Iceland review - 2014, Page 47

ICELAND REVIEW 45
Years
To experience the 50th anniversary of Iceland Review
is to me both a pleasing and peculiar experience. This
brainchild of mine was, at the time of its launch in 1963,
pioneering in every sense; to publish and distribute a
magazine about our country and nation in a foreign
language globally! I had no idea how stimulating this
initiative would prove; it increased the understanding
in Iceland of the necessity for increased flow of infor-
mation across the ocean—and appears to have sparked
interest in Iceland in various countries around the globe.
I no longer involved in the publishing of Iceland Review
but was asked to write down my thoughts about the
magazine at this turning point. Now, for the very first
time, I’d like to discuss how it came to be.
I was raised in the spirit and fashion of the old
Icelandic rural culture, which has now vanished into the
depths of the past, and as a high school student I aimed
to become a servant of our Lutheran National Church.
However, when I turned 20 and the time had come to
enroll in university, I unexpectedly was presented with
an offer to work as a journalist at the country’s largest
and most respected newspaper, Morgunblaðið. I seized the
opportunity and have never regretted it.
It was in the autumn of 1955 and I felt it was amaz-
ing to walk into the Morgunblaðið editorial department;
there weren’t many journalists working there but the
tasks were diverse. I was assigned to the foreign news
desk right from the start and a fascinating gateway to
the world opened up to me. At my childhood home, in
Ísafjörður, in the West Fjords, the news on the national
radio was always followed closely. No one was allowed
to speak; dead silence! The entire world mattered to us
even though we lived on its edge.
We should take a look at the basic facts. Well over a
thousand years ago, our ancestors, mostly derived from
the coast of Norway, started to settle on this island,
located way out in the North Atlantic. And the society
which was formed here and developed over the centu-
ries was naturally isolated and had limited contact with
the outside world. It moulded its own reality and way
of life under unique conditions.
Publishing work in Iceland is of course conducted
in our native tongue—Icelandic, which is not spoken
or understood anywhere else since our language com-
munity is extremely small on a global scale. Therefore,
when it had become essential to gather information,
our printed material was useless in regard to sharing
information about our land and nation. This need is
however relatively recent because Iceland was almost
hidden to the outside world until the middle of last
century. World War II played a large part in putting
the country on the world map because Iceland gained
an important military status during the war. When it
was coming to an end, in 1944, Iceland declared its
independence after having been ruled by Denmark for
centuries. Even though the land has been inhabited for
over a thousand years, population growth has been slow
due to difficult conditions. And our island, over twice
briNgiNg icelaNd
closer to tHe world
BY haRalDUR j. haMaR tRANSLAtED BY haRPa bjöRk biRGisDóttiR PORtRAIt BY PÁll stefÁnssOn