While ostensibly a national triumph, the reburial has been argued to have been an enormously problematic exercise in hegemony by Iceland's post-independence elites and “instead of uniting the nation, the episode uncovered a great divide within the people of Iceland.” The main campaigner behind this was Sigurjón Pétursson, an admirer of Jónas who claimed to be in telepathic communication with the dead poet and wanted to re-bury his remains in Öxnadalur, where Jónas grew up.