Remember the Bank Collapse?

Jón Karl Helgason, Professor and Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, President of Iceland

At the same moment that Geir H. Haarde, then Prime Minister in Iceland uttered the phrase "God bless Iceland" on a beautiful October day in 2008, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Professor in History decided to write a book on the economic Collapse; which he then proceeded to do. He has since given numerous talks and written many articles on these monumental events in Icelandic history. He furthermore organised a course at the University of Iceland in the autumn of 2014 focusing on the Collapse of the Icelandic banks. "Students from different University faculties signed up and we decided that part of the course should be writing reports on books or article affiliated with the subject," says Guðni. 

The reports themselves are of great value according to Guðni, who worked on a project within the University in collaboration with Jón Karl Helgason, Professor in Icelandic, making them accessible to the public, along with comparable material that was created in another course taught by Jón Karl. 

Jón Karl taught a course in the Icelandic department in the spring semester of 2015 where students read works of fiction that in one way or another dealt with the events leading up to the Collapse or its aftermath. "When I heard about Guðni's course we decided to establish a brand new Icelandic bank, albeit a data bank. It stores all of our students' coverage of publications linked to the Collapse." 

The two colleagues opened the data bank formally on 6 October 2015 and call it "Remember the Collapse: a data bank on contemporary history." Along with them on the executive bank board is one of Guðni's students in History, Markús Þórhallsson. The idea behind running a data bank is to broaden the perspective for the general public and academics to facilitate further research. The website is hrunid.hi.is (in Icelandic)

Jón Karl said that he was driven in this endeavour due to a nagging suspicion that another financial collapse was lurking in the near future. "Numerous Icelandic academics and artists have learned their lessons from the last Collapse and I find it vital that we, as a nation, try to pin down what these lessons are. Remember the bank Collapse is a tool that will hopefully be of use in this connection." 

Guðni, who has focused on contemporary history in his research, says that the collapse of the banks was a watershed in Icelandic history, the first since the World War II. He says it thus natural that the interest is phenomenal. He points out that some of the academics who write about the Collapse are sometimes accused of milking the subject and being obsessed with the subject; always searching for culprits.  "I on the other hand hope that we can learn from history and am confident that our society will benefit from recordings from others than those who were in the line of fire and see events from their own particular point-of-view.“

Jón Karl says that the idea behind the website is also pedagogic; as having material published provides a great learning opportunity for students, both in undergraduate and graduate studies, Furthermore, it is more fun to write for a wider audience than the teacher or the drawer.