“An Icelandic Driver”: J. Magnús Bjarnason’s Story as a History of Immigrant Hierarchy and Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Halifax: An Introduction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29173/scancan214Keywords:
Icelandic-Canadian literature, J. M. Bjarnason, antisemitism, immigration, Nova ScotiaAbstract
This introduction to “An Icelandic Driver” by Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason aims to provide a critical context for reading the text. The story portrays Halifax as a city of immigrants and depicts the otherwise underdiscussed histories of urban Icelandic immigration. It also relies, however, on the structures of racialized immigrant hierarchy, antisemitism, and Black erasure. This introduction provides background information about Bjarnason’s life and work, and critically analyzes the ways in which his text thematizes national identity and community. It also aims to rectify the stereotypical depictions of Jewish characters in the story, as well as the complete erasure of Black Haligonians, by providing accounts of some of the many Jewish and Black histories of Halifax and Nova Scotia that Bjarnason chooses to omit.
References
Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.
Anderson, George K. 1965. The Legend of the Wandering Jew. Providence: Brown University Press.
Árnason, Jón. 1864. Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri. Vol. 2. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich.
Bjarnason, Jóhann Magnús. 2011. Dagbók vesturfara 1902-1918. Edited by Baldur Hafstað. Reykjavík: Lestu.is.
---. 2009. The Young Icelander. Translated by Borga Jakobson. Halifax: Formac Publishing Company Limited.
---. 1910. Vornætur á elgsheiðum. Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun Sigfúsar Eymundssonar.
---. 1982. Vornætur á elgsheiðum. Akureyri: Bókaútgáfan Edda.
Cole, Richard. 2015. “When Did the Wandering Jew Head North?” Scandinavian Studies 87, no. 2: 214-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/scd.2015.0019
Crosskill, Herbert. 1875. Nova Scotia eðr [sic] Nýja Skotland. Lýsing á loptslagi, landkostum og ágæti fylkisins. Translated by Jóhannes Arngrímsson. Akureyri: Baldvin M. Stephánsson.
Eker, Glen, and Deborah Pekilis. 2004. Index of Jews Resident in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island According to the 1861 to 1901 Censuses of Canada. Toronto: The Ontario Genealogical Society.
Elíasson, Gyrðir. 1997. “Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason.” Tímarit Máls og menningar 58, no. 3: 79-92.
Ergang, Robert Reinhold. 1931. Herder and the Foundations of German Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/erga91396
Eyford, Ryan C. 2016. White Settler Reserve: New Iceland and the Colonization of the Canadian West. Vancouver: UBC Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774831604
Fingard, Judith. 1995. “From Sea to Rail: Black Transportation Workers and Their Families in Halifax, c. 1870-1916.” Acadiensis 24, no. 2: 49–64.
---. 1992. “Race and Respectability in Victorian Halifax.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 20, no. 2: 169–95. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03086539208582869
Gibbon, John Murray. 1938. Canadian Mosaic: The Making of a Northern Nation. London: J. M. Dent & Sons.
Godfrey, Sheldon J., and Judith C. Godfrey. 1995. Search Out the Land: The Jews and the Growth of Equality in British North America, 1740-1867. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780773564824
Heß, Cordelia. 2022. The Medieval Archive of Antisemitism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757408
Kjartansson, Helgi Skúli and Steinþór Heiðarsson. 2003. Framtíð handan hafs: vesturfarir frá Íslandi 1870-1914. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.
Kristinsson, Júníus H. 1983. Vesturfaraskrá 1870-1914. A Record of Emigrants from Iceland to America 1870-1914. Reykjavík: Sagnfræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands.
Lapidus, Steven. 2013. “The Golden Century?: Jews in Nineteenth-Century British North America.” In Canada’s Jews: In Time, Space and Spirit, edited by Ira Robinson, 29-37. Boston: Academic Studies Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781618110275-004
Levine, Allan. 2018. Seeking the Fabled City. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
McGuigan, Peter. 2007. Historic South End Halifax. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing.
Medjuck, Sheva. 1986. Jews of Atlantic Canada. St. John’s: Breakwater Books.
Neijmann, Daisy L. 2006. “Icelandic Canadian Literature.” In A History of Icelandic Literature, edited by Daisy Neijmann, 608-42. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
---. 1997. The Icelandic Voice in Canadian Letters: The Contribution of Icelandic-Canadian Writers to Canadian Literature. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
Raddall, Thomas H. 2010. Halifax: Warden of the North. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing.
Rosenberg, Stuart E. 1970. The Jewish Community in Canada: A History. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Sigurðsson, Sveinn. 1945. “Jóhann Magnús Bjarnason, skáld.” Eimreiðin 51, no. 4: 276-79.
Tulchinsky, Gerald. 2008. Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442687486
Vigod, Bernard L. 1984. The Jews in Canada. Canada’s Ethnic Groups, No. 7. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association.
Whitfield, Harvey Amani. 2006. Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860. Burlington: University of Vermont Press.
Wolf, Kirsten. 1991. “Heroic Past—Heroic Present: Western Icelandic Literature.” Scandinavian Studies 63, no. 4: 432-52.
Wolfe, Patrick. 2006. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4: 387-409. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240
Þorsteinsson, Þorsteinn Þ. 1943. Saga Íslendinga í Vesturheimi. Vol. 2. Winnipeg: Þjóðræknisfélag Íslendinga í Vesturheimi.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Jay L. Lalonde
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
