A History of Organizational Change:

The case of Fédération Internationale

de l’Automobile (FIA), 1946–2020 1st ed.
Edition Hans Erik Næss
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Hans Erik Næss

A History of
Organizational Change
The case of Fédération
Internationale de
l’Automobile (FIA),
1946–2020
 A History of Organizational Change

“In times of major technological and social innovation in motorsport, A History of

Organizational Change. The Case of Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile
(FIA), 1945–2020 arrives at just the right moment. In this important book, Hans
Erik Næss explores how varying historical changes continuously shape and trans-
form the FIA as a hybrid organisation. By critically reviewing projects like Formula
E, this book provides fresh insights on the FIA’s future and enhances the expertise
of scholars and fans alike.”
—Timothy Robeers, Professor of Communication Sciences and
Assistant Editor for the Journal of Motorsport
History and Culture, Antwerp University, Belgium

“Jean Todt, President of FIA, the world governing body of motorsport has said
that much as many love the sport a worldwide health pandemic reminds us that “it
is not essential for society”, that “a new deal” is needed for the future. This study,
combining historical sociology with organizational analysis and theories of institu-
tional logics, explains how the FIA has developed since its formation in 1904 as a
special hybrid entity characterised by what Hans Erik Næss calls “organisational
emulsion”, a previously unidentified model or process of organisational change. If
you want to understand how SGBs (Sport Governing Bodies) have survived, some
with an adaptive potential promising positive change, read this case study.”
—Alan Tomlinson, Professor of Leisure Studies,
University of Brighton UK
 Hans Erik Næss​

A History
of Organizational
Change
The case of Fédération Internationale de
l’Automobile (FIA), 1946–2020
Hans Erik Næss​
Oslo, Norway

ISBN 978-3-030-48269-5    ISBN 978-3-030-48270-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48270-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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 Acknowledgements

Thanks to
Olivier Fisch, Jean Todt, Pierre de Coninck, Michel Mathys, Børre
Skiaker, and Delphine Challande.

v
 Contents

1 Introduction: A World in Motion  1

2 Into the Modern Era of Sport: 1946–1981 27

3 Reaching Its Institutional Limits: 1981–1993 87

4 Changing the Rules of the Game: 1993–2009133

5 From Small Association to Global Pundit: 2009–2020193

6 2020 and Beyond: In a Phase of Organisational Emulsion241

7 On Method277

Index289

vii
 Abbreviations

ACCUS Automobile Competition Committee of the United States

ACF Automobile Club de France
AIACR Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus
AIT Alliance Internationale de Tourisme
BPICA International Permanent Bureau of Motor Manufacturers
CSI Commission Sportive Internationale
EBU European Broadcasting Union
ENGSO European Non-Governmental Sporting Organisations
FEB Formel Eins Beteiligungs
FIA Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile
FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association
FISA Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile
FOCA Formula One Constructors’ Association
FOG Formula One Group
FOM Formula One Management
FOPA Formula One Promotions and Administration
FOTA Formula One Teams’ Association
FOWC Formula One World Championship
GPDA Grand Prix Drivers’ Association
GPWC Grand Prix World Championship
IOC International Olympic Committee
ISC International Sportsworld Communicators
NGO Non-governmental organisation
OTA Organisation Mondiale du Tourisme et de l’Automobile
SGB Sport governing body
WRC World Rally Championship

ix
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) 1946. Source:

Hutton (2004, p. 98), based on the appendix from the General
Assembly, June 1946 31
Fig. 2.2 FIA’s organisational chart, 1957 39
Fig. 2.3 FIA’s organisational chart, 1970 53
Fig. 3.1 The FIA’s organisational chart 1993 122
Fig. 3.2 Types of logic within organisations. (Source: Besharov
& Smith, 2014, p. 371) 126
Fig. 6.1 FIA’s environmental programme 2011. (Source: https://www.
slideserve.com/lev/sustainability-programme-even-wiger-
director-of-sustainability-22-03-2011)257

xi
 List of Tables

Table 6.1 The development of the FIA’s institutional

logics 1945–2020 244
Table 6.2 A template for analysing an emulsified organisation 246
Table 7.1 Coding of data—going from left to right 284

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: A World in Motion

After a modest start in 1904, when it was named the Association

Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), the Fédération
Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) (renamed such in 1946) has become
one of the most influential sport governing bodies in the world. To explain
why and how, let me introduce three vignettes in which the FIA has been
the centre of attention in the years of 2019–2020:

Vignette 1
All the FIA seniors were there, at Formula One’s 1000th race in Shanghai,
China, or the ‘the FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN CHINESE GRAND PRIX
2019’ as it was officially known. Although it is debatable whether it actu-
ally was the thousandth race since the inauguration of the world champi-
onship in 1950, the event was definitively a milestone, according to Ross
Brawn. An F1 veteran since the late 1980s with many roles on his curricu-
lum vitae (CV), and currently sporting director of the entire champion-
ship, he reflected upon the achievement like this:

Today, winning is no longer the ‘magnificent obsession’ it was for me every

day. That has been replaced with the desire to play a part in taking Formula
One into the future. This is an opportunity to trace out a new path for a
sport that has few rivals, in terms of the spectacle it offers and its global
reach. It has an amazing history from which to move forward and this
1000th grand prix is its brightest symbol.1

© The Author(s) 2020 1

H. E. Næss, A History of Organizational Change,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48270-1_1
2 H. E. NÆSS

Similarly, FIA president Jean Todt commented that the race on the track
which cost EUR 370 million to build, and that included teams like
Mercedes and Ferrari, each of which has an annual budget of around
USD 400 million,2 symbolised how ‘F1 is like a thriller (…) I have been
discussing it with friends recently, with Luc Besson and Michael Mann,
the directors, and I said: “You know, if you want to make a real movie
about F1 there is no point, because each race is a thriller.”’3

Vignette 2
Four hundred and seventy delegates from all around the world gathered in
Sun City, South Africa, for the 2019 FIA Conference. According to the
FIA’s newsletters, it was the first time in the institution’s history, that the
FIA had brought together the Sport and Mobility Conferences, the Region
I Spring Meeting and the FIA Sport Regional Congress Africa. As a result,
a large group of membership clubs and stakeholders were gathered under
the same roof to ‘discuss latest trends, build synergies and unite FIA mem-
ber organisations while celebrating the achievements of our Members
around the world’. Among the numerous sessions and plenaries, one of
them was called ‘Developing Nations’, which according to the conference
newsletter, ‘provided the ideal platform for the FIA to announce an exciting
new innovation: an international, multi-disciplinary FIA Motorsport
Games’. In essence, the Games brought together drivers from five racing
disciplines into a single event in which drivers—in contrast to the historically
transnational norm of motorsport—competed under their national flag.4
Despite being promoted by SRO Motorsports Group (run by motors-
port PR guru Stéphane Ratel, who we will return to in Chap. 4), the
participation of 49 countries, great hype and the inclusion of the Gran
Turismo PlayStation 4 game as one of the disciplines (!) it received little
attention on, for example, social media. On the Facebook account of
@fiamotorsportgames, on 26 February 2020 only 15 people had reviewed
the 2019 event, albeit those reviews were positive.5 At the opposite
extreme, the idea of motorsport Olympics—although it had been sug-
gested at one FIA General Assembly in the early 1950s, that motorsports
should become part of the ‘real’ Olympics—was applauded by several
national motorsport clubs (such as Russia and Italy) and seen as showing
‘potential’ according to Motorsport Magazine, arguably one of the most
influential publications on motoring history and journalism.6 Ratel, more-
over, who got his inspiration from the Beijing Olympics, plans to make
this a global phenomenon by taking it ‘around the world’.7
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 3

Vignette 3
In connection with Formula E races, which are part of a marketing-savvy
championship for all-electric cars and given full world championship status
by the FIA from 2020 onwards (see Chap. 6), the FIA has introduced
Smart Cities Forum. Since 2017, its aim has been to encourage stakehold-
ers to address urban issues and discuss the future of modern mobility sys-
tems. In April 2019, this forum coincided with the Rome E Prix, leading
Jean Todt to write in the programme’s foreword: ‘Along with experts
from the German Marshall Fund, the International Transport Forum, and
Airbus, the Mayors of Rome and Brussels had a dedicated session, sharing
their vision on how to make the mobility transition in cities faster and
more inclusive.’ Alejandro Agag, founder and chief executive officer
(CEO) of Formula E, said:

I am proud that together with the governing body and our partners we are
celebrating those who are creating new technologies in the fight against
climate change. As the automotive industry is moving toward electrification,
Formula E is a platform that can accelerate and promote the change to sus-
tainable mobility.8

There are a number of strands to this; on a macro level, the initiative is

related to the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, the watershed
year emphasised by the United Nations (UN) in its environmental sustain-
ability goals.9 On a meso level, this is FIA’s contribution to the International
Federation (IF) Sustainability Project launched by the International
Olympic Committee (IOC), by which the FIA was recognised in 2011,10
to obtain an overview of IF’s sustainability initiatives—identifying com-
mon topics, challenges, and good practices while also sharing information
among the IF’s members.11 Among other things, FIA partnered with the
French elite higher education institution, Sciences Po Paris, to identify
and rate the best practices of urban mobility systems from the ten Formula
E Prix host cities. The winner was selected by an external international
expert panel, which measured innovation in five areas: quality of life, gov-
ernance, economic performance, mobility efficiency, and environmental
sustainability.

* * *
4 H. E. NÆSS

The three vignettes above illustrate some of the diversity and scope of
today’s FIA, which holds, in its own words, ‘the exclusive right to take all
decisions concerning the organisation, direction and management of
International Motor Sport’ (FIA Activity Report, 2016, p. 1). Located in
three cities—Geneva, Valleiry, and Paris (its headquarters)—it consists in
2020 of 240 member clubs from 144 countries. Those represent in total
about 80 million members, and host together, with the FIA, a network of
stakeholders and engage in activities that the organisation’s first members
would probably have found unimaginable. More than half a century ago,
when everybody was picking up the pieces after World War II, the situa-
tion was quite different. By then, the Association Internationale des
Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) had already been active for some
time. At a meeting at Bad Homburg in Germany on 20 June 1904, hosted
by Duke Victor of Ratibor, it was proposed to form ‘an international asso-
ciation of automobile clubs’ (Hutton, 2004, p. 23). It was a private asso-
ciation whose statutes emphasised that member clubs should deal with ‘all
questions related to motoring’ (Hutton, 2004, p. 32), and in which a
group of idealistic and wealthy people came together through their fasci-
nation for cars, road travel, and motorsports. Unpaid and in the service of
their national clubs, these individuals hailed from upper-class backgrounds
across Europe and the US. Politically and religiously neutral, not profit-­
oriented and with membership responsibilities enshrined in its statutes, it
began to promote a form of transport which came to transform societies
more than any other in the coming century.

The French Connection

In the centre of it all was Paris. Around the turn of the twentieth century,
French and German inventors competed fiercely to become the first mass
manufacturer of cars. In 1896, Armand Peugeot established Anonyme des
Automobiles Peugeot and focused on developing internal combustion
engines—a critical choice, it would turn out, because of the early links
between the automotive industry and motorsport events as performative
showrooms. After the races from Paris-Rouen (first run in 1894), Paris-­
Bordeaux and back (1895), and Chicago to Evanston (1895), which were
all won by petroleum-based cars, it became clear that petrol-powered
engines outperformed steam and electricity as power sources. Stimulated
by the interest in these events, and in the car in general, motoring interests
from racing, international touring, and continental travel were early served
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 5

by the establishment of Touring Club de France (Touring Club de France

(TCF), 1890) and the Automobile Club de France (Automobile Club de
France (ACF), 1895). These associations promoted easier international
travel by car and road races, and acquired public support and industrial
momentum both of which, among other things, manifested themselves in
the early use of international conventions to showcase the novelties of the
car industry. The first Salon d’Automobile took place on 15 June 1898 in
the Tuileries Gardens, where exhibitors were ‘required to demonstrate
their wares by driving their cars from Versailles to Paris’ (FIA, 2014,
p. 11). Two years later, Paris hosted the first Congrès International
d’Automobilisme, coinciding with the World Exhibition in the French
capital. In fact, it is argued, ‘Paris’ pioneering role in the development of
the automobile was supported by the fact that Parisians widely and endur-
ingly embraced the automobile until the 1970s’ (Schipper, 2008, p. 46).
To strengthen the relationship between racing and marketing, the ACF,
which grew from 422 members in 1896 to 2261 in 1901 (Flink, 1988,
p. 18), established its first Sporting Commission in 1899, dealing with ‘all
issues related to road vehicle events’. This experience would give the
French the lead in their subsequent collaboration with other national
motoring clubs when organising cross-country races like the Paris-Madrid
race in 1903 (FIA, 2014, p. 13), and, more importantly, was a decisive
motivation for establishing AIACR in 1904. Besides adopting both the
ACF’s guidelines for motoring and its president between 1904 and 1931,
Baron de Zuylen de Nyevelt, the aristocrats forming the ACF in 1895 had
purchased two large sections of the former Place Louis XV (currently
Place de la Concorde)—which is still the FIA’s headquarters. The ACF
remained in number 6, offering AIACR number 8 to run its secretariat—
an address which today is the home of the FIA. In many ways, therefore,
the ACF was ahead of its time. In its foundational document (there were
seven founding members—Germany, Italy, the UK, France, Austria, the
US, and Holland) from 1904, however, the mandate of AIACR is rather
vague. At the same time, although the car was in its infancy, the initial
signs of what was about to be, were clear. During the next decades, there
was a growing political consensus that the car—and its networks of pro-
duction—would develop into a significant carrier of national identity, a
symbol of modernity and a driver for the capitalist economies. Technologies
of mass production, new consumer segments, and clever marketing helped
raise the status and impact of the car on societies, the economy, and people
in general.
6 H. E. NÆSS

Across the Atlantic, US car designers and engineers understood that to

expand the market and utilise the increasing fascination of the car as a
brand-activating platform, new production technologies were needed. In
1913, American inventor Henry Ford—who had once been a racing
driver—introduced the car assembly line, which was tailor-made to the
petrol-powered, steel-bodied model T car. The introduction of this model
coincides with the ‘the rapid emergence of cheap oil’ in the US, which
‘consolidated petroleum as the fuel for the newly emerging car produced
under conditions of Fordism’ (Dennis & Urry, 2009, p. 33). For example,
between 1927 and 1935, a group of American companies with stakes in
the rise of the petroleum-based car ‘shared information, investments and
“activities” in order to eliminate ground transport’, a strategy which was
intended to ‘control urban transport systems so as to force a shift away
from electrified buses and streetcars to motorized petroleum-fuelled trans-
port’. This move was not seen by the US authorities as a violation of anti-­
trust laws until 1955, and even then, the sanctions were minimal (Dennis
& Urry, 2009, p. 35). By realising the economic gains of combining the
mass production of relatively low-cost objects with high-status symbolism,
the model T became available to a larger segment of consumers than
before. Then, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, it quickly became
evident that the international combustion engine was crucial to the mech-
anisation of warfare (Dennis & Urry, 2009, p. 33).
Petroleum-based domination, initiated by the Americans, then spread
back to Europe. Between 1922 and 1930, the number of cars tripled in
Italy, Great Britain, and France, quadrupled in Switzerland, Belgium, and
Sweden and increased five times in Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands
(Moreau, 2019). In the US, the number of cars produced jumped from
45,000 in 1907 to 4,359,000 in 1928. In Germany, excluded from AIACR
after World War I, only 4000 cars were produced in 1907, but this number
had risen to 240,000 in 1935 (DeLong, 1997). Behind these numbers
was a considerable political dynamic, claims sociologist Tim Edensor:

Cars signify national identity as familiar, iconic manufactured objects emerg-

ing out of historic systems of production and expertise. Although commodi-
ties increasingly circulate globally, certain forms of object-centred expertise
persist as practices sedimented in particular cultures over time. Connoting
mythic qualities and forms of native skill, certain craftworks, dishes, g
­ arments
and manufactures are important signifiers of identity for national communi-
ties (and foreign tourists and consumers). (Edensor, 2004, p. 103)
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 7

As car use (and not only car production) in France grew more than
tenfold between 1921 to 1939, from 1640 to 18,080 vehicle-kilometres a
year (Mom, 2015, p. 289), the infrastructure needed to promote the car
industry developed, albeit a bit later on. Historian Göran Sjöblom (2014)
claims that ‘the choice of a motorised society was made in the interwar
period, rather than after the Second World War’. In Europe, Sjöblom
argues, political facilitation was key to understanding why the car outcom-
peted the railway, most notably in the form of eschewed taxation that
benefited the former. When the German Allgemeiner Deutscher
Automobil-Club eV (ADAC—which today is an FIA member on mobility
issues), worried about the stagnation of the car industry in the late 1920s,
it ‘radicalized into a fighting club’ (Mom, 2015, p. 291). According to
Gijs Mom, it started ‘an aggressive campaign (Abwehrkampf, a defensive
struggle) against further tax increases, demanding attention to the “cata-
strophic condition of the car industry”’. Two years later, Adolf Hitler
started his automotive revolution as a tool for gaining popular support by
envisioning the Autobahn and improved conditions for the car industry
(Mom, 2015, p. 291; see also Vahrenkamp, 2010).
Better cars and roads, along with a democratisation of ownership, made
travel by car a life-enhancing experience. Although actual ownership was
small, focus on ‘conspicuous consumption’ as a way to secure economic
growth on both sides of the Atlantic, combined with a flourishing adver-
tising industry and creative instalment plans, made the car a dream object.
Two scholars argue that the political and technological push for the car-­
centred society enabled drivers ‘to develop their own timetabling of social
life’ (Dennis & Urry, 2009, p. 28). According to John Urry, this develop-
ment resulted in an extremely positive view of automobility:

Motor touring was thought of as ‘a voyage through the life and history of
the land’. There was an increasing emphasis upon slower means of finding
such pleasures. To tour, to stop, to drive slowly, to take the longer route, to
emphasise process rather than destination, all became part of the performed
art of motor touring as ownership of cars became far more widespread.
(Urry, 2000, p. 61)

The AIACR was well aware of this, and its creation of a carnet de pas-
sage en douen in 1913 would prove to be a masterstroke in terms of easing
international travel. Previously, crossing national borders with a car relied
on a triptyque. This was a document issued by European touring and
8 H. E. NÆSS

automobile clubs, which ‘basically guaranteed that the vehicle for which it
was issued would not be imported permanently, but re-exported within a
certain lapse of time. The time limit for re-exportation gradually extended
to one year. If the vehicle did not return in time, the clubs would cover the
costs’ (Schipper, 2008, p. 60). A carnet, however, was valid throughout
Europe, enabling the passage of multiple borders in a single trip through,
moreover, a Europe well furnished with national initiatives to encouraging
motoring. One example of the latter is the Austrian Grossglockner High
Alpine Road, opened in 1936, which in 2018 entered the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) candi-
date list of world heritage sites. Prior to its opening, extensive comparative
studies were made by engineers and visual developers in order to construct
what would become the country’s contribution to the World’s Fair in
1935 (and 1937!). Its rapidly growing popularity among car manufactur-
ers, tourists, and explorers paved the way for the terms on which UNESCO
later justified its inclusion—it has ‘outstanding universal value’ because its
construction ‘displays high scenic qualities and represents the newly
acquired and increasing vehicular mobility of the 1920s and ’30s’.12
Finally, the media saw the international racing competitions and tour-
ing routes as an opportunity to incorporate at least three levels of com-
mentary at the same time: the current state of Europe (notable in the way
they portrayed foreigners), the spectacle of the race (glitz, glamour, and
drama), and industrial progress (these cars were spearheading societal
transformations). According to automotive historian James Flink, after the
Paris Exposition of 1899, ‘virtually no development of importance in
automotive technology went unreported in one or another of the engi-
neering journals, bicycle periodicals, automobile trade journals, newspa-
pers, and popular magazines of the day’ (Flink, 1988, pp. 12–13). Around
1900, for example, there were some 25 specialised automobile periodicals
published in France (Flink, 1988, p. 29). Two pioneers in this respect
were co-founder of the ACF, Paul Meyan (a journalist who worked on
French dailies Le Matin and Le Figaro) and the American newspaper
mogul Gordon Bennett, whose contribution was manifold. Not only did
Bennett, as an émigré to France create a sports division in his news outlets,
focusing on the topics above, he also became the entrepreneur behind the
AIACR’s first racing series by negotiating with ACF the Gordon Bennett
Cup that ran from 1900 to 1905. In relation to these events, he empha-
sised the benefits of sponsorship as well as heralding the cosmopolitan
dimension of motorsports (Hare & Dauncey, 2008). Besides ACF and
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 9

Bennett, editors and journalists from British motoring magazine Autocar

both participated in races and covered motoring trends by combining a
keen eye for the organisational defects and risks of road races while enthu-
siastically embracing the wonders of motorsport. To encourage road travel
by car by journalistic means, AIACR followed suit. It produced publica-
tions like Motoring Through Europe in 1930—more than 400 pages of
approved hotels, maps, routes, and regulations. In general, the collabora-
tion between the car industry, its friends in the press, and the motoring
organisations made a tremendous impact on the public in normalising the
road trip as a life-enriching experience.
Around 1920, the AIACR was firmly established as a hub of national
motoring clubs. In the early 1900s, Paris was according to Schipper (2008,
p. 63) the ‘global centre for automotive technology, production and use’.
ACF, the French automobile club, was very active in promoting the car.
Situated between the car industry and a growing list of members, keeping
the politicians at arm’s length, the AIACR therefore recovered from World
War I to make an institutional shift in the early 1920s. The debate over
whether AIACR should establish its own racing commission had been
going on for over a decade, with some clubs feeling that it would be a
threat to their own sporting authority. But with the internationalisation of
racing on the one hand, and the use of motorsport as showroom for car
manufacturers on the other, sporting developments necessitated an organ-
isational move by the AIACR in order for it to keep growing. At the 1922
General Assembly in London, on 7 December, a suggestion from the
Italian representative on creating a European Grand Prix series spurred a
discussion of how it would be governed as the AIACR did not have a
sporting commission. The meeting unanimously adopted the Automobile
Club d’Italia’s proposal for the organisation of a European Grand Prix and
decided that the first meeting of the Commission Sportive Internationale
(CSI)—the sporting branch of AIACR—would be held that afternoon.
Partly because of political interest in using the car industry as a show-
room for national economy and innovation, but also because agreeing
new rules levelled the playing field, the idea of championships was a core
pull-factor in generating more interest. The institutionalisation of motor-
sport established a relation between organisational structure and institu-
tional mandate within the AIACR that is visible even today. In analytical
terms, this sporting order was enabled by an institutional ‘domestication’
of three main elements: space, time, and technology. Once the format of
the championship events was identified, competitive rules were established
10 H. E. NÆSS

and technical criteria for participation were agreed upon and a hierarchy of
races in terms of where they were located began to take shape (Borzakian
& Ferez, 2010). Naturally, the AIACR’s key members and automotive
countries were most eager to be the hosts. However, because of the grow-
ing popularity of motorsport, the awarding of races was not unproblem-
atic, and the CSI tried to counter the dominance of Western Europe. At
the same time, internal disagreements made it necessary to rely on the
collaboration of other actors (Borzakian & Ferez, 2010). In other words,
motorsport championships were not merely competitions following a
strict set of rules, they were channels for industrial and political forces in
interwar Europe, and the CSI was becoming their key fixer. Then came
World War II.
At this point the FIA’s predecessor, the AIACR, was already in flux.
First, the founding countries of the organisation were no longer domi-
nant. Although the aristocratic hierarchy which enabled some countries to
preserve a certain management of automobile issues was not really chal-
lenged, it ceased to be taken for granted as the growing inflow of new
member countries altered the dynamics of the organisation. Second, the
structure of the soon-to-be FIA was about to become much more com-
plex, with debates on commissions, alliances, and collaboration with exter-
nal partners. Third, the association’s statutes, and the interpretation of
them in a world that had barely recovered from the wounds of war, would
soon become a matter of decade-long debates as the FIA gradually got
entangled in cases that challenged their reason for being. The questions
this book aims to explore are what created these changes, where did they
take the organisation, and how did the FIA develop as an organisation in
terms of structural transformation and stakeholder relations?
These developments were not unique to the FIA. Its choice as a case to
analyse organisational change in sport is motivated by the consideration
that, compared with other sport governing bodies (SGBs), it is rarely
explored. Alongside Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA) and the IOC, the FIA is in many circles just as influential as gov-
ernments and large corporations. By establishing itself as a legitimate
source of governance, through membership procedures and voting proto-
cols, the AIACR and the CSI manifested already in the 1920s a way of
managing world motorsports similar to those on the verge of global
expansion in football or the Olympics. Quickly realising the necessity of
collaboration with stakeholders outside the world of motorsport, the CSI
would become a key driver in the FIA’s expansion and governing
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 11

legitimacy throughout the century. Compared with its institutional peers,

however, the FIA is almost uncharted land as far as scholarly examinations
go. Through its increasing entanglement with international non-­
governmental organisations (NGOs), businesses, states, and other actors,
the FIA is, as Stuart Murray (2018) claims, ‘perhaps one of the most
under-stated, under-studied actors’. Much research and writing about the
FIA also concentrates on the Formula 1 world championship, whether it
is the commercial empire built by Bernard ‘Bernie’ Ecclestone, or drivers,
sponsors, and teams that at different points have made their mark on the
sport. Even the autobiography of FIA president 1993–2009, Max
Mosley—aptly entitled Formula One and Beyond—excludes a great deal of
the FIA’s development processes and changes in favour of the technical
and sporting struggles caused by its relationship with F1. Apart from a
few, mostly well-written, journalistic enquiries, the I Trust Report on
good governance (Rowland, 2013) and FIA’s centenary books, which
were commissioned by the FIA and never put on general sale, it is my own
research that thus forms the basis of this book (in particular Næss, 2014,
2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018).
Another motivation for choosing the FIA as case is that the institution,
similar to other SGBs, found itself entangled in a web of relations that
became increasingly complex after World War II. By controlling to an
increasing degree the geographical distribution and commercial develop-
ment of major sporting events on the one hand, and being governing
monopolies of world sports on the other, in the post-war era, the SGBs
became transformed from instrumental membership organisations to sig-
nificant powerhouses on the global scene. The IOC, for example, has had
its share of controversy when it comes to political exploitation of the
event, a lack of transparency in the bidding process, and the mismatch
between the cultural exuberance of Olympic games and its cost overruns.
Some of this can be explained by an institutional design whose procedural
integrity has failed to keep up with the circumstances the SGB is meant to
consider as part of governance responsibilities. In contrast to the FIFA and
the IOC, however, the FIA has fared relatively well in this respect—despite
the ‘FISA-FOCA war’, and the commercial moves made by F1 mogul
Bernie Ecclestone, which I will return to in later chapters. At the same
time, the FIA has become embroiled in a series of upheavals in commer-
cial, political, and environmental respects that it cannot ignore. The over-
arching question in this book is to what degree has the FIA been
modernised accordingly?
12 H. E. NÆSS

Unlike the predominantly personalised accounts of motorsport history

in the twentieth century, this topic is approached here from an academic
perspective. How did it happen that the FIA went from an enclosed mem-
ber’s club to a powerful actor in global politics? How has the FIA’s gover-
nance policy and practice changed with the societal transformations that
have affected organisations of this kind? Among other things, contempo-
rary operating conditions for the SGBs are hugely different from what
they were in the past in matters like good governance, transparency, and
accountability. Although SGBs have for some time operated in a global
social environment ‘constituted by power-plays and economic gains-­
seeking as well as the pursuit of social approval and normative legitimacy’
(Stephen, 2018, p. 98), where the norm has been neutral non-profit
organisations, the interconnections between sport and other sectors has
led SGBs like the FIA to become ‘hybrid organisations’. In order for
hybrid organisations to legitimately manage values (financial, sporting, or
political) on behalf of their stakeholders, a combination of operative prin-
ciples is required. To that end, and also to respond to the call for more
empirical studies of the consequences of organisational hybridity (Bills &
Rochester, 2020), it is necessary to explore the history of the organisation
to identify how these principles are currently seen and put into practice
and, from there, outline the limits of, and opportunities for, the FIA’s
governance in 2020 and beyond.

Theoretical Framework
The organisational development of the FIA is examined in this book using
a multi-step framework. The first step is to approach the development of
the FIA through historical sociology. Theda Skocpol (1984) argues that
historical sociology has four characteristics: first, it asks questions about
social structures and processes understood to be concretely situated in
time and space. Second, it addresses processes over time and takes tempo-
ral sequences seriously in accounting for outcomes. Third, these analyses
take account of the interplay of meaningful actions and structural con-
texts, and finally, it highlights the particular and varying features of specific
kinds of social structures and patterns of change (Skocpol, 1984, p. 1).
To analyse these processes, and the relation between structure and
agency, we turn to the second step: how organisational practices and struc-
tures are often either reflections of, or responses to, rules, beliefs, and
conventions built into the wider society (Powell & Colyvas, 2007, p. 975).
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 13

While early research within this framework focused on three mechanisms

of organisational change through institutional isomorphism—coercive,
normative, and mimetic mechanisms—which rewarded conformity (at
least within an organisational field) (see DiMaggio & Powell, 1983),
recent theoretical ventures draw attention to how organisations have
changed in more diverse ways—acknowledging both homogenisation and
divergence—because of external pressure and internal entrepreneurship
(Beckert, 2010). Unlike economic, psychological, or political science per-
spectives on institutional theory, the sociological perspectives utilised in
this book emphasise how institutional arrangements in membership
organisations like the FIA confer legitimacy. Although a slippery term, it
is here understood as ‘a generalized perception or assumption that the
actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some
socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’
(Suchman, 1995, p. 574).
A key analytical task in new institutional theory is ‘to ascertain which
factors are important in particular contexts and the extent to which the
mechanisms work to reinforce the prevailing social order or undercut one
another’ (Powell & Colyvas, 2007, p. 976). Critics of new institutional
theory have, however, found fault with ‘its apparent inability to explain
organizational transformation and more generally for being an approach
to the social world that is fundamentally predicated on compliance and
conformity’ (Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011, p. 61). In order to remedy
this flaw, it is crucial to acknowledge how these factors are shaping, as well
as being shaped by, institutional logics, that is, ‘a set of material practices
and symbolic constructions—which constitutes its organizing principles
and which is available to organizations and individuals to elaborate’
(Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 248). Expanding from new institutional
theory, which emphasises how organisations change as a result of external
pressure, institutional logic is characterised by five elements.
First, society is understood as an inter-institutional system comprising
theoretically distinct normative structures, each with their own logic.
Examples here are the capitalist market, the bureaucratic state, families,
democracy, and religion. Differences in logics are discovered by investigat-
ing the preferences of those who operate them. This brings me to the
second element, which is agency (individual, proxy, and collective capaci-
ties to act), which is enabled through the plurality of logics found within
an organisation. Closely related to this is the third element, which is the
process by which ‘the logics of sectors interact with the agency of actors’
14 H. E. NÆSS

and institutional logics are expressed ‘in terms of the identity, discourse,
and normative framing of its members or stakeholders’ (Skelcher & Smith,
2015, p. 439). Fourth, rather than privileging a certain type of explana-
tion, an institutional logics perspective recognises that institutions develop
and change as a result of the interplay between both material and cultural
explanations (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 106). There is therefore an
obvious potential for power play as institutional logics ‘shape and create
the rules of the game, the means-ends relationships by which power and
status are gained, maintained, and lost in organizations’ (Thornton &
Ocasio, 2008, p. 112). Finally, the theory emphasises historical contin-
gency—the notion that the core logic is subject to a number of prior
events, circumstances, and choices that are interconnected.
Because of this interplay between parties in operationalising institu-
tional logics, it is possible to replace rational choice behaviour affiliated
with new institutionalism with a refined version of Giddens’ theory of
structuration (Giddens, 1986), as ‘decisions and outcomes are a result of
the interplay between individual agency and institutional structure’
(Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p. 103). To start an examination of the FIA
based on this framework, the overarching logic is that found in non-profit
organisations. From the beginning, the FIA, like other SGBs, was a non-­
commercial, non-political, and autonomous organisation in an institu-
tional space free of transparency claims or business ethics. The mission of
all of them was to create and organise a sporting space freed from political
and religious contention. Much of the reason for this position can be
traced back to the founder of the Olympic Movement, Baron Pierre de
Coubertin, who during World War I, fled to Switzerland because of the
country’s neutral status created by the Treaty of Paris in 1815. Witnessing
a Europe marred by wars, colonial aspirations, and power struggles, de
Coubertin came to idealise the Swiss way of life and saw its neutrality
among aggressive states as a template to ‘democratise and simplify the
machinery of the sporting life’ (Tomlinson, 2005, pp. 83–84). Above all,
members of the IOC should be independent of governments and repre-
sent the Olympic Movement in their country, not the other way around,
and should also be financially self-sufficient. As a result, according to
J-L. Chappelet, ‘keeping sport free from political interference and scrutiny
has been the traditional way for sport organizations to ensure that they
can justify autonomy’ (Chappelet, 2016, p. 20).
In order to do so, SGBs have ‘portrayed themselves generally as “Great
Universals”, analogous to the Roman Catholic Church, representing
 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORLD IN MOTION 15

values which pertain to all mankind, which are higher and more general
than the values represented by other organizations, particularly govern-
ments’ (Allison & Tomlinson, 2017, p. ii). There is also a more practical
reason: the Swiss Verein system, its special law on associations, enables any
organisation to register for ‘association’ status and thus lower the require-
ment on them for transparency and disclosure, as well as enabling them to
benefit from liberal tax regulations (Mrkonjic, 2013, pp. 128–132).
Resting on pillars like neutrality and self-regulation, SGBs therefore
thrived on a logic built on their unique genre as organisation. Such views
have been given legal validation throughout the twentieth century by the
European Union and protected by agencies like the European Non-
Governmental Sporting Organisations (ENGSO), which works to pre-
serve the SGBs’ historically conjured privileges when it comes to resisting
external audits and financial regulation. When the SGBs were under pres-
sure from the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the UN in the 1990s and
2000s for cases of corruption, malpractice, and bending the European
Union’s (EU’s) competition laws, in the latter of which, the FIA was also
implicated, crucial voices came to the rescue.
In 2000, Mario Monti, whom we will meet in later chapters, became
the new European Commissioner for Competition Policy and said in a
speech at a Commission-organised conference on sport that it should ‘take
account of the special characteristics of sport’ (Monti, 2000). In other
words: not all laws relating to businesses or other forms of enterprise were
applicable to sporting bodies. Article 7 of the Nice Declaration of 2000,
furthermore, states that the EU:

stresses its support for the independence of sports organisations and their
right to organise themselves through appropriate associative structures. It
recognises that, with due regard for national and community legislation and
on the basis of a democratic and transparent method of operation, it is the
task of sporting organisations to organise and promote their particular sports
in the way which they think best reflects their objectives. (italics added)

Moreover, in the 2011 Communication on Sport, the specific nature of

sport was accentuated once more:

The specific nature of sport, a legal concept established by the Court of

Justice of the European Union which has already been taken into account
by the EU institutions in various circumstances and which was addressed in
16 H. E. NÆSS

detail in the White Paper on Sport and the accompanying Staff Working
Document, is now recognised by Article 165 TFEU (…) The concept of the
specific nature of sport is taken into account when assessing whether sport-
ing rules comply with the requirements of EU law (fundamental rights, free
movement, prohibition of discrimination, competition, etc.).13

More recently, this special treatment of sporting organisations has come

into conflict with the SGBs’ increasing commingling of interests. As the
FIA, IOC, and the FIFA share a pyramidal organisational structure pri-
marily based on a ‘members-only’ philosophy when it comes to manage-
ment, they have all encountered difficulties in combining a self-regulatory
understanding of their activities with the needs and wants of an increas-
ingly complex stakeholder group—composed of ‘any group or individual
who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s
objective’ (Freeman, 1984, p. 46).
Three developments are particularly important as they create competing
logics: first, because SGBs are set up as non-profit organisations with the
purpose of benefitting their members, they require increasingly complex
arrangements for the redistribution of the money they now generate.
Extensive partnerships with commercial actors, such as FIFA and Adidas, or
the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone, require a refined operationalisation of man-
agerial issues and stakeholder practices. Second, media developments,
whether in terms of broadcasting rights or social media innovations, put
pressure on these organisations to continuously reinvent themselves in the
‘media sports cultural complex’ (Rowe, 2015). The competition for atten-
tion among sports consumers is growing because of increasing access. Third,
because of globalisation, the use of sport as a political arena has become a
general concern, not something that can be isolated to a specific event.
Roughly between the end of World War II and the OPEC (Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries) crisis, a post-colonial element was
added, as newly liberated nation-states saw the membership in, for example,
FIFA as one way to cement its sovereignty—despite the fact that this rela-
tionship was complicated by people from former colonial powers having key
positions and deciding on influential strategies in these SGBs (Bar-On &
Escobedo, 2016; Darby, 2002). What FIA does, or does not do, on politi-
cally controversial events is seen as a token of a disclaimer attitude rather
than an ethically solid defence of neutrality principles (see Næss, 2017b).
Such involvements make independent action as envisioned by Coubertin
difficult for the SGBs and, according to critics may have a strong influence
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Kuin unikuva
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Kuin unikuva

Author: Eliza Orzeszkowa

Release date: October 19, 2023 [eBook #71903]

Language: Finnish

Original publication: Pori: Gust. Romelius, 1908

Credits: Tuula Temonen and Tapio Riikonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KUIN

UNIKUVA ***
KUIN UNIKUVA

Kirj.

Eliza Orzeszko

Suomennos

Porissa, Gust. Ronelius, 1908.

I.

Olipa pieni talo sattumoilta eksynyt kaupungin kivikasarmien

keskelle, seisten siinä maaseudun hymyilevänä tervehdyksenä. Se
oli pienen pieni, siinä oli kuisti ja valkeiksi silatut seinät, ympärillä
puutarha, jonka rehevät, vihannat kasvit olivat miltei metsistyneet.
Pihaa ei ollut, kadusta talon erotti kappale puutarhaa ynnä lauta-aita,
niin korkea, ettei katua voinut talosta nähdä eikä koko taloa kadulta.
Etäältä se oli kuin pienenen houkutteleva suojus; läheltä vanha
hökkeli, minkä vanhuuttaan vinot seinät puoleksi piiloutuivat seipäitä
kiertävien turkinpapujen taakse. Paitsi papuja kasvoi hiukan kukkia
lavassa alapuolella kuistia, johon pari vanhaa penkkiä oli sijotettu.

Huoneet olivat pienet, katot matalat, lattiat karkeat ja vihreätiiliset

uunit kömpelösti tehdyt.

Erääseen huoneeseen tuli Klaara Wygrycz keittiöstä juosten ja

laulunpätkää hyräili, kuten hän aina teki, kun oli iloinen. Yllään
hänellä oli punaraitainen pumpulihame, kaulahuivi olkapäillä ja hihat
kyynärpäitä myöten käärityt.

Vastapestyillä käsillään, jotka vielä kylmästä Vedestä punottivat,

hän kiireesti kiskasi kaulahuivin, kääri kokoon ja pisti vanhaan
piironkiin, ajatellessaan: »tuo on pestävä, se on varsin likainen.»
Sitte hän veti alas hihat ja kokosi koriin leikattuja vaatekappaleita,
sakset, sormustimen ja rihmaa. Lopuksi otti hyllyltä kirjan, joka
myöskin koriin katosi. Sitte hän juoksi ulos keittiöstä, mukanaan
leipäpala, jonka kätki vaatekappalten alle.

»Tralalalalaa!» Näin hän nyt lauloi valssi säveleellä täyttä kurkkua

ja juoksi ulos kuistin portaille. Siellä hän pysähtyi ja katseli
ympärilleen.

Turkinpavuissa oli jo palkoja, mutta siellä täällä kumminkin vielä

mahtavien lehtien lomissa pilkotti veripunainen kukka. Yhden hän
taittoi ja pisti tukkaansa. Hänen mustan tukkansa suortuvat aaltoilivat
yli otsan ja niskassa muodostivat niin löysän solmun, että kiehkuroita
myöskin riippui kaulalla ja hartioilla. Mustissa hiuksissa kukkanen
loisti kuin hehkuva liekki.

Hän ei ollut täysin kaunis, mutta omisti toki

yhdeksäntoistavuotiaan tuoreuden, lisäksi viehätti hän viehkeällä
virkeydellään, joka kuvastui liikkeissä, katseessa, vieläpä
hymyilyssäkin. Nytkin hän myhäili, katsellessaan yli puutarhan. Hän
tunsi itsensä iloiseksi, kun oli kaikki toimet puuhannut ja kahden
tunnin täydellinen vapaus odotti. Isä oli toimistossaan, veli koulussa,
sisar neulomossa; valmis päivällinen uunissa odotti kotiintulevia.

Huoneet siivottuaan, päivällisen laitettuaan hän tunsi hiukan

nälkää.
Siksi olikin leipäkappaleen mukaansa ottanut.

Kori käsivarrella hän nyt pyrki mielipaikkaansa, sireenimajalle, joka

sijaitsi puutarhan toisessa päässä, aivan pystyaidan vieressä, mikä
läheistä ruhtinaan puistoa ympäröitsi. Niinpian kuin sai yhden tahi
pari tuntia lehtimajassa yksiksensä viettää töineen, ajatuksineen, tuli
hän aina mitä iloisimmalle tuulelle.

Tuo leimuva virvatuli oli mieluimmin yksikseen. Olihan

yhdeksäntoistavuotiaan päässä ajatuksia, eikä missään ollut niin
hyvä mietiskellä kuin juuri hiljaisessa lehtimajassa. Matalan aidan
toisella puolen levisi varjoisa, ikivanhoista kunnianarvoisista puista
syntynyt lehtikuja, joka aivan lehtimajaa vastassa päättyi laajaan
nurmikenttään. Tämän toisella puolen taas kohosi pieni, kaunoinen
hovilinna, josta näkyi kolme korkeata ikkunariviä sekä kaksi tornia.
Valtavina, salaperäisinä häämöttivät linnan tummanharmajat seinät,
ikkunat ja parvekkeet pensaiden lomitse, jotka nurmikenttää
kaunistivat.

Salaperäisyys johtui hiljaisuudesta, joka aina vallitsi linnassa ja

sen ympärillä. Sen ikkunat olivat aina suljetut, sen puisto aina lepäsi
äänetönnä, autiona. Joskus vain puutarhureita puistossa työskenteli
ja nurmikentillä, muttei kukaan koskaan linnan sisällä liikkunut.
Varsin lähellä lehtimajaa näkyi pieni veräjä, mutta sekin aina vaan oli
suljettuna. Joskin huolellisesti hoidettuna oli linna kumminkin autio ja
hyljätty.

Klaara tiesi, kuuleman mukaan, että sen omistaja, ruhtinas Oskari,

siellä ei koskaan asunut. Klaaralle oli muuten aivan yhdentekevää,
oliko linna asuttu vai ei. Hän vaan mielellään sitä katsoessaan
tyydytti kauneudentunnettaan, joka oli hyvin kehittynyt.

Kun hän nyt istui kapealla penkillä, sireenipensas takanaan ja

edessään, ei hän vielä linnaa katsellut eikä sen kauneudesta
nauttinut. Hän ahkerasti ompeli. Hänen edessään pienellä pöydällä
seisoi kori leikattuine Vaatekappaleineen ja niiden välistä näkyi kirja.
Muttei lukemiseen eikä unelmiin vielä ollut aikaa. Äskettäin hän oli
yhdeksään paitaan vaatetta ostanut pikku veljelleen ja vasta neljäs
paita oli tekeillä. Sitte vielä oli isälle liinavaatteita ommeltava ja itselle
hame, sillä omistamansa molemmat hameet olivat aivan loppuun
kuluneet.

Oi! hän ei totta tosiaan olisi toivonut, että niin olisi käynyt, mutta ei
auttanut. Halvinkin hame vaati rahaa, ja hänen täytyi kovasti
kamppailla, jotta isän palkka vaan kaikkeen riittäisi. Tähän saakka ei
toki mitään ollut puuttunut, joskin isä sai kieltäymyksiä kestää, sillä
heikko kun terveys oli, olisi ravitsevampi ruoka ollut tarpeellinen,
varsinkin hedelmät…

Ruokaa ajatellessaan tyttö muisti leipäpalasen, jonka oli

mukaansa ottanut. Hän haki sen korista, söi muutamia leipäpalasia
ja jatkoi ompelemista.

Lehtikujaan, joka kolmelta puolen ympäröi suurta puistoa, ilmestyi

nyt korkeakasvuinen mies, ylhäisen näköinen, kallisarvoiseen
pukuun puettu mitä hienointa kuosia, päässä pieni huopahattu, joka
peitti tuhkanväristä tummaa tukkaa. Kasvonsa olivat hienot, vaikka
kalpeat; sileiksi ajeltuja poskia kaunistivat pienet, keltasenruskeat
viikset, jotka varjostivat ohuvia, ivallisia huulia. Hän saattoi olla
korkeintaan kolmekymmenvuotias; ryhtinsä ja liikkeet olivat vielä
nuorukaisen ja sirot, vaikka vähän huolettomat.

Ensin hän kulki pää alas painuneena, mutta sitte kohosi katse ja
ihaili puiston puita. Ne seisoivat liikkumattomina hiljaisessa ilmassa,
valossa syysauringon, jonka kultaiset säteet siellä täällä murtautuivat
läpi kellastuneiden tai punettuneiden lehtien. Joskus kahisi kuihtunut
lehti kävelevän jalkojen alla, joka yhä hiljensi askeleitaan, antaen
katseensa liukua puiden latvoista, jotka punakeltaisina hohtivat,
pitkin paksuja runkoja, vihreitten köynnösten kietomia.
 Hän teki sen johtopäätöksen, että tämä puisto oli viehättävä, joskin
vain varsin pieni, pikkukaupungin puisto. Mutta ehkäpä se oli
viehättävä juuri siksi, että täällä vallitsi suurkaupungissa mahdoton
hiljaisuus.

Tämmöisessä hiljaisuudessa tosin vaan erakko saattoi kauvan

elää, mutta jonkun aikaa täällä muutkin mielellään viihtyivät. Siitä
näet tulvi jotakin rauhottavaa ja samalla sellaista, mikä hämäriä
unelmia henkiin herätti.

Tosin nuo eivät olleet varsin viisaita unelmia, mutta täällä, tässä
ympäristössä, ne vastustamattomat mielikuvitukset kohosivat,
jättäen joksikin aikaa kaihomieltä sydämen sisimpään. Ja mitä sitte
on tässä maailmassa viisasta?

Ihmiselämän aherrus ja levottomuus sisältää yhtä paljon tyhmyyttä

ja viisautta; niin, oikeammin on viisautta mitättömän vähän
tyhmyyteen verraten, samoinkuin totuutta valheeseen verraten.

Tämä hiljaisuus, nämä puut eivät valhetelleet kellekään, ei edes

itselleen. Kuka sitte voi sanoa koskaan tavanneensa sellaisen ihme-
ihmisen, jolle teeskentely, petollisuus, imartelu ja turhamaisuus ovat
vieraita olleet? Miehet ovat imartelijoita, naiset keimailijoita, ja
toisinaan voi nuo kauniit ominaisuudet tavata samassakin yksilössä
yhdistyneinä. Miesten ystävyys, naisten rakkaus on luonnon pilaa,
joka ihmisille ihanteen näyttää tehdäkseen heidät sitte vaan koko
elinajaksi perhosia ajeleviksi lapsiksi.

Mutta eivät sentään kaikki anna pettää itseänsä viimeiseen asti.

Onhan sellaisia, jotka kenties jo hyvinkin pian saavat kokea, että
pyydystetty perhonen kohta on kädessä inhottavana ruumiina.
Sellainen ihminen nauttii siitä, että joskus saa oikein täysin
siemauksin vapaasti hengittää hiljaisuudessa ja yksinäisyydessä,
joka idyllin, tuon runoilijain mielikuvituksen tuotteen tuoksua levittää.
Sillä todellisuudessa on idyllillä pari punaista kättä, jotka tuntevat
magneetintapaista vetoa rakastuneen paimenen taskuihin.

Täällä, etäällä ihmisistä, olisi sopiva lukea La Rochefoucaud’ta.

Mikä tumma sivellin ja mikä uskollisuus elämän totuutta kohtaan —
joka on vielä tummempaa! Hänen tulisi hakea itselleen joku paikka
tässä puistossa ja lukea La Rochefoucauld‘ta… Oliko täällä istuimia!

Hän kohotti päätänsä etsiäkseen sellaisen paikan, mutta jäi

yht'äkkiä seisomaan kuin naulattu. Muutaman askeleen päässä, heti
aivan aidan takana hän huomasi nuoren tytön, punaraitaiseen
pumpulihameeseen puetun. Tyttö istui kapealla penkillä
sireenipensaan alla ompelemassa. Kukkanen hohti hänen tummassa
tukastaan kuin punainen liekki; mustia hiuskiehkuroita kiemurteli
pitkin kumartunutta niskaa ja poimukaulusta. Keskikokoisena,
hintelänä, kalpeaihoisena, punahuulisena, hän samalla teki
raihnauden ja nuorekkuuden kaksinaisen vaikutuksen.

Ompelu-intonsa ei estänyt häntä silloin tällöin kädellä tavottamasta

leipäpalasta, joka oli maalamattomalla puupöydällä. Hän purasi
palan ja jatkoi ompelua. Leipä oli mustaa, mutta hampaat olivat
valkoiset ja tasaiset kuin helmet. Pari kolme minuttia hän ompeli
taukoomatta, sitte taas purasi palasta, joka pienenemistään pieneni.
Sen sijaan valmiitten vaatekappalten joukko yhä suureni. Vielä
palanen leipää, vielä muutamia pistoksia, ja Valkoset hampaat
katkasevat langan leivän asemesta. Nuori tyttö oikasee itseänsä,
hän katselee Valmista työtään, ja ehkäpä havaitsee hän, että työ on
hyvin tehtyä, että leipä maistuu hyvältä, että ilma on ihana, sillä taas
hän alkaa hyräillä valssisävelellään: »Tralalalaa.»
 Nuori mies astui muutamia askeleita eteenpäin, esiin puiden
suojasta, joiden oksien lomitse hän kotvan aikaa oli tyttöä
tarkastellut. Kuivat lehdet kahisivat jalkojen alla.

Tyttö katsahti äkkiä ylös, ja kasvot saivat kummastuksen ilmeen.

Kiiltävistä kullanruskeista silmistä vieläpä pilkahti peljästyksen
tapaista. Nyt ensi kerran hän kolmeen vuoteen näki jonkun puistossa
kävelevän. Mutta peljästys pian haihtui.

Sen henkilön ulkomuoto, jonka hän noin odottamatta havaitsi, teki

miellyttävän vaikutuksen. Mies oli ilmeisesti hyvin kasvatettu, sillä
kun heidän katseensa kohtasivat toisensa, nosti hän lakkia,
paljastaen kaunismuotoisen otsan, kohtisuora ryppy kulmakarvojen
välissä. Ryppy, joka oli kasvojen ja vartalon nuorekkuuden jyrkkänä
vastakohtana, pisti heti silmiin, samoin ylimyskäden muoto, kun se
hatunlieriä kohden kohosi.

Hetkisen mies näytti epäröivän tahi miettivän. Sitte hän kiireesti

lähestyi aitaa, ja pitäen yhä hattua kädessä hän mitä kohteliaimmin
virkkoi:

— Uskallanko kysyä, ken asuu tuossa kauniissa pienessä

talossa?

Hän katseellaan viittasi valkoista tupaa, joka oli vihreän

ympäröimä.

Hieman hämillään tyttö vastasi:

— Me siellä asumme.

Hän kumminkin heti korjasi sanat:

 — Minun isäni, Teofil Wygrycz, minä ja minun sisarukseni…

Tytön puhetapa, koko käytöksensä ilmaisi, että hän oli tottunut

ihmisiä kohteliaasti puhuttelemaan.

— Tuo on erittäin sievä paikka, — huomautti mies.

— Kyllä! huudahti tyttö innostuneena. — Täällä on niin vihantaa ja

hiljaista…

— Todellakin rauhallinen pikku pesä, — lisäsi mies ja kysyi sitte:

— Kuka on istuttanut nuo kauniit kasvit, jotka antavat talolle noin

kauniin ulkomuodon?

Iloissaan ylistyksestä neitonen vastasi tuikkivin katsein:

— Niin, eivätkö turkinpavut ole oivallisesti kohonneet tänä

vuonna? Sisareni ja minä istutamme uusia joka vuosi, mutt'eivät ne
koskaan ole noin korkeiksi ja tiheiksi kasvaneet…

— Kas vaan, ne ovat todellakin harvinaisen korkeita ja oivallisia.

Tuolla lavassa näen myöskin kukkasia. Onko neiti nekin istuttanut?

— Hiukan leukoijia ja reseedoja… ei sisarellani eikä minulla ole

aikaa useampia hoitaa…

— Sisarenne on varmaankin Teitä vanhempi?

— Ei, hän on neljä vuotta nuorempi.

— Kuinka vanha hän on?

— Viisitoista vuotta.
 He vaikenivat. Uudelleen hämmennyksissään painoi tyttö päänsä
työhön ja alkoi taas ommella; mies nojasi aitaa vastaan, häntä
katsellen, ollenkaan yrittämättä lähteä. Juuri tuo katseleminen pani
tytön hämilleen.

Katselijan suurissa, tummansinisissä mantelinmuotoisissa silmissä

välkähteli veitikkamainen ilme. Ilmeessä, käytöksessä, hiukan
pitkäveteisessä äänessä oli jotakin itsenäistä varmuutta ja ylimielistä,
joka häntä hämmensi. Lisäksi hän tiesi, ettei nuoren tytön sopinut
antautua keskusteluihin tuntemattomien kanssa. Mutta kuka mies
saattoi olla? Uteliaisuus kasvoi. Kuinka on selitettävä, että mies oli
puistossa? Mitähän jos tuota suoraan kysyisi? Mutta sopivaa
kysymisen muotoa ei keksinyt. Hän siis jatkoi ompeluansa, samassa
kun ajatukset rauhattomina lentelivät sinne tänne: Ehkäpä mies
poistuu? Pitäisiköhän minun poistua? Mutta tuohan olisi
epäkohteliasta, kuin istun omassa lehtimajassani. Hänen pitää
poistua. Kuka hän on? Näkö on uljas… entäs mikä tavattoman
miellyttävä ääni!

Hetkisen äänettömyyden jälkeen puhkesi tuntematon taas

puhumaan äänellä, joka oli sametinhieno ja sointuva:

— Mitä työtä neiti hommailee?

Päätänsä nostamatta hän vastasi:

— Ompelen paitoja veljelleni…

Tyttö oli huomannut hymyilyä, joka väreili tuntemattoman huulilla.

— Onko veljenne täysikasvuinen?

— Eihän toki, hän on kymmenen vuotta minua nuorempi.

 — Te siis olette vanhin sisaruksista?

— Aivan niin.

— Mutta minä taannoin panin merkille, että puheestanne jotakin

puuttui.
Ette maininnut mitään äidistänne.

Äitini kuoli neljä vuotta sitten.

— Ja Te toimitte äidin sijaisena perheessä?

Yhä vaan ommellen, pää alaspäin tyttö hiljaa vastasi:

— Niin, ainakin yritän.

Veitikkamainen hymyily katosi nyt tuntemattoman huulilta ja

katseesta.
Hetkisen perästä hän taas virkkoi:

— Näen kirjan korissanne… huvittaako Teitä lukeminen?

— Kyllä, varsin paljon.

Mies kurotti kätensä aidan yli, ja neitonen ojensi hänelle kirjan,

vaikka ensin hiukan epäröityään. Mitä mies oikeastaan tahtoi? Eikö
hän aikonutkaan koskaan lähteä? Ei, hän vaan jatkoi puheluansa,
ollenkaan sanomatta, kuka oli. Tuo oli epäkohteliasta — vaikka hän
toiselta puolen tuntui hyvin säädylliseltä ja miellyttävältä.

Kirjassa oli yksinkertaiset, repaleiset kannet ja sisältäkin se oli

hyvin viheliäisessä kunnossa. Sitä olikin ahkerasti luettu.
Tuntematon selaili sen lehtiä, ja huomio kiintyi muutamiin
runosäkeihin, jotka olivat lyijykynällä erityisesti merkityt.
 — Tekö olette merkit pannut?

— Minä, — Vastasi tyttö hiljaa.

— Vai niin, Te siis noista säkeistä paljon pidätte?

Mies alkoi niitä puoliääneen lukea:

— — — Vie mun kaihova henken’ kummuille, joita ain’

metsät varjoo ja rannoille Niemenin, missä tarjoo kultiaan
vainio aaltovan Viljan…

Vaikka hän luki puoliääneen, luki hän kumminkin kauniisti. Kuulijan

mielessä tuntui kummalliselta. Tämä ei ollut koskaan ennen kuullut
runoja ääneen luettavan, ja tuo ääni oli sametinhieno, hivelevä,
mutta samalla kaihonsekainen.

Mies hetkeksi vaikeni, ja pään läpi lensi ajatus: olen kauvas

poistunut
La Rochefoucauld’sta… aivan päinvastaiseen suuntaan… Ja hän
jatkoi:

Miss’ rapsi keltainen, vehnä valkoinen hohtaa, miss’ virna

kuin neitosen poski hohtaa, ja peltojen piennar on vihreä
nauha…

Tietämättä miksi, kohosivat kyyneleet neitosen silmiin. Niin kävi

aina silloinkin, kun hän soittoa kuuli, mitä muutoin sangen harvoin
sattui. Häntä kovin hävetti, mutta sen lisäksi hän myöskin tunsi
jonkun verran mielipahaa.

Kuka olisi uskonut! Ei se riittänyt, että mies häntä puhutteli, vieläpä

hän luki ääneen runoja, eikä edes nimeään maininnut.
 Sitte neitonen rohkaisi mielensä, ja pannen kädet ristiin polvellaan
olevan työnsä päälle, kysyi hän vakavasti:

— Asutteko täältä kaukana?

Neitonen itsekin tunsi, että esitti kysymyksen kovemmalla äänellä

kuin olisi pitänyt, ja että vähän liiaksi rypisti kulmakarvojaan. Mutta
ainahan niin käy, kun tahtoo olla oikein rohkea.

Mies kohotti katseensa kirjasta ja vastasi hieman huolettomasti:

— En, hyvin lähellä…

Sitte hän taas luki pari säettä:

Keskellä kenttäin, varjossa koivuin,

korkeella kummulla, partaalla virran seisoi…

Mutta näytti siltä kuin lukija samalla olisi jotakin miettinyt, sillä
yht'äkkiä hän sulki kirjan ja kumartaen lausui:

— En ole vielä esittänyt itseäni Teille. En edellyttänyt, että

keskustelumme tulisi näin pitkäksi. Mutta nyt huomaankin, että se
tulee jatkumaan…

Hän loi silmänsä alas ja hetken arveltuaan sanoi:

— Nimeni on Julius Przyjemski, asun tuossa talossa…

Hän osoitti ruhtinaan linnaa. Nuoren tytön katse kirkastui; hän

tunsi, että sopivaisuuden vaatimukset nyt olivat täytetyt. Mutta
samalla hän tunsi myöskin kummastusta.

— Minä luulin, ettei kukaan asuisi linnassa.

 — Tähän saakka ei siellä olekaan muita asunut kuin joku palvelija,
mutta eilen omistaja saapui viettämään siellä lyhemmän ajan…

— Ruhtinasko?! — huudahti tyttö.

— Niin, ruhtinas, joka saapui tänne asioissa.

Tyttö istui hiljaa, mutta kysyi sitte epäröiden:

— Te olette Varmaankin ruhtinas Oskarin vieraana?

— En, en. Minä olen ruhtinaan palveluksessa, seuraan häntä aina.

Ja lyhyen äänettömyyden jälkeen hän lisäsi:

— Minä olen ruhtinaan palvelija ja samalla hänen lähin ystävänsä.

Varmaankin tuo on ruhtinaan sihteeri, ajatteli tyttö. Hän kyllä tiesi,

että ylhäisillä herroilla tavallisesti on sihteerinsä. Ei hän muuten
Voinut tietää, mitä kaikkia toimia ruhtinaalla saattoi olla. Mutta hän
tunsi itsensä iloiseksi siitä, että uusi tuttavansa ei ollut ruhtinaan
vieras. Hän ei itsekään tietänyt miksi, mutta tuo ilahutti häntä.

— Onko ruhtinas nuori? — kysyi hän.

Przyjemski epäröi hetkisen, mutta vastasi sitte hymyillen, joka

tuntui vähän kummalliselta:

— Jaa ja ei, ikäänsä nähden hän ei ole kovinkaan vanha, mutta on

paljon kokenut.

Tyttö nyökäytti päätään varmistaakseen toisen sanoja.

— Ah niin! Voin kuvitella, että hän on jo paljon iloa maailmassa

maistanut!
 — Vai niinkö luulette?

— Tietysti. Kun on niin rikas, tottakai voi tehdä mitä ikinä tahtoo.

Mies selaili levottomasti kirjaa kapeilla sormillaan.

— Vahinko vaan, — vastasi hän —, että monetkaan asiat eivät

häntä enää miellytä.

Tyttö mietti hetkisen.

— Se on totta, — sanoi hän. — Monet asiat näyttäytyvät

lähemmältä katsottuina aivan toisilta kuin alussa ja kauvempaa
katsottuina.

— Vai ymmärrättekö Tekin jo tuon asian? — puuttui mies

puheeseen hieman hämillään.

— Vuosiin katsoen en vielä ole kovin vanha, mutta olen jo paljon

kokenut, — mainitsi hän veitikkamaisesti myhäillen.

— Esimerkiksi? — kysyi hän leikillisesti.

— Minulle on ainakin pari kertaa sattunut, että hirveän mielelläni

olen jotakin tahtonut… jotakin uneksinut, mutta kuitenkin kaikitenkin
olen havainnut, ettei se ollut tahtomisen eikä uneksimisen arvoista.

— Esimerkiksi? — toisti mies.

— Minä esimerkiksi toivoin saavani hyvän ystävän, oikein

suoraluontoisen ystävän, joka olisi aivan yhtä minun kanssani.

— Mitä tarkoitatte: olla yhtä jonkun kanssa?

 — Tarkoitan: olla kaikki yhteistä, ei mitään itseänsä varten, auttaa
toisiansa, iloita ja surra yhdessä.

— Tuohan oli kaunis ohjelma! No, onnistuiko toteuttaa se?

Neitonen loi katseensa maahan.

— Ei! Pari kertaa olen luullut, että minulla on sellainen ystävä, ja

olin niin onnellinen, niin onnellinen, mutta sitte…

— Jos sallitte, päätän lauseen. Sitte teitte ensinnäkin sen

havainnon, että nuo ystävät olivat paljoa tyhmempiä kuin Te itse, ja
ettei Teillä siksi voinut kaikki olla yhteistä, ja toiseksi, etteivät ne
pohjaltaan Teistä oikein pitäneet… Eikö niin ollut?

Hän nyökäytti päätänsä, samassa jatkaen ompelua.

— En tiedä, olivatko ne minua tyhmempiä, mutta varmaa on,

etteivät minusta oikein pitäneet.

Mies lausui verkalleen:

— He puhuivat Teistä pahaa selän takana, eivät olleet rehellisiä

Teitä kohtaan… vähimmästäkin pikku-asiasta he Teihin suuttuivat ja
loukkasivat Teitä lakkaamatta…

Rajaton kummastuksen ilme kasvoissa katsahti tyttö häneen.

— Kuinka sen tiedätte?

Hän nauroi.

— Ruhtinas on tullut aivan samaan kokemukseen, vaikka paljoa

suuremmassa määrässä. Hän oli nuoruutensa ensi aikoina