Former President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson gives a public lecture on the importance of small states

On 16 February at 12:15, former President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson gives a public lecture “Do Small States Matter? Personal Reflections and an Analysis of Iceland’s Recent Experience” at the Institute of History and Archaeology (Jakobi 2–226). The university family is invited to join the lecture and ask questions.

At the public lecture, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson will discuss the role of small states in world politics, drawing on his experience as the President of Iceland from 2016 to 2024 and his work as a professor of history at the University of Iceland. Guðni Jóhannesson is an exceptional example of how a scholar and public intellectual can rise to become president of his country. He first became widely known among the Icelandic public as an interpreter of key issues in Iceland’s recent history. The so-called Panama Papers revealed conflicts of interest among politicians related to the resolution of the 2008 financial crisis. Guðni Th. Jóhannesson stood out for his balanced and clear explanations of the background to the scandal. When he was asked live on television whether he might become Iceland’s next president, many viewers already saw him as a future head of state. In 2026, he decisively won the presidential election, and in 2020, he was unanimously entrusted with a second term. In 2018, Guðni Jóhannesson visited Tartu as a guest of President Kersti Kaljulaid to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia together with the presidents of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Georgia.

This time, Professor Jóhannesson is visiting Estonia to speak at the EU Enlargement Conference organised by the International Centre for Defence and Security. He comes to Tartu at the invitation of Associate Professor Kaarel Piirimäe and Visiting Professor Mart Kuldkepp of the Institute of History and Archaeology to deliver the lecture “Do Small States Matter? Personal Reflections and an Analysis of Iceland’s Recent Experience” as part of the history course “Contemporary History”. The entire university family is invited to join the lecture and ask questions. The lecture will also be broadcast on UTTV.