Talk:National Defence Party (Iceland)

Erm, are there any Icelanders (or Danes?) who could lend a hand fleshing this out a little? At present it's rather short, and what there is is rather confusing. (Out of interest, I note that there is not yet an is:Landvarnarflokkurinn, or a da:Landvarnarflokkurinn, which would also seem like a possibility...) - IMSoP 00:41, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Name in English

What would be the name in English? --Gangulf 22:45, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the name in English is "land (or country) defence party". Not being 100% sure, I was reluctant to put this in the text. Man this responce was a bit late. --SKC 22:07, 1 Jan 2007 (UTC)

McHale calls it the National Defence Party, but I will check what other scholars call it. Although they use the word land it refers to defence of the nation and its sovereignty. It was an entire movement with youth orgs etc.--Batmacumba (talk) 17:21, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Knut Gjestil has "party for national defence" in his "History of Iceland" (from the 20s, but still the most thorough in English), so they both agree land is nation in this context, so I have moved the page. Its also a fitting name for a Nationalist party.--Batmacumba (talk) 18:24, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

1912

I am currently doing a bit of research before writing the Danish article about the party, and I can see that this article is build on an Icelandic encyclopaedia, but I am puzzled by the info that they continued until 1912 (this is also somewhat related to the info that the 1st Independence Party was "founded in 1907" in the article about that party). On 29. June 1907 the National Defence Party (Landvarnarflokkurinn) and the Þjóðræðisflokkurinn or Democratic Party (#) held a joint mass meeting on the Thingvellir plain with 7,000 participants, at a time where Iceland had around 85,000 inhabitants, in protest against a constitutional compromise (as usual..). Here the Þjóðræðisflokkurinn declared that they from now on would be the Independence Party (as in the Party for Independence). The sole MP for the Landvarnarflokkurinn, the Rev. Sigurður Jensson, then de facto joined the Þjóðræðisflokkurinn group in the Althing when it met in July. In the 1908 election the two parties formed an electoral alliance and ran a joint list calling themselves the Independence Party where Sigurður Jensson wasn't elected, but the grammar school lecturer Bjarni Jónsson was (not sure if others from the Landvarnarflokkurinn were elected). When the Althing convened in July 1909 they then formally merged by registering as a parliamentary party, the Independence Party. Judge Jón Jensson, who together with Bjarni Jónsson were the leaders of the Landvarnarflokkurinn objected to the electoral alliance and joined the Home Rule Party (seemingly due to personal animosity towards some of the leaders of the Þjóðræðisflokkurinn than because he disagreed with the goals of the new party.

So with a merger into another party of their parliamentary group (which may only have been one guy), and both of their main leaders joining different parties in 1908 I find it unlikely they kept going for another 3 years as Icelandic parties back then were basically a group of MPs + their local supporters. Icelandic wiki has 1908 as the end of the party in their list, but that is unsourced and the guy who wrote is no longer active on Wiki, and the main Icelandic electoral blog says 1907 (but there are errors in that).

I suppose you could argue the Independence Party was founded in 1907, as McHale does, but I would say 1908 when they ran together in the election (Icelandic sources tend to focus on what names parties used in national elections, as many of them used a couple of labels interchangeably in that era e.g. Þjóðræðisflokkurinn also used Þingræðisflokkurinn, which would be the parliamentary rule/rule by the Althing party).

(#) As McHale calls them, Þjóðræðisflokkurinn literally means the rule/government by the nation/people party and refers more to independence than democracy. Lýdrædisflokkurinn, would be the term for the Democratic Party - and ironically also the Republican party as the words are the same in Icelandic, which is why the US Republicans are the Repúblikanaflokkurinn and the Democrats the Demókrataflokkurinn even though foreign party names are usually translated because that way none of them gets to be the Lýdrædisflokkurinn).--Batmacumba (talk) 17:21, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

One possible explanation is that whoever wrote this article conflated the party with the Landsvarn movement. There were patriotic youth orgs from 1906 on that tried to improve the national spirit (by sports, education etc.) and national soil (incl. by practical works like planting forests) and women's associations. The Independent Farmers were founded by people with ties to this as well. So it could be the movement - or its main organization if it had one - that closed in 1912 rather than the party. --Batmacumba (talk) 17:37, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I have checked the encyclopaedia and it says 1912 in the article on Landvarnaflokkurin, but that the majority joined Þjóðræðisflokkurinn in 1909 (the year the Independence Party was formally formed). In its article about the Independence Party it just says that its was formed by Þjóðræðisflokkurinn and Landvarnaflokkurin, no mentioning of a minority that stayed out, but that is likely just to safe space. But it can not have been many that kept going post-1908, still sounds a bit odd.--Batmacumba (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2018 (UTC)