The Alþing – political institution or cultural contradiction?

Photo: Painting of the Icelandic Thing; framed.

© The Trustees of the British Museum (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/116115001)

Þingvellir National Park is a site between the North American and Eurasian continental plates where the Alþing used to be held every summer (from the 930s C.E.). For those readers who are not Icelandic, you may not be aware of what the Alþing is – it is the oldest surviving parliament; hence, its relevance to this General Election-themed edition of the paper. At this national assembly an elected ‘law-speaker’ would announce laws. With the help of a council of men well-versed in the law, he would discuss any new laws needed and settle disputes between individuals or groups. If you look at the UNESCO listing for Þingvellir one of the criteria for its listing as a World Heritage Site is ‘pride in the strong association of the Alþing to medieval Norse/Germanic governance… reinforced during the fight for independence in the 19th Century’ making it a ‘shrine for the national Icelandic identity.’ This makes the site significant in itself – it is a symbol of the Icelandic people, their history, their struggles and how they overcame them, but it is also more than that. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Þingvellir is a site that has ‘Outstanding Universal Value.’ Of course, I cannot speak for the whole universe, but it is clear that throughout recent history Scandinavian culture has been romanticised and appropriated across the globe. 

The British Perspective:

In Britain for example, after the industrial revolution (which started in the 1700s), there was an increase in cardiovascular diseases and infections as a result of the more cramped, sedentary, and unhygienic conditions. This led to the romanticism of the countryside and the wilderness – a desire for freedom and a return to a more simple, golden age before this. At the same time, history saw the growth of the British Empire, which led to all things ‘Viking’ being seen as a cultural precedent for a naval empire that (unlike the Roman and Greek empires) didn’t have a ‘fall,’ but instead became integrated with the areas it settled and colonised. The romanticism of the wilderness and the north, and the adoption of the Vikings as a sort of predecessor to the British, saw the growth of the ‘noble savage’ stereotype of the Vikings (which persists to this day). You can see an example of this romanticism for yourself in Perlan, where there is a print of one of William Gershom Collingwood’s paintings. Collingwood visited Iceland for several months in 1897, as part of the growing trend for tourists to find more remote and ‘wild’ places to visit. The painting you can see a copy of in Perlan has been described by the British museum as depicting the ‘Icelandic Thing, or assembly of free people, in session.’ Freedom is something that was constantly referred to in relation to Scandinavian culture, especially in Britain, and especially concerning the more northern areas of Britain, like Scotland. Vikings were the embodiment of a kind of noble savagery – the idea that wilderness and returning to a more simple, less industrial life would be the better way to live.

Historically then, the Alþing represents not only Icelandic independence, identity and success, but also a desire by other countries to emulate this. This is where I see a contradiction to be reconciled. How can the idea of primitivism, noble ‘savagery,’ and, let’s be honest, violence, that we associate with the Vikings, go hand in hand with the idea of freedom, as well as the idea of a well organised legal system, which the Alþing appears to have been?

It’s all subjective anyway…

Perhaps it is that the very idea of ‘freedom’ itself depends on a legal and political system in which the whole community believes. Could you explore personal freedom merely by trusting in your institutions? And institutions also have to trust you right back. Increasingly, I’ve been seeing articles about how people who are given more freedom (i.e. they are trusted more) in the workplace can work more efficiently – this is a whole different story and something I haven’t looked into too much, but it does illustrate my point that trust, and therefore freedom, is cyclical, whether in the workplace, school, law, or politics.

When I first proposed writing about the Althing for this General Election-themed paper, I worried it would be too basic for an Icelandic audience as I am not quite sure what the Icelandic schools teach. However, I find it hard to imagine the majority of readers would be unaware of the site of Þingvellir, and the institution of the Alþing. Luckily for me, there is so much more to it than being a symbol for Icelandic-ness. Its romanticisation and appropriation by other cultures have shaped the world as we see it today. Contradiction has never stopped symbolism from becoming important and valuable to our sense of identity or nationality. So, why should it be here?