% voting “No” – they did not want to consider joining the EU. According to the newspapers, people who voted “Yes” were concerned about growing their economy and protecting the country from outside threats similar to the Trump-Greenland crisis, but ultimately it was the “No-votes” that won out.
From a historical perspective, this “No-vote” does not surprise me. I cannot help but think of what Icelanders had to endure to finally achieve national independence. Since 1260, Iceland had been a subject of first, the Norwegian monarchy, and then in 1380, the Danish crown (Sigurdsson 81). For nearly 500 years Iceland was under the authority of the Danish king, but the country also operated with its parliament, the Althingi, which has had various degrees of control depending on the year and political climate. Since the beginning, native Icelanders have always desired full independence and complete home rule and year after year, the country inched closer to that full independence from Denmark.
In the mid-1800s, Iceland continued to poke at Denmark’s hold on their island, led by the great Jón Sigurðsson’s political prowess. Finally, after twenty years of continued political nuisance, the Danes made an important political overture (McGill 23). In 1874, King Christin IX of Denmark visited Iceland to celebrate the 1,000 year anniversary of the establishment of Iceland. While in Iceland, the king granted the Constitution of 1874 which recognized Iceland as a separate nation. Sigurðsson had finally gotten the Danes to formally “recognise that the only way to govern Iceland at all was to let it have a separate constitution” (23).
While this was a political win, it was not true independence. Still under limited Danish rule, both Iceland and Denmark adopted a position of “permanent neutrality” during the World Wars. When Denmark fell to the Nazi’s in 1940, Iceland lost its protection so that when British forces arrived on its shores, mere hours before the Germans were planning on invading, Prime Minister Hermann Jónasson was put in the difficult position of welcoming an occupying force onto its land.
The Allied occupation of Iceland was an awkward arrangement at its best. In public, the British forces were resented. Icelandic politicians repeated the claims that the British invasion was a threat to Icelandic identity and national sovereignty. Iceland was anxious about what hosting these troops meant for the nation’s social structure.
Not to mention, British and American troops in their small country meant that actual young, fit, well-dressed men were now stationed in Iceland. This became the seeds of the Icelandic Ástandið – a serious situation that affected a generation of Icelandic women and their families. The problem began because Icelandic young women had taken notice of the influx of strong, capable men in their small nation. Unsurprisingly, relationships between Icelandic women and Allied soldiers became common, resulting in a signifiant cultural crisis.
Economically, however, the war turned out to be a blessing for Iceland. The new influx of soldiers needed to be attended to, creating an explosion of economic opportunities. Icelanders were able to sell “fish to the British and took advantage of the British job opportunities, known as ‘Bretavinna,’ (or ‘Brit work’)” (Gunnarsson 2). People moved to Reykjavík from all corners of the island to do this work, which included various construction projects for the army. Roads and airports were built to accommodate the new soldiers. These simple infrastructure changes not only provided jobs to the islanders, but also helped connect the island, bringing it into modernity.
Finally in 1943, after enduring centuries of Norwegian and Danish rule and years of foreign occupation, Iceland was ready to claim full independence (Hálfdanarson 91). According to the Act of Union between Iceland and Denmark that was established back in 1918, either country could break from their relationship in 1943, after twenty five years. At the time, Denmark was still occupied by Germany. Iceland used its relationship with Britain and the United States to move towards its long campaign for full independence. At last, on June 17, 1944, a newly elected president of Iceland, Sveinn Björnsson, signed the new Icelandic constitution into law and formally cut ties with Denmark in a grand Icelandic ceremony.
All of this is to say, independence is not just something that happened to the people of Iceland – it literally formed Iceland’s identity.
The great Nobel Prize writer, Halldór Laxness wrote an entire book characterizing that Icelandic independence. In the early pages of Independent People (1946), the main character Bjartur’s new wife, Rosa, is upset by how their marital home is small, dark and kind of awful – “It was a house and a stable in one” (30). Bjartur retorts: “Well, there’s always one good thing about it: no one that lives here need slave all day long at housework…. and I always thought you had sense enough to appreciate your independence. Independence is the most important thing of all in life. I say for my part that a man lives in vain until he is independent. People who aren’t independent aren’t people” (31-32).
And so here we are, in 2026. Am I nervous about some of the very real challenges that Icelanders have to face economically? Absolutely. Do I worry that it might have to exert ridiculous defenses against the political whims of foreign nations? 100%. But am I surprised that over half of the country voted to reject the EU? Not at all. After all, who would Icelanders even be if they weren’t an Independent People?
Works Cited
Gunnarsson, Valur. “From Iceland – Love in the Time of War.” Grapevine Magazine, Grapevine, 31 Aug. 2012, grapevine.is/mag/feature/2012/08/31/love-in-the-time-of-war.
Hálfdanarson, Guðmundur. “‘The Beloved War’ The Second World War and the Icelandic National Narrative.” Nordic Narratives of the Second World War : National Historiographies Revisited, edited by Henrik Stenius, e-book, Nordic Academic Press, 2011, pp. 79-100.
Laxness, Halldór. Independent People. Trans. by J. A. Thompson. Vintage Books. 1946. 1997.
McGill, Alexander. The Independence of Iceland. A Parallel for Ireland. Glasgow, P.J. O’Callaghan, 1921.
Sigurdsson, Davíd Logi. “‘A Parallel Much Closer’: The 1918 Act of Union between Iceland and Denmark and Ireland’s Relations with Britain.” Irish Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 133, May 2004, pp. 79-92. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30008653. Accessed 6 Mar. 2021.
Venessa Anderson 