About the Icelandic Republic and its decline

The history of the Icelandic Republic is the story of refugees, adventurers and free spirits who escaped an ambitious autocrat and built their own state on this distant island of fire and ice. By 930, the new state had developed enough to establish the Althing, the national assembly of all Icelanders of voting age. It has survived all the turmoil of time to this day. But the history of the Icelandic Republic is also a history of failure. Aristotle is reported to have said that "democracy arises from the pursuit of freedom and equality for all citizens, taking into account the number of citizens but not their peculiarities". These idiosyncrasies, such as vanity, greed for power and the concentration of wealth through ruthless and selfish behaviour, led to the collapse and downfall of this progressive and exemplary social order of the Vikings. The laughing stock was the Norwegian king, under whose rule the republic eventually came to be. The medieval Icelandic Republic can be seen as a historically early failed democratic state. And that is what makes the downfall of the Icelandic Republic so relevant today. When individuals take advantage of a system for their own benefit, it becomes dangerous for everyone.

Carl Johan "Janne" Jakob Keyser, born on 5 July 1821 in the parish of Slaka, Östergötlands Län, died on 7 April 1895 in Norrköping, was a Swedish agricultural scientist and lecturer. Keyser enrolled at Uppsala University in 1841 and graduated with a Master's degree in philosophy in 1848, after which he was reappointed as a lecturer in agricultural chemistry at Uppsala University. In 1853-54 he undertook a scientific journey through Germany and France on a scholarship and later became a teacher at the technical school in Norrköping. In 1877-88 he was a lecturer at the same school. Keyser published a number of scientific papers.