Björn Jónsson

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Björn Jónsson (around 1910)

Björn Jónsson (born October 8, 1846 , † November 24, 1912 ) was an Icelandic politician of the Old Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Eldri)) and Prime Minister of Iceland .

biography

Björn Jónsson obtained his university entrance qualification (Stúdentspróf) in 1869 at Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík , the oldest grammar school in Iceland, and then worked as a merchant in Flatey (Breiðafjörður) until 1871 . This was followed by a law degree at the University of Copenhagen from 1871 to 1874 . In the years 1873 to 1874 he was able to take over the editing of the cultural magazine Skírnir . On September 19, 1874, the first edition of the daily newspaper Ísafold appeared , of which he was editor until 1909. This activity made him so well known across the country that he was generally only called Björn í Ísafold or Ísafoldar Björn. In 1900 Björn Jónsson's Íslenzk stafsetningarorðabók came out, which propagated the Blaðamannafélag spelling across the country and saw four editions over the next 20 years.

In addition to his journalistic activity, he began his political career in 1878, which led to his being a member of the Althing for the Old Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Eldri)) from 1878 to 1880 . Between 1885 and 1891 he was a member of the city council of Reykjavík , and again a member of the Althing (Alþingismaður) until his death in 1908.

After the heavy defeat of Hannes Hafstein and his supporters in the Althing elections of 1908, in which the voters also rejected the draft of a new constitution , he was his successor as Prime Minister of Iceland on March 31, 1909 (Ráðherrar Íslands) due to his electoral success. In contrast to Hafstein, he clearly represented Icelandic interests vis-à-vis Denmark , which granted Iceland self-government within its monarchy from 1904. As early as 1909 there was a scandal when he appointed Bjarni Jónsson, a government councilor for trade, to represent the economic interests of Iceland. The Danish government described this appointment as incompatible with the common foreign policy of Denmark and Iceland. As Prime Minister, he also put forward a Prohibition Bill , which was also passed by the Althing. On March 14, 1911 he had to resign after almost two years in office, after which he forced the director general of the National Bank Tryggvi Gunnarsson to resign despite considerable criticism from his supporters. Successor as Prime Minister was then the non-party MP Kristján Jónsson .

Björn Jónsson was the father of Sveinn Björnsson , the only governor (regent) and also the first president of Iceland from 1944 to 1952 .

Sources and background literature

• Althing homepage
• rulers.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kotcheva, Kristina: "Isländische Orthographie", term paper 1998, Humboldt University Berlin ( Memento from January 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .