Iceland debates exhuming poet Jónas Hallgrímsson’s bones

mbl.is reports that AFP has examined the long-running dispute over the identity of the bones buried as those of Icelandic poet Jónas Hallgrímsson. A group of academics has asked the Thingvellir Committee for permission to exhume the remains and verify whether they belong to Jónas.

Jónas died in Copenhagen in 1845. His remains were later transferred to Iceland and buried in the national burial ground at Thingvellir in 1946. Doubts have persisted for years over whether the grave contains Jónas’s bones or those of another man.

“He has become part of the Icelandic soul, and still is,” Kári Stefánsson, founder of Íslensk erfðagreining, told AFP. Kári is among those who want samples taken from the bones.

“What distinguishes art from everything else in the world is its ability to appeal to your emotions. He appealed very strongly to my emotions, and to Icelanders’ emotions generally,” Kári said.

He said exhumation would probably require a court ruling and appeared to be caught in extensive bureaucracy involving various committees and lawyers. “So I guess this will take some time,” he said.

Jón Karl Helgason, a professor of literary studies, told AFP that returning Jónas’s bones to Iceland had been highly symbolic because the country had recently gained independence from Denmark. “Independence was about power coming home, and in a way, bringing the national poet’s bones home was a repetition of that,” he said.

Jón Karl believes the bones belong to Jónas and described theories to the contrary as an ugly rumour.

Páll Valsson, who wrote Jónas’s biography, believes the bones should be exhumed. “Many Icelanders do not want to solve the mystery. Because we love mysteries, we do not want to solve them,” he told AFP.