Brynjólfur Bjarnason

This is an Icelandic name. The last name is patronymic, not a family name; this person is referred to by the given name Brynjólfur.

Brynjólfur Bjarnason
Minister of Education and Culture of Iceland
In office 21 October 1944 – 4 February 1947
President	Sveinn Björnsson
Prime Minister	Ólafur Thors
Preceded by	Björn Þórðarson
Succeeded by	Eysteinn Jónsson
Personal details
Born	(1898-05-26)26 May 1898 Hæli, Gnúpverjahreppur, Iceland
Died	16 April 1989(1989-04-16) (aged 90) Roskilde, Denmark
Political party	Communist Party of Iceland People's Unity Party – Socialist Party People's Alliance
Alma mater	University of Copenhagen Friedrich Wilhelm University

Brynjólfur Bjarnason (26 May 1898 – 16 April 1989) was an Icelandic communist politician and philosopher.

Biography

Bjarnason was born in Hæli in Gnúpverjahreppur. In 1918 he started studying philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1919. He continued to study natural sciences at the same university until 1922 but did not graduate, instead continuing his studies in philosophy at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin in 1923–1924. After returning to Iceland, he worked as a teacher from 1926.

Bjarnason attended the 2nd Congress of the Comintern in Moscow in 1920 and the 5th Congress in 1924, as a representative of Iceland. In 1930, he became the chairman of the Communist Party of Iceland upon its founding. He remained in this position until the party merged into the People's Unity Party – Socialist Party in 1938. In 1935 he represented the Communist Party of Iceland at the 7th Congress of the Comintern.

In the years 1938–1949 Bjarnason was a member of the Central Committee of the People's Unity Party – Socialist Party. He was a member of the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, in the years 1937–1942 and 1946–1956. Bjarnason served as Iceland's Minister of Education and Culture in 1944–1947.

As Bjarnason's direct political involvement decreased from the 1950's, he devoted most of his time to the study of philosophy. He wrote several books dealing with subjects such as metaphysics and epistemology. Bjarnason also translated works by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Mao Zedong into Icelandic. He died in Roskilde, Denmark in 1989.

References

• Hannes H. Gissurarson: Communism in Iceland, 1918–1998 Social Science Research Institute at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik 2021.