In his influential article ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’, the liberal economist (and noted anti-socialist) Friedrich A. Hayek claimed that international socialism was never really advocated by the working class. Instead, it was the relatively new category of intellectuals that first stepped actively into public life in the interwar years and then took on the role of frontline soldiers in the international propaganda wars of the superpowers after the Second World War. Hayek also wondered why so many intellectuals leaned towards socialism in the postwar period and came to the conclusion that
it is neither selfish interests nor evil intentions but mostly honest convictions and good intentions which determine the intellectual's views. In fact, it is necessary to recognize that on the whole the typical intellectual is today more likely to be a socialist the more he is guided by good will and intelligence.Footnote 1
While Hayek wanted liberals to understand the power of socialist intellectuals so that they could better fight them and even adapt their techniques, his article also gives a clear sense of the perceived influence of socialist intellectuals on public audiences. Hayek warned against underestimating these foes, claiming that the intellectuals’ devotion to socialism and ‘opposition to the existing order’ only grew stronger in the face of protests’Footnote 2 Hayek's views were clearly influenced by the specific historical and political context of the early days of the Cold War but his observation about intellectuals taking on the vanguard role of informing the working class about the promising future of a socialist society applies to the case study presented in this article, that looks at how Icelandic socialists worked to advance the socialist cause, while taking into account socialist intellectuals’ time, status, and gender.
More particularly, this article focuses on the writings of female Icelandic socialist intellectuals and activists during the twentieth century and analyses how they perceived time spent on work dedicated to the socialist education of the Icelandic working class. It will neither try to evaluate the impact of intellectuals’ work, nor will it attempt to deconstruct the class dichotomy and power structures inherent in intellectuals advocating on behalf of workers. Instead, the focus here is on intellectual women's conceptualisation of time devoted to advocacy, defined in relation to the concept of volunteering, in light of their gender, authority, and privilege.
In a previous study, I have focused on the lives of Icelandic married couple Kristinn E. Andrésson (1901–73) and Þóra Vigfúsdóttir (1897–1980), intellectuals who devoted their life to socialism and the Soviet Union. Their diaries and letters are testimony to their complete devotion to the socialist cause; all their working hours (paid and voluntary) were spent on running and organising various socialist organisations, and they lived according to socialist principles in their free time.Footnote 3 Of course their writing is subjective, but by reading Þóra's diaries and letters it is possible to draw conclusions about both the countless hours spent on agitating for the socialist cause and the acknowledgement (or lack thereof) they received for their work. In Iceland, as in many other places, writers and intellectuals such as Þóra and Kristinn were at the forefront of the ideological battle between communism and capitalism that took place during the Cold War. Earlier, in the interwar period, intellectuals also led the way in terms of advocating for Soviet style socialism in Iceland, and they took their role as educators – or agitators – very seriously. Þóra and Kristinn were both members of the Communist Party in Iceland in the 1930s and later the Socialist Party (Sameiningarflokkur alþýðu – Sósíalistaflokkurinn). Even if the latter party was not a member of the International Communist Movement, both parties were loyal to Moscow, and especially the Socialist Party (1938–68) had a strong voice in Icelandic politics, running on a nationalist anti-American platform for the duration of the Cold War.Footnote 4
This article turns its attention to Þóra and her tireless – but often overlooked and unpaid – work for the advancement of the socialist cause in Iceland. Þóra Vigfúsdóttir was an avid correspondent, and she kept a diary for decades. The case of Þóra, as an intellectual, married woman in the twentieth century, has both similarities and differences with the present debate about invisible work and unpaid, predominantly female domestic labour.Footnote 5 Þóra, like many of the women in her social circle, was privileged compared to others. For most of her adult life, she did not have a paid job with regular hours. She had a foster daughter and always kept in close contact with her, but she did not have the labour of taking care of small children in the home. As in many other heterosexual relationships at the time, Kristinn was the breadwinner and Þóra organised the household. Yet, analysing Þóra's writings unveils a hidden but valuable contribution to the advancement of the socialist and cultural projects that until now has usually only been discussed as the domain of men.Footnote 6 Throughout this paper, the categories of gender, time, and space will be used to analyse the narratives unveiled when looking at the writings of Þóra and the women in her circle.Footnote 7
The New Labour History, Intellectual Advocacy and the Concept of Volunteering
In a recent review article on the renewal of labour history in the Nordic countries, the authors argue that labour history ‘includes the history of work and the history of workers’ movements in all its dimensions’.Footnote 8 Indeed, the new labour history no longer focuses on traditional dichotomies, such as capital vs. labour, skilled vs. unskilled labour, work vs. leisure, and workplace vs. home, but is interested in power relations in the broadest sense.Footnote 9 Furthermore, instead of a focus on workers per se, the new labour history investigates practices related to work and recognises that while the abovementioned dichotomies can be helpful analytical categories, they often overlap and the boundaries between, among other things, work and leisure and the workplace and the home, prove obscure upon closer inspection.Footnote 10 Most relevant to this study, the last fifteen years have seen a rise in studies that ‘challenge the conventional wisdom that wage work heightens political activism and that housewives were more quiescent than other women because of their exclusion from wage work and their relegation to the private sphere of the home’.Footnote 11 Women's activism in the world of work is still considered an understudied theme, although, as stated in the introduction to the 2022 edited volume Women, Work, and Activism: Chapters of an Inclusive History of Labor in the Long Twentieth Century, there is increased awareness of the fact that ‘women's activism with a focus on work possesses a rich history’. This includes the history of unpaid work and some women's status as homemakers, activists and volunteers.Footnote 12
The intellectuals who participated in the propaganda and agitation work in Iceland were motivated by a strong belief that social and economic justice would only be possible within a socialist structure. They looked to the Soviet Union with admiration; in fact their dedication to the socialist project has sometimes been described as a religion and their practice of spreading information about progress and development in the Soviet Union as missionary work.Footnote 13 This categorisation can be debated, of course, but certainly, many admirers of the Soviet Union were driven by a belief in a political and economic ideology that aimed at reshaping society and were willing to work hard, without any monetary compensation, to increase understanding and spread information about the ‘socialist utopia’. Indeed, communists have traditionally been conceptualised as revolutionaries and agitators, which often takes the work intellectuals did to advance the socialist cause for granted instead of analysing it with a focus on their – however idealised – intrinsic motives for informing and educating the working class.
Intellectual advocacy is here used to signify a group of privileged individuals who worked to promote social change.Footnote 14 When discussing intellectual advocacy through the lens of work, it is useful to look closer at the concept of volunteering. Sometimes also referred to as voluntary work, volunteering is often seen in relation to time devoted to leisure and restoration, traditionally the domain of not working. In line with Robert Stebbins’ argument, this article considers volunteering as ‘both unpaid work and attractive leisure’.Footnote 15 Stebbins’ definition of the ‘work–leisure axis of volunteering’ entails leisure as an activity that is un-coerced, contextually framed and motivated by enjoyment rather than monetary compensation.Footnote 16 As Stebbins has pointed out, ‘the concept of unpaid work fails to acknowledge a variety of forces operating in the non-work and amateur-hobbyist domains of life’, and volunteering is an ‘un-coerced, intentionally-productive, altruistic activity framed in distinctive context and engaged in during free time’.Footnote 17
Stebbins’ framework can easily be applied to socialist intellectuals like Þóra, who adhered to the Soviet ideology that advocated for constructive socialist leisure. Free time (svobodnoe vremia) was well defined in socialist countries and the state even provided concrete spaces intended for ‘constructive recreation’ such as Parks of Culture and Rest.Footnote 18 As David Crowley and Susan Reid have argued, Soviet people did not necessarily spend their free time in accordance with its intended purpose, such as to demonstrate loyalty to the regime,Footnote 19 but the ideological expectation of how people spent their free time was understood to be a part of the Soviet project, and it was known – and often embraced – by international supporters of the Soviet Union.Footnote 20
The voluntary work that Icelandic intellectuals engaged in, both as a form of ‘unpaid work and attractive leisure’, can also be seen as a form of resistance. The overall goal of these individuals was to enlighten people of the working class with knowledge about the superiority of socialism over capitalism and ultimately ignite a revolutionary spirit that would overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist utopia. They positioned themselves clearly in opposition to reigning liberal views, advocating for a socialist Soviet modernity as a clear alternative to Western capitalism.Footnote 21 In certain periods, in some parts of the world, it was dangerous to align yourself with communism, and joining a communist political party could lead to unemployment, condemnation and banishment.Footnote 22 Icelandic intellectuals were rarely in danger of losing their status in society. On the contrary, as a part of a cultural elite in Iceland, Icelandic left-wing intellectuals held a certain status in society and were usually in a privileged position when advocating for socialism. Even if they often complained and felt discriminated against, they lived in a democratic society and were commonly able to criticise the societal structure without fearing for their safety and freedom. In 2006, however, it was revealed that on several occasions, the police tapped the telephones of known socialists, including Þóra and Kristinn, which shows that they – or rather their strong connection to Moscow – were seen as a threat to the security of the Icelandic state.Footnote 23
Therefore, Icelandic left-wing intellectuals usually held a privileged economic and social position. They did not necessarily have a steady income as they were often working in precarious or insecure employment, but compared to factory workers and fishers, their working conditions were neither physically exhausting nor dangerous.Footnote 24 Certainly, they were often at the epicentre of virulent political debates, which sometimes caused mental and physical exhaustion. Here, the concept of voluntary work is especially useful because it encompasses the revolutionary spirit that guided both Þóra and Kristinn in their paid and unpaid work and time spent on leisure. Þóra's impact on the socialist cultural project in Iceland will be analysed through her own writings, but also in relation to her status as a married woman and a housewife. Þóra is at the centre of the analysis, but some attention will also be devoted to other women in her social circle who worked tirelessly as volunteers and activists for the same cause. This will be done in the last part of the paper, which analyses the writings of women activists involved in the radical women's journal Melkorka (which Þóra co-founded) with a focus on how time freed up by technological progress would allow women to participate in activism and work devoted to increased awareness of social justice.
Þóra's diary and letter-writing puts emphasis on the value of what we might now label ‘mental load’ but which for most of the twentieth century was either the invisible work of a homemaker or activities considered volunteering and therefore not recognised as valuable contributions equal to men's paid work.Footnote 25 Female writings in Melkorka were a notable part of a political struggle in Icelandic society and show an increasing frustration with the limitations that time spent on housework and other invisible work put on women and their means to advocate for themselves and others. In Iceland, much as in Germany, France and the United States, this particular discourse culminated in the 1970s when radical women decided to link women's rights with a class struggle, but that is outside the time scope of this article which focuses on discourses of women's advocacy and volunteering during the Second World War, the cultural Cold War in the 1950s, and in relation to the publication of the women's journal Melkorka in the 1940s and 1950s.
Passing Time: A Marital United Front and the Second World War
Þóra had a background in music and theatre and had studied massage therapy in Copenhagen, Denmark, but she stopped working outside the home shortly after her marriage to Kristinn E. Andrésson in 1933.Footnote 26 According to Þóra‘s diaries and letters, theirs was a rich life, filled with social interactions and spirited debates about culture, domestic politics and international events, but she also often wrote about how tired she was, sometimes even avoiding answering the door if she needed a break from the outside world.Footnote 27 As Þóra was mainly responsible for running the household, other married couples invited Kristinn over for dinner and (female) friends stepped in to help with household chores when she was away from home for extensive periods of time. Kristinn once complained that the milk soured in her absence, but he did pride himself on remembering to water the plants, as she had instructed him to do.Footnote 28
When Þóra was home alone, which was more often the case as Kristinn travelled extensively, Þóra did not experience the helplessness that characterised her husband's time home alone. She did, however, experience longing and loneliness when he was gone.Footnote 29 This was the case in 1940, when Denmark and Norway were occupied by the Germans in April, and subsequently the British military occupied Iceland in May. In addition to the uncertain global situation, Þóra felt abandoned and alone, and she feared for Kristinn, who was in Denmark, then travelled to Moscow as the last Nordic communist to visit before the Soviet Union entered the war, and escaped the continent by travelling from Moscow to Genoa in Italy, where he boarded a passenger ship to the east coast of the United States. He finally made it home in June after having been away for two months. In her diary, Þóra often reflects on the uncertainty and chaos that accompanied this strange time. Her trusted partner and confidant was not there while these dramatic events were taking place, both in Iceland as well as in the neighbouring countries.Footnote 30
During this time, Þóra's diary details her reactions to the unfolding events. People gathered in apartments equipped with a radio set, so Þóra spent much time discussing and analysing the situation with close friends in the capital. She felt uncomfortable walking through downtown Reykjavík, where the presence of British soldiers, air-raid shelters and sirens caused her to feel insecure in the otherwise familiar neighbourhood. She described how important it was for her to leave her worries by the door, and she treated the home as a safe haven. Even while seeking comfort in discussions with friends, Þóra needed the apartment to be a space where she could rest and recuperate from the constant stimulus that accompanied the overwhelming presence of foreign soldiers. She also noted how quickly this new situation was normalised – people barely paid attention to the changed city landscape and life continued as usual. Apparently it took her a bit longer than many others to get used to the occupation – as someone with strong opinions, it was a constant reminder of the intense political debates about the role Iceland should play in the war.Footnote 31
Þóra and Kristinn most often interacted with likeminded individuals, but even if the Socialist Party had a comparatively strong following in Iceland, they sometimes found it exhausting to be a part of a political minority. Walking in downtown Reykjavík shortly after Kristinn had returned to Iceland, Þóra wrote that it was often painful to pass acquaintances on the streets without exchanging greetings; it made them feel like ‘outlaws in a bourgeois society’.Footnote 32 They both often experienced a wide fluctuation of feelings, in addition to seasonal depressions, when the darkness apparently had an impact on Kristinn's mental health especially, while Þóra's mood oscillated with the ups-and-downs of the Soviet war effort. She was superstitious and often pledged money to charity so that ‘her dear Stalin’ would succeed in the war effort. The German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 was a watershed moment for Þóra. She and Kristinn now owned their own radio set and listened to the news at home, often with friends over a cup of coffee. Friends who disagreed with Þóra and her unwavering support of Stalin could expect a heated discussion and sometimes a cold shoulder if they dared to cast doubt on Stalin's ability to lead the Soviet military to victory over fascism.Footnote 33
During the difficult winter that followed, Þóra and Kristinn embarked on a joint project. In August 1941, Kristinn had decided to publish an Icelandic translation of The Socialist Sixth of the World, later called The Soviet Power, by Hewlett Johnson, an English priest who later would earn the nickname the Red Dean of Canterbury. Within a month after reading the book, Kristinn and Þóra began working on the translation. They worked steadily when they found the time and finished in mid-February. The book came out in Iceland in June, but only Kristinn's name was featured on the title page. Indeed, Þóra's work on the translation would be all but invisible if she had not repeatedly mentioned it in her diaries. Yet there is nothing in her diaries that indicates that Þóra felt bypassed or indignant that her valuable contribution was ignored: she saw herself very much in a supportive role – the two of them were a united front in their advocacy work and the cause was superior to petty questions such as individual recognition.Footnote 34
Þóra also volunteered her time to knit woollies for Soviet citizens and, together with the Socialist Women's Union, she organised a public showcase of the knitting before it was sent to the Soviet Union. She was furious when Halldór Laxness, the Icelandic writer and later Nobel Laureate, scathingly commented that the knitting was both fancy and had a bourgeois whiff. She responded: ‘I would think one is allowed to knit as beautifully as one wants. The Russians deserve the best and the most beautiful [knitting] there is.’Footnote 35 Engrained in this exchange was a struggle between the values of capitalism and communism and how to live a complete life in accordance with socialist values. Later, as Laxness's rise to national and ultimately international fame allowed him to decorate his home in a lavish manner, Þóra often snapped at what she perceived as pomp and vanity, although she valued her friendship with Halldór and Auður Laxness and they remained friends, even after the Nobel Prize winner renounced the Soviet Union in 1962.Footnote 36
The Second World War was a time of constant worry and it put a great deal of strain on the married couple. On top of all his voluntary activities, Kristinn was elected a member of parliament for the Socialist Party in 1942, and the next few years were incredibly eventful as Iceland gained full independence from Denmark in 1944, requiring elected officials to start planning for an unstable post-war world order rather than relying on Copenhagen. The new fronts of the Cold War were also looming on the horizon, and by the early 1950s Kristinn and Þóra were involved in the creation of three new Soviet front organisations in Iceland: the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society (MÍR), the Icelandic Peace Committee and the Cultural and Peace Association of Icelandic Women. During the next few years they would spend a great deal of time volunteering for all of these organisations, and more.
Brewing Coffee and Answering the Telephone: Hosting and the Cultural Cold War in Reykjavík
The home of Þóra and Kristinn was described by their countrymen as a community centre with people coming and going at all hours of the day. Þóra's detailed diaries and letters confirm this notion of the home as an important meeting point in mid-century Reykjavik. Imagining the sound of the telephone ringing and the smell of coffee brewing gives a sensory feeling to reading Þóra's writings, which detail both her daily activities and her emotional life. The hustle and bustle of their lives climaxed in the 1950s when, for about seven years, Þóra and Kristinn lived in a building that also housed some of the main socialist cultural organisations in Iceland.Footnote 37 On the ground floor, the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society had its office and reading room, where they sometimes showed films and held meetings. Upstairs, there was a bookbindery and the socialist printer, Hólar, whose loud printing presses were just below their apartment on the top floor of this four-story building, where the printing supervisor, his wife and kids lived in a separate apartment.Footnote 38
Living in such close physical proximity to both the association and the printer made it impossible to separate their working lives from time spent on other activities. Kristinn was the wage earner of the family and, as the chairman and the CEO of the socialist publishing house Mál og menning (‘Language and Culture’), he also had his office in the building. Many people frequented the house, both to attend events at the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society and also to discuss publishing matters with Kristinn. Therefore, in addition to people visiting the socialist projects with offices in the house, hopeful and disappointed writers often lingered, drinking coffee and receiving emotional support and encouragement from Þóra in their private apartment.Footnote 39
Þóra and Kristinn both complained about the noise and disturbances that came with these living circumstances. On top of the clatter of the printing presses, the home felt like a thoroughfare. And finally, in addition to drop-ins and planned meetings, the telephone barely stopped ringing. Of course it was Þóra who answered the phone and served coffee to visitors – and sometimes wine or other alcoholic drinks which, according to her diary, often led to a hangover the following day. This demanding life caught up with her in 1952 when she was diagnosed with exhaustion, which Soviet doctors claimed was the outcome of ‘many years of busyness’. She spent five weeks in a health sanatorium close to Sochi by the Black Sea, gathering her strength, reading and enjoying planned activities at the sanatorium and excursions around the area.Footnote 40 This was a part of the socialist work-leisure network; the Soviet Union provided for constructive stays at sanatoriums so that people could continue their important ideological work for the socialist project.
Back home, Þóra continued her active social life. In her writings, she often reflected on both her own life and the lives of those around her. In a letter to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir, her foster daughter, her close proximity to the family of four in the next apartment gave her occasion to speculate about invisible labour and contentment in life:
Although taking care of kids and a home are jobs that are done in silence and no one notices unless they are neglected, such as e.g. the housework, it is still a fact that it is the spirit of growth and life itself that will always be the core of all happiness. I think that something always needs to grow around you, either children, ideals or jobs in some form.Footnote 41
Þóra then apologised for her philosophising but conspiratorially, woman to woman, she wrote, ‘you know what I mean’.Footnote 42 In a nutshell, this described Þóra's view of women's place in the world, both in her marriage and personal life, but also in the larger battle for Soviet-style socialism. She was all too familiar with the invisible workload of women but she attributed it to an essential need to nurture something and see it grow. While her neighbours had children to take care of, Þóra conceptualised her role in educating Icelandic workers and fostering socialist ideals as a nurturing responsibility.
Both Þóra and Kristinn were ambitious and wanted to see their socialist projects succeed. In 1953, when Kristinn was busy working out the future of Mál og menning's socialist bookstore in Reykjavík, Þóra wrote how her contribution to that project ‘felt like the role of a hotel concierge’. She answered the telephone and ran around town delivering messages.Footnote 43 When the location of the new bookstore had been resolved, her brother-in-law led the work to prepare the new space. His crew worked late into the night and Þóra came by at around midnight with coffee for the workers.Footnote 44 More than just encouraging her husband's projects, she contributed to them in a very real way, even if her labour was taken for granted and she received no salary for her many contributions.
Þóra also worried about Kristinn. In addition to an earlier exhaustion that took him a long time to recover from, he probably suffered from seasonal depression, which he treated with light therapy. When Kristinn was abroad, although Þóra was happy to know he had time away from his busy life in Reykjavík – they always saw their time abroad as a good time to rest –she was also prepared for his return: ‘It is only too bad if he is too energetic when he comes back – then he will be planning and organising something new before he knows it. It is as if there is always, with regular intervals, something new around this man.’ She did not object to his projects and motivation, but as she said, with every new idea Kristinn came up with, she had ‘to run even more often to answer the phone and new people will show up for coffee’.Footnote 45
Þóra and Kristinn also participated actively in hosting and entertaining the Soviet delegations who came to Iceland as a part of the Soviet-American cultural Cold War in Iceland in the 1950s. Þóra described how during these visits there were parties and receptions almost every evening and Þóra and Kristinn also hosted dozens of people in their small apartment, turning the bedroom into a living room in order to accommodate everyone. While the two of them were formally the hosts, the planning and preparation of the events fell on Þóra. She received help from her friends to cater in her own home, but the work was exhausting, including the emotional work of deciding who to invite: ‘even if one fills the rooms with people, some always get left out and one insults old and good friends, and others, who feel entitled to socialise with the Russians. I would rather not have anything to do with this anymore. Now I just want to be invited!’Footnote 46 For all her patience and devotion to the cause, Þóra clearly wanted to be liberated from what she saw as the confining role of a housewife responsible for both the manual and emotional work of hosting.Footnote 47
As a matter of fact, Þóra and Kristinn were often invited to gatherings, as entertaining Soviet delegations was a task that other people also took on, most notably Auður and Halldór Laxness, the latter in his capacity as chair of the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society. They lived in a beautiful house outside of Reykjavík and their parties were considered substitutes for the official receptions that Icelandic politicians were reluctant to hold for Soviet guests. The cultural Cold War climaxed in the mid-1950s when hosting Soviet delegates was considered highly contentious by the Icelandic authorities, who had aligned themselves with the United States and who, in 1949, encouraged Iceland to join NATO as a founding member. The official reception that writer and Nobel Laureate William Faulkner received, when he visited in 1955, did not go unnoticed by people on the left like Kristinn and Þóra, who felt as if their guests were not met with the same ceremony as a noted American guest.Footnote 48
Still, an invitation to the house of Halldór Laxness, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, did carry considerable prestige. It should be noted that while the cost of receptions held in the homes of left leaning intellectuals did not fall on the state, ‘official Iceland’ was both aware of and unofficially thankful for the effort. Auður worked tirelessly on these occasions, and her contribution to these events was immensely valuable, not just for her husband but also for the Icelandic state, which ultimately benefitted from the hospitality these activists afforded their guests.Footnote 49 And while Þóra enjoyed their parties very much, she also sympathised with Auður about the exhaustion of having to host them. In fact, Þóra claimed that hosting made her ‘feel like an ambassador's wife for the Soviets, with cocktails and everything’Footnote 50, very accurately comparing the work that she and other women in her circle did to the more recognised and visible role of an ambassador's wife.Footnote 51
In 1956, Premier Khrushchev's denouncing of Stalin in the Secret Speech in February and the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October changed the way the Soviet Union was able to promote itself abroad, and for the next few years there were fewer exchanges of delegations. Coinciding with this, in 1957 Þóra and Kristinn moved to a new apartment, about four kilometres away from downtown Reykjavík. They still had people over for meetings and gatherings but, as the apartment was a bit out of the way, people only came by if they had an important errand or were invited. It was much quieter and calmer at home, but Kristinn continued to drive to work in his downtown office every morning – and Þóra usually went with him.
For the seven years they had lived in such proximity to the printers, the publishing house and MÍR, the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society, Þóra had functioned as ‘a receptionist’, and now that she no longer lived in the building, these offices needed to hire someone to answer the telephone. ‘And because I no longer reside in the building, I will receive a salary!’ she exclaimed in a letter to her foster daughter. Þóra was aware of the emotional energy it required from her to devote her time to voluntary work and activism, and rejoiced when her contribution was finally acknowledged. But she had to physically move away in order for her work to become visible and finally be compensated for something she had previously done just because she was around.Footnote 52
On multiple occasions, Þóra took on the role of a concierge, a receptionist and an ambassador's wife – all in the name of advocating and promoting the socialist cause in Iceland. The first Icelandic attempt to calculate the value of domestic tasks and housework in historical research was made by Anna Sigurðardóttir in 1985. She claimed that economists ignored housework and home-making in national accounts because they were considered voluntary work.Footnote 53 For most of the twentieth century, the unpaid work of women was not reflected or calculated in European national accounts, but as Þóra's diary shows, women did think about their unacknowledged contribution to housework and political ideals.
Promoting Women's Voices: Social Progress and the Publication of Melkorka
In Iceland, as in many other Western countries, so called ‘women's issues’ slowly entered the political discourse in the aftermath of the Second World War, with women fighting for basic civil rights, such as citizenship independent of marital status, as well as pushing for increased female participation in the public sphere in general.Footnote 54 In 1944, Þóra was among a group of women who published the first issue of the radical women's journal Melkorka. It was Kristinn, Þóra's husband, who came up with the name, which referred to a story from the Icelandic sagas about Melkorka, a female slave who became an elective mute, applying her voice only to gain power over her life. The name implied that women would no longer stay silenced, and the group behind the journal wanted to show that women concerned themselves with both the international world order and social injustice in general.Footnote 55
Melkorka was a radical voice in the struggle for women's issues and influence. It was repeatedly stated in the journal that capitalism had failed women and women's rights would not advance without adopting the worldview of the international socialist movement. According to the editors, the liberal Western view had been fully tested and the perceived success of the Soviet Union in gender equality was considered the model for further advancement. They were focused on providing women with the motivation and the knowledge to fight for increased social justice, and in the very first issue of Melkorka there were articles about the role of women in the creation of a more just society, the economics of housework, equal pay, news from women's labour organisations and more in that vein. In general, the whole issue was a call to arms for women to start paying attention to their rights in a society that did not value their labour contribution, inside and outside the home, or give them much say in domestic political development.Footnote 56
Writings in Melkorka adhered very much to the idea of forming a vanguard on behalf of less privileged women As Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir wrote, their goal was to ensure that the average ‘woman understands her responsibility as a member of society and a valid member in the struggle for the fight of the working classes’.Footnote 57 Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir was married to Peter Hallberg, a noted intellectual who, among other things, translated Laxness's works into Swedish. Indeed, Hallberg's reputation as a prolific scholar and translator was partly based on Rannveig's long unacknowledged collaboration on several translations.Footnote 58 Against this backdrop, Rannveig's call to ‘relieve women of the repeated daily grind that now defines the home life so that a woman could become an equal to males in choosing her work and growing in it’ appears even more poignant.Footnote 59 This feat, she argued, would only be possible within a new and just society that would provide women with structures such as communal kitchens and abundant daycare, to activate and use their powerful voice in the struggle for increased gender equality.
Most of the individuals who organised, edited and wrote for Melkorka believed that women's conditions would only improve within a socialist structure. As Ingibjörg Benediktsdóttir, a poet, wife, mother, and former teacher, said in an interview published in Melkorka in 1944, she was inspired by the seeming improvement of women's issues in the Soviet Union and believed that socialism provided an organic environment for women to gain rights within society. Ingibjörg had herself worked as a teacher but had to stop because of a law that did not allow a married couple to work in paid positions at the same institution. She was critical of the way marriage limited women's participation in the labour market and saw the isolation of the housewife as a structural problem that prevented women from advancing social justice.Footnote 60
This debate in the pages of Melkorka portrayed a rather unsurprising tendency among socialist and other left-leaning women to focus on traditional labour market issues, such as equal pay and unfair treatment of women in the public sphere. This struggle is well documented in several Icelandic and international studies. Less attention has been paid to analysing the way women like Þóra devoted a considerable amount of their free time to raise awareness for these issues, many using their privileged position as intellectuals and activists to fight both for women's and workers’ rights in Iceland. Þóra repeatedly reflected on her invisible and unpaid efforts related to the publication of Melkorka.Footnote 61 She was at the centre of the group of women who published the journal, and her diary shows that the sometimes irregular publication relied on the effort of women who used their limited free time to put together each issue. In addition to acquiring and editing articles from authors, they packed, mailed and sold the journal themselves. At times, Þóra and her collaborators would be spending hours on the street trying to sell more issues in an effort to imprint the message of women's equal rights on as many readers as possible.Footnote 62
One of the women who worked closely with Þóra on the publication of Melkorka, serving as co-editor from 1949 to 1962, was Nanna Ólafsdóttir, an academic and a socialist activist.Footnote 63 In 1958, she was the first woman to finish a master's level degree in Icelandic studies at the University of Iceland. Ólafsdóttir was also the first Icelandic woman to write an academic biography; she worked as an archivist, and she often spent her free time working, either on her academic research or her voluntary social projects.Footnote 64 Unlike Þóra, Nanna later held a paid job at the National Library. The two women had in common a strong sense of activism and a commitment to socialism, especially as it related to gender equality and women's rights; they participated in many of the same socialist organisations and were also close personal friends.
In the fall of 1952, Nanna was on the first Icelandic delegation to visit the People's Republic of China.Footnote 65 Writing about these trips on their return was an important part of the propaganda work – both the Chinese hosts and agitators like Kristinn and Þóra expected articles and public lectures to follow these invitations. In a letter written from Copenhagen right after the China tour, Nanna resisted Kristinn's request for a contribution about China and wrote indignantly:
‘Why don't you send an article immediately to Melkorka?’ What a slap in the face! There was never any time to write anything while we were out east – except for the diary, and when we arrived in Moscow, you may have heard that everything was sealed […] in my case both diaries and pamphlets.Footnote 66
The degree of this rebuke communicated the forcefulness of Nanna's outrage. She felt a need to draw a line between what could reasonably be expected – especially by an editor and publisher bent on commissioning articles to fill his journal's pages – and what was simply unrealistic. Indeed, Nanna had been doing her fair share of voluntary work for the socialist cause, including assisting Kristinn with the correspondence on behalf of MÍR, the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society in Iceland. When she stopped, Þóra told her, her husband now had to take care of all communication by himself, ‘and you can believe that he notices that you are not here’.Footnote 67 A few months later, Kristinn wrote on the back of a letter from Þóra, asking Nanna to consider taking a job with MÍR after her return from a stay in Copenhagen, adding that ‘the pay will not have to be as pitiful as it was previously’.Footnote 68 If Kristinn had been hoping that the prospect of a pay rise would tempt Nanna he was mistaken; the academic-cum-activist had other plans. However, she eventually penned a report about the visit to China for Melkorka.Footnote 69 The issue came out in March, about five months after the trip, which does not seem like a long delay. But Kristinn and Þóra were always on the clock and were driven by high expectations of themselves, including the willingness to prioritise the cause over most other affairs.
It is hardly necessary to say that Nanna, too, worked very hard, and as is common among academics, she often used evenings and weekends to pursue her research. The Women's Rights Association in Iceland appreciated that she needed time to devote herself to her academic projects, and in a draft of a recommendation letter that was issued on her behalf around the time, they expressed
the sincere hope of the Women's Rights Association that Nanna Ólafsdóttir will get a chance to devote herself fully to some of the many projects that are left on the history of Iceland and the history of Icelandic literature, that as soon as possible, Iceland will be able to provide its masters with an acceptable standard of living, so that they do not have to spend valuable time wage-slaving in an unrelated field.Footnote 70
Women in Þóra's and Nanna's circles understood that time spent on paid work often got in the way of other important projects, voluntary and academic in nature and, crucially, with the promise of prestige usually reserved to men's intellectual and cultural output. Þóra therefore warned Nanna not to take on too much upon her return: ‘My dear, don't bother with all the same nuisance here at home. Nobody understands better than you do, that if you give someone your little finger…’.Footnote 71
The women behind Melkorka understood better than many the need to be protective of one's time and space. For them, it was a social justice issue; for women to fight for gender equality and a socialist way of life on behalf of themselves and the working class they needed time and energy to do so. Their personal writings also show that they regularly experienced frustration and exhaustion with expectations from a male dominated society. Melkorka was therefore created as an outlet for women to encourage each other in the effort to increase their visible participation in public life and politics. Without outside resources devoted to the journal, the publishing of Melkorka was dependent on the time of women like Þóra, Rannveig and Nanna. Even so, the issues appeared irregularly, much to the dissatisfaction of Þóra, who repeatedly lamented that all work on the journal came to a standstill when she was abroad or if she did not have time to tend to the project because of other obligations.Footnote 72 At Melkorka, as elsewhere, it was only the absence of women like Þóra and Nanna that all of a sudden rendered their hitherto invisible, free-of-charge services – whether as receptionists, editors or writers – obvious and tangible.
Conclusion
Women like Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir and Nanna Ólafsdóttir represent a group of intellectual women who cared deeply about the postwar world order and who devoted their ‘spare time’ to advocating for improved rights and better living conditions on behalf of workers. While not workers in terms of their legal status and social environment, they were usually not economically well off themselves. Their income was often uncertain, yet rather than improving their material lot, they took it upon themselves to educate Icelandic workers on how to break free from what they saw as capitalist exploitation. With very few exceptions, most of the people involved in this work devoted nearly all of the time not spent on wage labour, care work or household maintenance to the socialist project – without ever receiving monetary payment for their effort. However, the lack of remuneration was not an issue for these people who understood their work in the greater context of promoting international socialism and bringing about revolutionary change.
In this article I have used diaries, letters, memoirs and published material to show how individuals reflected on their use of time for voluntary work or activism. In addition to writing, translating, editing, planning and organising, Þóra Vigfúsdóttir spent time hosting and socialising. Rarely were these activities acknowledged, either in public or privately; and even more rarely were they compensated for with a salary. The advocacy of women like Þóra can therefore best be understood within Stebbins's concept of volunteering, entailing altruistic activity and with an intentional and productive goal in mind. Stebbins defines enjoyment as a main factor of motivation (rather than monetary compensation), but the intellectual socialist women studied here were mostly motivated by their strong belief in the socialist system as a real alternative to Western style capitalism.Footnote 73
The close relationship between conviction and altruism, as witnessed in the intellectual activism of these Icelandic socialist women, should therefore not be underestimated. In particular, Þóra did not seem to care that her work was often invisible or was not regarded as proper work by others, as it was all a part of her strong faith in the socialist way of life. Indeed, these women identified so strongly with the cause they were fighting for that the boundaries between voluntary work, paid work and sometimes even leisure were more often than not blurred. But simultaneously, Þóra and the women in her social network understood the trade-offs involved, notably that time spent on paid work often got in the way of other projects such as voluntary activism and academic ambition. This is clear in their private correspondence, where they reminded each other to protect their time or lamented their exhaustion from hosting and organising large events. Publications such as Melkorka also addressed these issues. Tellingly, though, hopes that technological progress in the domestic sphere would help women free up their time was not so much related to their career opportunities but in the expectation that this extra time would be devoted to the cause.
Until recently, Icelandic labour history has focused strongly on class as a key analytical category. Indeed, it has been pointed out that the Icelandic term ‘verkalýðssaga’ translates directly as ‘proletarian history’, but this is now under re-evaluation by a new generation of historians working on different aspects of labour history.Footnote 74 This article has analysed the practice of volunteering as it related to women's time, space and energy. The story of Icelandic women spending their free time fighting for gender equality continued in the decades that followed and the issue of invisible labour and unequal pay continued to play an important role in the political battle. This received international attention in 1975 when women in Iceland took the day off from both paid and unpaid work to raise social awareness of women's contribution, whether in the workplace or at home.Footnote 75 But even if that is a different story, involving another generation of women, the female activists of the 1970s stood on the shoulders of women like Þóra, who all her life spent most of her time and energy on activism and advocacy.
