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The Invisible Work of Intellectual Advocacy: Female Volunteering for the Socialist Cause in Cold War Iceland

Part of: Not-Working in Western Europe, 1950-2000: Practices, Policies, and Experiences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2025

Rósa Magnúsdóttir Open the ORCID record for Rósa Magnúsdóttir [Opens in a new window]
Rósa Magnúsdóttir*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Philosophy, History and Archaeology, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
*
rm@hi.is
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Abstract

This article focuses on the writings of female Icelandic socialist intellectuals and activists during the twentieth century and analyses how they perceived of 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, broadly defined, in light of their gender, authority, and privilege. In Iceland, as in many other places, writers and intellectuals 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 very seriously.

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Contemporary European History , First View , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Hayek, F. A., ‘The Intellectuals and Socialism’, The University of Chicago Law Review 16, no. 3 (1949): 417–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here p. 422.

2 Ibid., 423.

3 I have previously written about the Icelandic married couple Kristinn E. Andrésson (1901–73) and Þóra Vigfúsdóttir (1897–1980) and their life-long devotion to socialism and the Soviet Union. In a 2018 article, I analysed the fluid boundaries between paid work, voluntary work and leisure as it appeared in the lives of these two intellectuals and argued that their lives were lived in accordance with Marx's definition of ‘meaningful work’ and its parallel, socialist leisure. In this article I devoted more time to Kristinn's life and the way his advocacy for Soviet socialism was engrained in all of his work, both paid and voluntary. As a devoted spouse, Þóra also loomed large and, among other things, I have showed how Þóra and Kristinn frequented socialist health spas, in the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic, in order to rest in a constructive – socialist – way and gather strength for their continued activism at home. See Magnúsdóttir, Rósa, ‘Living Socialism: An Icelandic Couple and the Fluidity between Paid Work, Voluntary Work, and Leisure’, Werkstatt Geschichte 79, no. 2 (2018): 29–41Google Scholar and Magnúsdóttir, Rósa, Kristinn og Þóra: Rauðir þræðir (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 2021)Google Scholar. The book is based on research in their private archive, as well as several other archives in Iceland, Russia and Germany. After the publication of the book, two Icelandic women went public in the Icelandic daily Morgunblaðið with their experiences of Kristinn's sexual abuse toward them when they were children.

4 The Socialist Party is sometimes also referred to as the Socialist Unity Party. For the latest research on the communist and socialist movement in Iceland, see Ingimarsson, Skafti, Nú blakta rauðir fánar: Saga kommúnista- og sósíalistahreyfingarinnar á Íslandi, 1918–1968 (Reykjavík: Sögufélag, 2024)Google Scholar.

5 This is perhaps most advanced in the research on the sociology of work and in economics, but historians, especially in women's and gender history, have also built research on Arlene Kaplan Daniels's analysis of ‘invisible work’. See Daniels, Arlene Kaplan, ‘Invisible Work’, Social Problems 34, no. 5 (1987): 403–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, for instance, Baudino, Isabelle and Carré, Jacques, The Invisible Woman: Aspects of Women's Work in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxon: Taylor & Francis, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Most previous research on Icelandic communists has focused solely on the activities of male leaders in the movement. See, e.g., Ólafsson, Kjartan, Draumar og veruleiki: Stjórnmál í endursýn. Um Kommúnistaflokkinn og Sósíalistaflokkinn (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 2020)Google Scholar.

7 These categories are inspired by the theoretical approach in Amalgor, Laura, Ikonomou, Haakon A. and Simonsen, Gunvor, eds., Global Biographies: Lived History as Method (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022)Google Scholar. See my own contribution in this volume, ‘Making Sense of 1956: Experiencing and Negotiating the Socialist Project in Iceland’, which also uses the case of Kristinn and Þóra to illustrate the watershed moment of 1956 in the international communist movement.

8 Andersen, Nina Trige, Kristjánsdóttir, Ragnheiður, Neunsinger, Silke, Pesonen, Pete, Vilhelmsson, Vilhelm and Østhus, Hanne, ‘Longer, Broader, Deeper, and more Personal – The Renewal of Labour History in the Nordic Countries’, Scandinavian Economic History Review (2023). DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2023.2193193Google Scholar.

9 See, e.g., Haverty-Stacke, Donna T. and Walkowitz, Daniel J., Rethinking U.S. Labor History: Essays on the Working Class Experience, 1756–2009 (New York: Continuum, 2010)Google Scholar.

10 There is some excellent research in leisure studies; see, e.g., Kuykendall, Lauren, Zhu, Ze and Craig, Lydia, ‘How Work Constrains Leisure: New Ideas and Directions for Interdisciplinary Research’, Journal of Leisure Research 51, no. 5 (2020): 635–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On working outside (and inside) the home, see McCarthy, Helen, Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood in Modern Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2010)Google Scholar.

11 Neunsinger, Silke, ‘Gendered Activism and the Politics of Women's Work: Introduction’, International Labor and Working-Class History 77 (2010): 3–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Betti, Eloisa, Papastefanaki, Leda, Tolomelli, Marica and Zimmerman, Susan, eds., Women, Work, and Activism: Chapters of an Inclusive History of Labor in the Long Twentieth Century (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 This is the argument of Kjartan Ólafsson's aforementioned book on Icelandic communists and socialists, but this has also been stated in the international research on communism's appeal to Western intellectuals; see, e.g., Hollander, Paul, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, 1928–1978 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Marguelies, Sylvia R., The Pilgrimage to Russia: The Soviet Union and the Treatment of Foreigners, 1924–1937 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

14 In addition to the concept of intellectual advocacy, I have also used the term intellectual activism to describe the activities of Kristinn and Þóra. See Magnúsdóttir, Rósa, ‘Intellectual Activism during the Cold War: Icelandic Socialists and their International Networks’, in Winter Kept Us Warm: Cold War Interactions Reconsidered, eds. Autio-Sarasmo, Sari and Humphreys, Brendan (Helsinki: Kikimora, 2010), 154–69Google Scholar.

15 Stebbins, Robert, ‘Unpaid Work of Love: Defining the Work-Leisure Axis of Volunteering’, Leisure Studies 32, no. 3 (2013): 339CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Ibid., 342.

17 Ibid., 341–2.

18 For more on the concept of ‘free time’ as a part of ‘non-working time’ in the Soviet Union, see Hollander, Paul, ‘Leisure as an American and Soviet Value’, Social Problems 14, no. 2 (1996): 182Google Scholar.

19 Crowley, David and Reid, Susan E., ‘Introduction’, in Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc, eds. Crowley, David and Reid, Susan E. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 3.

20 Soviet sociological research in the 1960s also emphasised a concept of ‘non-working time’ (vnerabochee vremia), which, according to G. V. Osipov, was time spent ‘not directly absorbed by participation in socially productive activities’. Cited in Hollander, ‘Leisure as an American and Soviet Value’, 182.

21 See, e.g., David-Fox, Michael, Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia and the Soviet Union (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and David-Fox, Michael, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921–1941 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Most notably in the United States during McCarthyism. See, e.g., Deery, Phillip, ‘“Running with the Hounds”: Academic McCarthyism and New York University, 1952–53’, Cold War History 10, no. 4 (2010–11): 469–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 See Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Óvinir ríkisins: Ógnir og innra öryggi í kalda stríðinu á Íslandi (Reykjavík: Mál og menning, 2006) and Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 269, 277, 408–9.

24 As we shall see, both Þóra and Kristinn found the work to be mentally exhausting, even if it was not considered physical labour.

25 See, e.g., Ana Catalano Weeks, ‘The Political Consequences of the Mental Load’, Working Paper, 8 Nov. 2023, https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/anacweeks/files/weeks_ml_081123.pdf.

26 Þóra stopped working as a massage therapist because it pained her hands. Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 63.

27 Ibid., 164. See also Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Kristinn E. Andrésson, 13 June 1942, Lbs. 25 NF. Box 15. Lbs. is the Icelandic archival mark for the Manuscript Collection at the National and University Library of Iceland (NULI).

28 Letters from Kristinn E. Andrésson to Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 19 May 1952 and 8 June 1952, Lbs. 25 NF. Box 20.

29 The following is based on part III of my book Heimurinn í kaos: Kristinn og Þóra [The World in Chaos: Kristinn and Þóra], 117–84.

30 See, e.g.,The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 19, 24 and 30 Apr. 1940. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 27.

31 Ibid., 15 and 23 Apr. 1940. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 27. For the political context, see e.g. Ingimundarson, Valur, Í eldlínu kalda stríðsins: Samskipti Íslands og Bandaríkjanna, 1945–1960 (Reykjavík: Vaka-Helgafell, 1996)Google Scholar.

32 The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 20 July 1940. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 27.

33 Ibid., 23, 25 and 28 June 1941 and 3 July 1941. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 27.

34 Ibid., 6 Aug. 1941; 1 Sept. 1941; 11 Feb. 1942. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 27. Readers may find this reminiscent of the descriptions in Funder, Anna's Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life (London: Penguin, 2023)Google Scholar.

35 The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 11 Nov. 1943. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 28.

36 Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 325 and passim.

37 Ibid., 266–7 and passim.

38 The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 13 Nov. 1949 and 31 Dec. 1950. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 28; Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir, 29 Jan. 1946 and 29 May 1947. Hdr. The letters from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir are owned by family members (and thus marked by Hdr., which is the Icelandic mark for a manuscript not stored in a public archive).

39 Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir, 1 Dec. 1953 and 16 Mar. 1957. Hdr.; The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 21 Jan. 1953. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 29; The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 5, 12, 14 and 26 Feb. 1957. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 30.

40 Letters from Kristinn E. Andrésson to Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 11 June 1952 and 18 June 1952. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 20.

41 Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir, 5 Dec. 1955. Hdr.

42 Ibid.

43 Letters from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Halla Kristjana Hallgrímsdóttir, 27 and 30 Oct. 1953. Hdr.

44 Ibid., 27 and 30 Oct. 1953; 1 Dec. 1953. Hdr.

45 Ibid., 26 Mar. 1954. Hdr.

46 Ibid., 24 Oct. 1955. Hdr.

47 See, for example, Rulffes, Evke, Die Erfindung der Hausfrau (Hamburg: HarperCollins, 2021)Google Scholar.

48 Kristinn E. Andrésson, Speech at a meeting of MÍR, the Soviet-Icelandic Friendship Society, 16 Oct. 1955. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 60. See also Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 353–4 and Ingvarsson, Haukur, Fulltrúi þess besta í bandarískri menningu (Reykjavík: Sögufélag, 2021)Google Scholar.

49 Auður said that Halldór Laxness's publisher, Ragnar Jónsson, paid for their groceries, including wine, out of Halldór's royalties. See Á Gljúfrasteini: Edda Andrésdóttir ræðir við Auði Sveinsdóttur Laxness (Reykjavík: Vaka-bókaforlag, 1984), 74.

50 Lbs. 1061 NF. Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Nanna Ólafsdóttir, 1 Dec. 1951.

51 See, e.g., Bély, Lucien, ‘Women in Diplomacy: The Ambassadress Seen by Friedrich Carl von Moser’, International History Review, 44, no. 5 (2022). DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2021.1934071CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 358–9.

53 Anna Sigurðardóttir, Vinna kvenna á Íslandi í 1100 ár: Úr veröld kvenna II (Reykjavík: Kvennasögusafn Íslands, 1985). See also Halldórsdóttir, Erla Hulda, Tómasdóttir, Kristín Svava, Kristjánsdóttir, Ragnheiður and Þorvaldsdóttir, Þorgerður H., Konur sem kjósa: Aldarsaga (Reykjavík: Sögufélag, 2020), 278–9Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., 278–9.

55 Ibid. See also Cucuz, Diana, Winning Women's Hearts and Minds. Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023)CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the role of women's journals during the Cold War. Oberländer, Alexandra, ‘“To Be a Woman Is Hard Work”. The Changing Landscape of Gendered Emotions in the Late Soviet Union’, L'Homme: Europäische Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft 32, no. 2 (2021): 79–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 See Melkorka 1, 1 (1944), passim.

57 Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir, ‘Sól er á loft komin…’, Melkorka 1, 1 (1944), 1.

58 Jón Karl Helgason, ‘Hver var Peter Hallberg og hvert var framlag hans til norrænna fræða og nútímabókmennta?’ Vísindavefurinn, 2 Feb. 2023, http://visindavefur.is/svar.php?id=84302 [last visited 30 Nov. 2023].

59 Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir, ‘Sól er á loft komin…’, 2.

60 Rannveig Kristjánsdóttir, ‘Kvenréttindakona gerist sósíalisti’, Melkorka 1, 1 (1944), 24–5.

61 The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 23 and 27 May 1959; 3 and 4 June 1959; 2 Aug. 1959. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 30. See also Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 387 and passim.

62 The Diary of Þóra Vigfúsdóttir, 29 Apr. 1944 and 1 and 2 May 1944. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 28.

63 Here, the focus is not on her paid work as an archivist, but on the activist work she did for the socialist cause. She was also active in the Organisation Against Military Bases in Iceland and she was on the board of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association.

64 Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir, ‘Sögulegir gerendur og aukapersónur: Kyngervi og sagnaritun þjóða(r)’, Saga 57, no. 2 (2019): 71–2.

65 Nanna Ólafsdóttir, ‘Sólskin yfir Kína’, Melkorka 9, 1 (1953), 7–11.

66 Letter from Nanna Ólafsdóttir to Kristinn E. Andrésson, 4 Dec. 1953. Lbs. 25 NF. Box 10. For censorship reasons, the Soviet authorities sealed all written materials upon arrival and checked if it was still sealed upon departure.

67 Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Nanna Ólafsdóttir, 1 Dec. 1951. Lbs. 1061 NF.

68 Ibid., 17 Mar. 1952. Lbs. 1061 NF.

69 Ólafsdóttir, ‘Sólskin yfir Kína’.

70 A draft of a recommendation letter for Nanna Ólafsdóttir, no date. Lbs. 1061 NF. Box 3.

71 Letter from Þóra Vigfúsdóttir to Nanna Ólafsdóttir, 10 Feb. 1952. Lbs. 1061 NF.

72 Magnúsdóttir, Kristinn og Þóra, 238.

73 Stebbins, ‘Unpaid Work of Love’, 342.

74 Andersen et al., ‘Longer, Broader, Deeper’, 3.

75 Kurvinen, Heidi and Pálmadóttir, Valgerður, ‘The 1975 Icelandic “Women's Day Off” in Nordic Print Media’, Scandinavian Journal of History 49, no. 5 (2024): 650–71. DOI: 10.1080/03468755.2024.2374276CrossRefGoogle Scholar.