The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2014, Síða 45

Vol. 66 #4
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
187
their Canadian bona jides.
On August 3,1914 Stephansson was in
Wynyard, Saskatchewan for the Icelandic
Celebration. It was the day after Germany
attacked Russia and France and the day
before Britain declared war on Germany.
Hreinsson notes that his speech “advocated
strengthening the bonds of brotherhood
between the nations of the world”. Soon
though, Stephansson sharpened his
criticism. Orgranir (Provocations) was
published in Heimskringla on October 17,
1914.
When every thug and loudmouth
Stirred up the stupidity to a tumult,
Not ready to go himself!
Doubtless this was not appreciated
by those cheerleading the war from the
sidelines.
Hreinsson devotes several pages of
Sleepless Nights to Vopnahle (Ceasefire) -
a poem written in 1915 which runs to 28
pages. A ‘father’ and ‘son (old soldier and
young soldier) encounter one another on
the battle field. The ‘father’ appears to be a
German soldier; the ‘son’ an allied one.
The opening lines of the poem are not
pretty.
The gunfire had ceased for a while,
Thefierce attacks and defence shortly
halted,
The pile of corpses had reduced the chances
Of both sides continuing the slaughter...
The heap between them had blocked their
arms
This human flow of maggots,
Rotten, breaking quicksand of corpses
Black with putrefaction, some places
moving.
Hreinsson notes that “the compassion
shown by the two men in the middle of
all the horror is the core of the poem”. The
biological son of the ‘father’has been killed
in battle and the ‘father’ says to the ‘son’:
A corpse [the biological son] beside me, in
our common grave.
But that does not mean enmity
Between us.
After the war, the Winnipeg Lutheran
pastor, the Reverend Bjorn B. Jonsson,
referenced the motivations of the young
Canadian Icelanders who fought - “The
atrocities of war, the wounds and the tears,
have bought us sincere patriotic feeling for
this country”. [It also bought us my shell
shocked great uncle, Vilhjalmer (Willie)
Bjerring, who returned to Canada a broken
man cared for by the people of Gimli and
whose grave I located several years ago
in Winnipeg’s Brookside Cemetery.] The
following lines of the poem may well be a
criticism of Pastor Jonsson and those who
held similar views.
[The priest of the parish] Took up the
Biblefrom the shelf,
proving that anyone who did notfight,
for the cause of God and good manners,
could not have understood Christianity,
being blinded by heathen frame of mind.
Stephansson seems to anticipate what
McMillan identifies in her book. Another
cause of the war might well have been fear
of national revolutions on the part of the
warring parties. The ruling classes as well
as the political and business elite in all
countries involved in the war sensed that
their privileged lives might well be coming
to an end. The economically and politically
disenfranchised throughout much of
Europe were becoming restless. They ...
.. .fear, those who are
the same in all countries and derive
support
from each other.
As the poem continues I am reminded
of a story told to me by my English
godfather who fought in WW I. As is
now well known, British officers were
generally from the upper classes and it was
assumed that that alone qualified them to
lead. The officer in charge of the soldiers
in my godfather’s trench exemplified this