Jónas Örvum

Jónas Örvum (1896-1963; 1096-1164 ÁL) was the twenty-seventh alráðherra of Helminthasse, being appointed to that post following the assassination of his predecessor, Atgervi Moll, in Metrial 1956. He presided over the end of the Long War and the chaotic period which followed, punctuated as it was by concerns over failing harvests, disastrous food shortages and the near-breakdown of large parts of the Helmin economy. Although his actual tenure in office was relatively short, his role in crisis management has seen him become regarded as one of Helminthasse’s most effective alráðherrar.

Jónas Örvum
27th alráðherra of Helminthasse
In office 15 Metrial 1956 (25 Húnandur 1156 ÁL) – 10 Dominy 1961 (21 Kendur 1161 ÁL)
Preceded by	Atgervi Moll
Succeeded by	Auðgun Lárviður
Personal details
Born	3 Petrial 1896 (13 Gimindur 1096 ÁL) Virkið, Helminthasse
Died	23 Ediface 1963 (1 Pisasmur 1164 ÁL) (aged 67) Varðberg, Helminthasse, Helminthasse

Early life and career

Örvum was born in the southern Virkið suburb of Sélegárós on 3 Petrial 1896 (13 Gimindur 1096 ÁL), and was the second of three children born to Virðing Örvum, a solicitor, and her husband Fremri Óss, a senior charge nurse at a local hospital. He attended private schools in Virkið and nearby Bedasskurður before being admitted to the University of Virkið, from which he graduated with a degree in history in 1917. He joined his mother’s law practice shortly afterwards, but found the work uncongenial and left the position after three months, apparently by mutual agreement.

Between 1919 and 1922, Örvum worked as the manager of a facility in Ætihvannar which sought to aid underprivileged children in the district, as part of a programme administered by the seiskyn of western Virkið. Himself the child of a fairly privileged upbringing, he was shocked by the levels of deprivation which he encountered, and concluded that only a concerted effort at the national level would suffice if the situation of people like these was to be improved. “The charitable impulses of the public at large are laudable and to be encouraged,” he would write some years later, “but it is not the role of those who govern us to farm out their responsibilities to the whims of private individuals.”¹

Örvum’s work in the local community led him deeper into politics in Ætihvannar and the surrounding area, and he campaigned successfully for a seat on the district’s governing council (sýsla) in 1924. In this position he helped bring together proposals for changes in poor relief which were put to the Virkið city council in the following year. The proposal was defeated; Örvum responded by steering Ætihvannar’s sýsla into non-payment of subventions required from the sýslur for city-wide services, such as policing and provision of utilities. He and other members of the sýsla were imprisoned for contempt of court when they refused to pay the subventions, but were released six weeks later as the weight of public opinion came down in their favour. Legislation going further to equalise tax burdens between the richer and poorer districts was hastily brought in to deal with the problem.

Rise in politics

This principled stand did not go unnoticed by the more progressive elements within Helminskur politics, and Örvum quite comfortably won a position within Helminthasse’s viðaldsdeild in 1926. Here he would first encounter Atgervi Moll, with whose career his own would overlap so strongly in later years.

Despite setbacks such as that which Örvum had engineered in Ætihvannar, the more conservative elements to which Moll was aligned held the ascendant in the viðaldsdeild at this time. Although not in a position to exert significant influence, Örvum steadily gained a reputation as a solid performer in the house, whose arguments had a firm and well-reasoned foundation – sometimes quite at odds with the more firebrand tendencies of some of his contemporaries.

However, with the more progressive factions holding dominance at national level under the leadership of current alráðherra Nelvana Höpp, Örvum found an opportunity to sidestep commonhold-level politics to some degree. As an advisor and occasional speech-writer for Höpp, he gained an entrée into politics at the national level, and it is generally held that Höpp’s backstage influence was responsible for him being chosen from the Virkið chamber to replace the recently deceased Hugrakkur Kulsspan within the Fólksdeild in 1931.

Paying his dues

As a relative newcomer to the Fólksdeild, there was little that Örvum could do to prevent the shifts in attitude in both houses of the Landsþing that forced Höpp out of office in favour of Kendur Lönföld in Fabricad 1932. However, as she continued to challenge the new alráðherra over the ensuing years, Örvum became a more important voice among her supporters. Charged by her with a particular responsibility for social welfare matters, he became an ongoing thorn in the side of the new administration as it sought to reduce its involvement in this area. In this he found a firm ally in the person of Ævall Kúrsettur, an Arlaturi ægyr from Virkið, under whom he had worked in Ætihvannar; Kúrsettur’s mobilisation of the Nemanhjörð went a long way towards blunting the harshest attempts at reform.

Örvum’s growing stature as a solid performer in council and a man of strong moral fibre helped considerably in advancing his cause with his compatriots. As Höpp yielded her dominant role in the Heiður og Réttlæti (“Honour and Justice”) faction which she had helped to establish, Örvum now emerged as her natural successor; there was only minimal opposition as he took over the leadership of the group from Empery 1943, and he took a strong lead in running a campaign of harassment of the weakening Kapp Elsturhæð, although Örvum’s position in the Fólksdeild meant that day-to-day management of that process fell to Póla Stórlind af Vari, the faction’s leader in the Eðaldeild.

The deputy

For more than a decade, Helminthasse had been able to stand aside from much of the worst aspects of the Long War, and the most serious issues for governments in Virkið had been occasional flare-ups with neighbours Siurskeyti as blowback from Siursk rivalries with Zeppengeran as part of the so-called “Straits Game”. This changed dramatically in Floridy 1954, when Madaria sent armed forces into the Helmin overseas territory of Jannaland in southern Serania Major.

The attack came as a shock to Moll’s government; Madaria had been deep into an ongoing war with Zeppengeran since 1951, and defence planners in Virkið had doubted the Madarians’ ability to fight simultaneously on two fronts almost on opposite sides of the world. Moll recognised the need for, if not a political consensus, then at least an agreement to suspend hostilities for the duration of the emergency; he and Örvum announced on 10th Floridy that they would be forming a unity government, which Moll would lead as alráðherra and civilian commander-in-chief, with Örvum as his deputy and minister for the interior.

The environment of the war cabinet was a decidedly fractious one, even allowing for the tensions of the period; Moll was more than willing to accept dissenting opinions and to work with people whom he found unlikeable – on political or personal grounds – as the price of having the most effective ministry available to him. Despite being dismissed on many occasions by Moll as a colourless non-entity, Örvum frequently found himself in the position of being the cabinet’s facilitator and, at times, referee.

However, matters would change drastically for both Örvum and the country in Metrial of 1956, when Moll was assassinated by a member of his security detail. Wild speculation in the immediate wake of Moll’s death pointed at the involvement of the Madarian government; it is much to Örvum’s credit that he did not overreact in such fraught circumstances, as it emerged later that the assassin had acted out of displaced anger following the death of his fiancé, a navy officer, while on active service.

As alráðherra

Örvum had barely had time to settle into his new role when the country’s war plans were thrown into confusion by the withdrawal of its official ally Zeppengeran. For more than two years, Madaria had fought nominally separate, but increasingly interconnected wars against the Helmin and the Zepnish (and, additionally, against the Petty-Lestrian state of Matal); and both of the Messenians had lent support to the other in these causes. However, in Empery 1956 Zeppengeran, seeing Madaria at full extension and poised to break, negotiated a separate peace which ended their war in Messenia – while at the same time blithely standing aside while the Madarians continued to fight against their other opponents.

Örvum was furious at what he saw as a betrayal; but the Henver government – demonstrating the geopolitical maxim that a state’s alliances are temp0rary, but its interests are permanent – countered with what it regarded as Helmin bad faith over the Sergonish occupation and Virkið’s interference in the ongoing unrest in Alcasia, as well as its non-involvement in the continuing Gaste War. Madaria stubbornly refused to yield further, and the war with the Helmin continued for a further five months before the Irhut Accords brought it to an untidy and ignominious end; Örvum, who otherwise seldom nursed grievances, strove to maintain a distance from the Zepnish in later years, in the belief that their actions had directly contributed to the needless loss of Helmin lives.

The Years without Summers and the post-war crisis

While the Long War ground finally to a halt in the wake of the spirit-bombing of Reonir in Conservene 1957 and the Sea of Flames campaign in Azophin which followed it, the exchange of metacosmic weaponry had created damage to the upper atmosphere which would take years to completely repair itself. In the short-term, the effect was to prolong – and indeed to worsen, in places – winter temperatures, to the extent that 1958 became the first “year without summer” (Sumarlaust Ár). The still strongly agricultural Helmin economy felt the change as a hammer blow; food shortages were widespread, including actual periods of famine in some regions. Helminthasse’s own agricultural production was slashed; and the inability to make money from export of its customary surplus meant that the wider economy also took a punishing blow.

Örvum’s government, faced with oncoming catastrophe, was forced into desperate measures. Brutal programmes of rationing – not merely of food, but also of a wide range of other staples – were introduced from the autumn of 1958, as the full extent of the harvest failures became apparent. The last parts of this rationing regime would not be lifted until 1965. The situation in Ærlasse was so serious that the government threatened to use emergency powers to suspend the operation of the commonhold’s viðaldsdeild and take direct control from Animare 1959; this caused ferocious arguments between Örvum and other ministers on one side and incumbent althein Kjartan Brottfall on the other; Brottfall, as thein of Ærlasse, viewed the action as a slur against him personally and a vote of no confidence in the deildarmenn, coming to the brink of resignation before Örvum was able to persuade him to step back. This was by sharp contrast to Örvum’s handling of attempted strike action on the docks in Lágskáli in 1960; although it ran hard across his natural instincts, Örvum saw popular opinion as being on his side; he intervened to ensure that vital food supplies were not held up, working with the thein of Sarevi, the former althein Björn Hönd, in putting down the strike.

Although there were other sporadic outbursts of rioting across the country during 1958 and 1959, the resolute action and Örvum’s own calm and rational demeanour – projected across the newspapers, radio and the newly emerging medium of television – did much to calm a nervous populace. Against this backdrop, Helminthasse’s presence as a signatory at the Congress of Kethpor in 1959 can be seen almost as an afterthought.

Although Örvum maintained a resolute front, the strain of dealing with the situation was taking a huge toll on his personal health; he spent three weeks in Nollonger and Conservene of 1960 confined to a bed with nervous exhaustion, and finally had to yield his position in Dominy of 1961 following a heart attack. Auðgun Lárviður, then his minister for transport, assumed temporary charge, and was confirmed in office in late Empery when it became clear that Örvum would not be able to resume his duties.

Decline and death

Although Örvum made a full recovery from the heart attack, he was advised by his doctors to retire to a less stressful life, away from the city. He compromised, spending the remaining two years of his life in a country property on the outskirts of nearby Varðberg – as he put it, “close enough to be of the city but not in it.” Although he occasionally offered his advice to Lárviður as the new government tried to steer Helminthasse back towards prosperity, for the most part he lived quietly and in seclusion, until succumbing to a second heart attack on 23 Ediface 1963 (1 Pisasmur 1164 ÁL).

Legacy

Although Örvum’s term as alráðherra was comparatively short, history has judged it as carrying an importance well beyond its brevity. His role in maintaining the stability of the country during the first years without summers, probably the worst crisis in its history – and many commentators do not exempt the Long War from that statement – was of vital importance in preserving the institutions of Helmin democracy which could easily have been swamped by autocracy or military rule, as happened in several other countries across Messenia and Joriscia. Although markedly overshadowed by Moll during the Long War, his importance in keeping the country on an even keel during those years is now beginning to receive the positive reappraisal that it probably deserves.

Notes

1. Jónas Örvum, On Social Responsibility (Brúnn, Virkið, 1929), p. 18.