Iceland, Virginia: more in common than you'd think

REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- A Virginian visiting this island nation near the top of the world who’s learning its history and observing its people is struck by a couple of common threads running between his native commonwealth and this one. Both Virginians and Icelanders have a heritage begun by settlers who were looking for a freer land and founded representative governments that have endured for centuries.

We’re fond in the Old Dominion of noting that our General Assembly is the oldest, continuous legislative body in the New World. Our first settlers were on an entrepreneurial expedition of the Virginia Company of London. Their mission was to settle, colonize and then mine the resources and riches of a new land. The colony’s success and growth soon led to the formation of a representative government, though under the oversight of King James.

Our legislature was founded at Jamestown in 1619, a dozen years after the first Englishmen sailed into our tidal waters, landed a Cape Henry, and colonized on the James River’s banks. What was then the House of Burgesses is now – some 385 years later – a bicameral body consisting of the House of Delegates and the Senate.

Nearly 700 years before all of this, however, another General Assembly was being formed, one that’s been in off-and-on existence through today. It was in 930 that Iceland’s AlÞingi was formed. It was a parliament of sorts, and it met for two weeks a year. It was comprised initially of 36 chieftains who represented specific areas – or þings – and was run by a Speaker whose powers were limited to prevent despotism. Its proceedings were open to the public and often drew spectators from far and wide.

The AlÞingi’s meetings were held outside in a natural amphitheatre on the plains of Þingvellir, a spot relatively central to the day’s settled population. Outdoor meetings in Iceland, it may be surmised, were kept relatively short.

What’s to be especially noted about the 10th century AlÞingi is that it was a rather bold try at a republican form of government; it was established in a day when every other European nation’s government was monarchical in nature. And amazingly, the AlÞingi continued for more than 300 years. It wasn’t until the mid-13th century that the Icelandic government – having become ineffective due to its member-chieftains’ internecine warfare – submitted itself to the brokering authority of King Haakon of Norway, though the AlÞingi did retain a certain amount of home rule.

Both Jamestown’s burgesses and Þingvellir’s chieftains were men of good intention seeking to bring order and economy to a new land. Both achieved remarkable success in the face of unquestionable odds. The AlÞingi’s initial run was almost as long as the Virginia legislature’s has now been.

The parallels continue in that both new nation-states tired of being tethered to a far-away king. Americans – and especially Virginians – didn’t like being under the hand of King George III any more than Icelanders liked belonging to Norway’s (and later Denmark’s) successive kings.

Iceland’s paternity was transferred from Norway to Denmark in the late 13th century when the two Scandinavian nations, along with Sweden, affiliated. It wasn’t until the end of the 18th century that Icelanders began to rebel and seek independence from Denmark. Incremental steps toward independence would be realized over more than a century of talks. Iceland’s historic AlÞingi would be officially revived in the mid-19th century, though given only advisory powers, and its assemblies were held in Reykjavík instead of Þingvellir. The island nation’s full independence from Denmark would be realized – finally – in 1944.

Today, Iceland’s AlÞingi is every bit as alive as Virginia’s General Assembly. Its parliament is comprised of 63 members, each popularly elected to a four-year term. Representation is proportional.

What’s interesting, however, is that since independence was achieved 60 years ago, neither of the two primary political parties – the Independence Party and the Progressive Party – has gained an absolute majority. Coalition governments are the norm.

Both Iceland and Virginia hold out to the world the examples set by their early forms of representative government. Iceland’s Þingvellir plains are today a national park – established in 1928, just in time for the AlÞingi’s millennial commemoration – and is a place visitors can go and see for themselves where that remarkable 10th century open-air General Assembly established and maintained itself for more than three centuries. Such a reverence likewise is seen and felt at Jamestown and Williamsburg, our own national treasures we’re forever celebrating.

A look at Iceland’s and Virginia’s early years reminds us that the world is small and its people – despite geographical, cultural, and other differences – are amazingly alike in their desires to be free, prosperous, and self-governed.

Here’s to centuries more of it all.