BALANÇ HISTORIOGRÀFIC SOBRE LES IDENTITATS

Class contrast figures prominently in the case of Aapo and the youth. In that small apartment in Kruununhaka, completely different cultures came together. Aapo seem to have travelled fairly extensively during his life, at the very least to Russia, the Baltic countries, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Switzerland.³⁵⁵ The itinerant men had traveled only from their home districts to Helsinki, and for them Aapo’s stories about free and modern Europe were probably fascinating. We do not know precisely how much and about what Aapo told these men, but to some he had spoken of these trips. Aapo had, for instance, promised to a 16-year-old youngster that he would take him to Hungary the following summer. Related to homosexuality, Aapo had told that “in Europe”

homosexual relations were common and that, for instance, in France or Italy “men no longer used women for sexual purposes”.³⁵⁶

This is an attention-grabbing statement, which we should consider a bit. What did Aapo mean by this? Did he simply want to convince the men to have sexual relations with him? Not necessarily, or not only: In the first decades of the twentieth century homosexual subcultures began to form in the big European countries. These kinds of organized subcultures did not exist in Finland, and the contrast between Finland and Europe was remarkable. Indeed, homosexuality became a topic of discussion in Europe in the 1920s, when a more liberal attitude towards homosexuals began to emerge.³⁵⁷ In Berlin alone, there were a couple of dozen gay bars, while in Amsterdam there were at least six gay brothels.³⁵⁸ In the 1920s, Paris was known as a tolerant city for both lesbians and

354NIEMI, JUHANI. Arvid Järnefelt. Kirjailija ajassa ja ikuisuudessa. SKS, Helsinki 2005.

355 In Suurpohjan Kaiku 16.6.1963.

356 In Finnish: ”miesten ei enää käyttävän naisia sukupuolisiin tarkoituksiinsa.”

357 For instance Magnus Hirschfeld travelled around Europe speaking for homosexual rights. In TAMAGNE 2006:64.

358 HEKMA 1999: 87. TAMAGNE 2006: 80-81.

homosexuals.³⁵⁹ In addition, many newspapers for homosexuals were published in Germany. The 1920s was, in general, a decade of sexual liberation, and therefore the homosexual liberation movements fit well into the theme.During the 1920s and 1930s, “references to homosexuality were everywhere”³⁶⁰ in European cities. It is fairly likely that Aapo had witnessed the homosexual cultures in Europe, and maybe in some circles it seemed that “women were no longer used”.

Aapo had had many rich experiences. He had traveled, had friends among the Finnish cultural elite, and was himself culturally active. Why did this kind of man want to host and befriend homeless youngsters? The story about Aapo and these young men is really much a story of class and a collision between different cultures. Lawyers were considered as having a high social rank as they were heads of the political and bureaucratic levels of society.³⁶¹ Through his education, Aapo had climbed the socio-hierarchical ladder. At some point in his life he had rebelled against the class barriers, maybe because of having once been poor himself. However, already in the railway trial we got to know Aapo, who did not care about the social background of his friends, and this egalitarian attitude troubled others.

Tamagne has discussed class in her study of homosexuality in interwar Europe. She has shown that upper-middle class men were often fascinated by working class boys, and provides a large number of examples from Paris, London and Berlin that illustrate this interesting fact. Behind these cross-class relations was a romantic idea that the bond between men could be a force big enough to break social borders. Tamagne argues that, in general, the countryside was romanticized and also the bodies of the working class, with its pure strength, were admired. Working-class people or rural people were seen as immaculate and pure, in contrast to decadent urban life. Upper-class men found relations with working class boys better, because they were considered easygoing, physical, and sexually free.³⁶² In her book, Tamagne refers to an upper class informant who told of this kind of affection: “Secretly I was fascinated by outlaws […] I wished to offer them all the love that was denied to them by respectable people”.³⁶³ Something similar is to be found in Aapo’s affection towards the homeless youngsters.

359 TAMAGNE 2006: 68.

360 TAMAGNE 2006: 100-102. 207.

361KONTTINEN, ESA. Perinteisesti moderniin. Professioiden yhteiskunnallinen synty Suomessa. Vastapaino, Tampere 1991: 220-225.

362 TAMAGNE 2006:262-268.

363 TAMAGNE 2006:268.

Maybe Aapo saw his working-class partners with the same fascinated eyes. But how did the working-class men see Aapo? In some of the statements, it was mentioned that the men felt that Aapo used their poor position, and his own high social position, to get sex. These men understood that there was a class contradiction in their relation with Aapo. However, some of the statements hint at the idea that the men, on their part, used Aapo. The men often portrayed Aapo as a funny old guy, for whom love between men was sincere and serious. Aapo did not like to hear the men talking about women, but he enjoyed talking about love between men. It seems that other men visited his place out of need, and that they found Aapo’s ‘manlover’ behavior a rather ridiculous aspect of his personality. For these men, the fact that the ‘rich judge’ was ‘a faggot’ made it possible to exploit him.

Not all of Aapo’s visitors exploited his affection for men. If reading the sources sensitively some clues of affection can be found, too. For instance, the relationship between Aapo and the young man who introduced Aapo’s home to Johannes can be viewed in this way. In the first trial, it becomes particularly evident when the man suddenly denied all his sexual relations with Aapo, and denied ever having heard or seen Aapo acting in a homosexual manner. In the police examination records, the same man said, for instance, that everyone knows that Aapo is a “manlover”. He had also told how Aapo described common homosexual relations in Italy and France. In the court, instead, the young man played dumb: he said that because of heavy drinking, his memory had become bad.

Interestingly, then, it was exactly this man who denied having sexual relations with Aapo. There might be many reasons for this. He had been brought to the court many times, and he had been in prison too, and possibly he felt a sense of arrogance towards legal authorities. However, his (even childish) way of categorically denying everything could be motived by another motive: that of affection or loyalty toward Aapo. He did not just try to save himself, but, rather, he testified in favor of Aapo. In addition, in the other men’s testimonies this man was called Aapo’s favorite, ‘the pet’, and that he stayed at Aapo’s place as if it was his home. He was the one ‘who had found Aapo in the first place’, the men told. According to Johannes, this ‘pet’ of Aapo was a ‘manlover’ himself.

Johannes also told that the guy had seduced Johannes too, and according to Johannes they had had sex together in the toilet at Aapo’s place. The affection was lodged somewhere between the formality and the perversity, which is what the legal sources most clearly reflect. Now, from scarcely palpable positive emotions we may smoothly turn to see how the control apparatus, the police, the courts, and the legal machinery operated in the case.