Soldiers and Other Monsters: the Allied Occupation in Icelandic Fiction

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Wars and arms long remained a foreign phenomenon in Iceland until the country was occupied by Allied forces during WWII. Although the occupation was a “friendly” one and the army brought unprecedented wealth to the country, the presence of a foreign military was objectionable and distressing to many. Literature, historiography, and scholarship on the occupation have long been obsessed with the so-called ástandskonan (woman fraternizing with soldiers), the perceived incarnation of an invaded and polluted nation. This article examines the response of Icelandic fiction writers to the occupation through the figure of the soldier instead. A focus on fictional representations of the soldier enables us to see how writers imagine the occupation and its consequences for the nation, its culture, and, not least, for an injured sense of manhood.