Los “resultados no deseados” de la construcción de paz posbélica

A study on Finnish newspapers, published before 1911, found that same-sex intimacy was not a topic of discussion in contemporary Finland. A look at contemporary newspaper writings on same-sex same-sexuality explains why the police did not recognize this type of act. For example, the internationally known trials of Oscar Wilde got virtually no attention in Finnish newspapers in 1895. Only one Finnish Swede newspaper, Nya Pressen, reported on the trial. No mention of the type of the crime was made.²⁴² In 1897 one newspaper reported that Wilde had been set free after two years’ hard labor that he had gotten from a “crime that gained a lot of attention”.²⁴³ Once again, the crime was not named. The very first mention of same-sex intimacy in Finnish newspapers was in 1902, when a German businessman of the Krupp dynasty, Fritz Krupp was reported to have died of a heart attack as a consequence of being named in a homosexual scandal. The scandal was noted briefly in two Finnish newspapers in the context of questioning the vilification of this kind honest

239 Helsinki city court. Cb:IV:115. 26.2.1916. (NAF

240 Tampere city court. Riita- ja rikosasiain tuomiokirjat. 1906 loka-joulukuu, I osasto Ca:183, 16.10.1906, 1355§.

Tampere City Archive.

241Tampere city court. 1910 loka-joulukuu, I osasto Ca:199, 13.10.1910, 1538§. Tampere city archive.

242 In Nya Pressen 5.6.1895

243 In Wiipuri 25.3.1897. In Finnish: “aikoinaan huomiota herättáneestä rikoksesta”.

individual. However, the case garnered precious little attention, and sexuality played a minor part in these three writings.²⁴⁴

Finnish newspapers began to discuss male sexual relations for the first time in the context of a homosexual scandal in Germany, called the Eulenburg affair. It was a huge and scandalous homosexual trial series that touched the inner circle of the emperor of the republic in Germany. The series of trials continued until the year 1909 and was closely followed in all European countries, including Finland. The reportage of the Eulenburg affair spread to different European countries the idea of homosexual relations, as well as the concept of homosexuality.²⁴⁵ In Finland the scandal was also closely followed and reported, especially in the Swedish-speaking newspapers.

Homosexuality was for the first time described, explained, condemned and used as a political tool in the public sphere.

The Eulenburg scandal was more closely followed and reported in the Finnish Swede newspapers, particularly Nya Pressen, Hufvudstadsbladet and Östra Finland. In Swedish, the word homosexual (homosexuell) was used more often, whereas in Finnish newspapers the other concepts, such as male-love (miesrakkaus) or unnatural intercourse (luonnoton sukupuoliyhteys) were used. These same-sex sexual practices were coupled with condemnatory adjectives such as filthy or disgraceful.

The newspapers also often used euphemisms, probably on purpose to avoid an overly informative writing style. Much of the writing on the topic stressed shame. Instead of describing the testimonies in Eulenburg trial, for example, Suur-Savo mentioned that “the things described by the witness were that sort that they cannot be published in any newspaper.”²⁴⁶ Same-sex intimacy, however, was not singled out for silence, instead, the writing style betrays the newspapers’ general attitude towards sexuality. Societal morality was felt to be at issue. Indeed, in 1922, the contemporary professor of criminal code, Allan Serlachius, stated that the publicity that same-sex fornication trials may give is not “healthy for the society”.²⁴⁷

As mentioned above, in the first decade of the new century homosexual terms were rarely used in Finnish-speaking newspapers. In Pohjois-Suomi, an article on Eulenburg with the story of his life from fame to infamy was published, and the newspaper used the then-unknown concept “hemosex”

244 In Suomen Kansa 26.11.1902 and 29.11.1902, and in Borgabladet 13.12.1902

245 Find more in DOMEIER, NORMAN. Der Eulenburg-Skandal, Eine Kulturgeschichte Der Politik Des Späten Kaiserreichs. European University Institute, Florence 2009.

246 In Suur-Savo 11.11.1907. In Finnish: ”Siellä kertoi todistaja nähneenstä sellaista, jota missään sanomalehdessä ei woi julkaista.”

247 SERLACHIUS, ALLAN. Ehdotus uudeksi rikoslaiksi. Helsinki 1922:63.

(sic!) when describing the crime that Eulenburg had committed. The term was left obscure, but it was implied that it related to something dirty. The fact that the word was used wrongly shows us that the homosexuality as a concept was not yet established in the Finnish language.²⁴⁸

Other sexual scandals followed on the tails of the Eulenburg scandal and Finnish newspapers reported on these too. In 1908, there was a scandal in the Denmark Young Men’s Christian Association, where homosexual practices and prostitution had taken place. In the Finnish Worker (Työläinen) newspaper, homosexualist was for the first time in this context explained for Finnish newspaper readers: “(A homosexualist is that kind of a man who practices unnatural sexual intercourse with other men. Ed. Note.)²⁴⁹” Homosexuality was, thus, something new that needed to be explained. However, there were no other concepts that the newspaper writer could have used to help with this explanation: for example, the editor did not write “homosexuality is a German word for male-love”, which supports the idea that the issue was not culturally well-known. Instead, the concept had to be explained through the action. Thus, it is not exceptional that the police was not able to conceptualize the scene in the park.

In the scientific arena too, discussions over same-sex intimacy were rare. Before 1922, only a few medical writings that touched the issue were published in Finland. The first, written by a doctor named Johan Backman, was published in 1882 in a Finnish medical journal. Backman analyzed his female patient who felt being a man. The case of XYZ is well-studied in Finnish history, at first as a lesbian case, but later as a transgender history study.²⁵⁰ In 1911, August Forel’s famous book The Sexual Question (1905) was translated into Finnish. In this, Forel defined homosexuality after Krafft-Ebing to be pathological by its nature.²⁵¹ However Forel was against legal control of homosexuality as he founded it futile because of its abnormal nature.

In international conferences at the turn of the century, medical authorities started to question the legal control over homosexuality. In 1919 psychiatrist Akseli Nikula wrote the first Finnish article on the issue, titled “On homosexuality and its legal judgment” (Homosexualiteetti ja sen

248 In Pohjois-Suomi 18.5.1908.

249In Työläinen 27.7.1908. In Finnish: ”(Homosexualisti on sellainen mieshenkilö, joka harjoittaa luonnonvastaista sukupuoliyhteyttä toisten miesten kanssa. Toim. Huom.)”.

250 SUHONEN, MALLA. ”Transsukupuolisuuden näkymätön historia.” in Sateenkaari-Suomi. Seksuaali- ja sukupuolivähemmistöjen historiaa. Edited by Kati Mustola and Johanna Pakkanen. Rosebud books, 2007.

251 THOMPSON, JULIE MARIA. Mommy queerest, contemporary rhetorics of lesbian maternal identity. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 2002. 21.

oikeudellinen arvosteleminen).²⁵² The article was published in Finnish medical journal and was based on Nikula’s lecture in the medical association’s seminar, Duodecim’s. In his article Nikula made mention of all the important contemporary studies on the field of homosexuality in Europe.²⁵³ He discussed the different theories on the epistemology of homosexuality, possible ways to cure it how it should be treated in criminal law. Nikula thus gave a Finnish audience, though mainly physicians, a bird’s eye view of the international thoughts on the subject.

Nikula seemed inclined towards Hirschfeld’s theory of the third sex. He rejected the old theories of Krafft-Ebing and others, according to which homosexuality was a psychological pathology. Nikula agreed with Hirschfeld, who said that homosexuality could be a signal of a different kind of brain functioning. The thrust of the article was that people prosecuted for same-sex fornication should always be medically evaluated. Nikula did not take a stance on whether or not same-sex relations should be decriminalized. He does write that, in the end, it is homosexual’s own decision to engage or not in these relations.²⁵⁴ Nikula’s article can be viewed being a statement from medical authority to legal ones, showing that medical experts should be heard when sexual crimes are treated in the court. Indeed, in later decades medical expertise gained importance in the evaluation of sexually deviants.

252 NIKULA, AKSELI. “Homoseksualiteetti ja sen oikeudellinen arvosteleminen” in Duodecim, kirjoituksia lääketieteen ja lääkäritoiminnan aloilta. Duodecim-Seura, Helsinki, 1919. pp. 249-271.

253 For instance, Nikula was familiar with the works of Forel, Urlichs, Westphal, Krafft-Ebing, Hirschfeld, Moll, Hochen, Havelock-Ellis, Westermark, Bloch, and Freud.

254 NIKULA 1919:260.