Lilja Kjellberg
Lilja Kjellberg | |
|---|---|
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| Minister of Sport of Gylias | |
| In office 2 January 1958 – 5 March 1976 | |
| Prime Minister | Darnan Cyras |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 17 September 1913 Ralvakis, Alscia |
| Died | 17 March 2003 (aged 89) Estro, Herlan, Gylias |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Border Guard (1931–1939) People's Army (1939–1958) |
| Years of service | 1939–1958 |
Lilja Kjellberg (Gylic transcription: Lilia Kiélberyg; 17 September 1913 – 17 March 2003) was a Gylian swimmer, soldier, and politician. She was Gylias' sports minister in the Darnan Cyras government. She is best known for her championship of Gylian sports and central role in devising the Lagrangian framework of Gylian sports policy, which endures to the present day.
Lilja excelled at freestyle swimming, and represented Alscia in numerous international events, where she won many awards and set several records. During the Liberation War, she served in the People's Army, where she earned fame for her thrill-seeking personality and bravery in battle.
As sports minister, Lilja forged close ties with the Gylian Sports Confederation and National Recreation Organisation, and adopted policies that pushed sports to the forefront of daily life in Gylias. She was known for her staunch support of amateur sports, opposition to commercialisation of sports, and Lagrangian vision of sport as a democratic and socialist activity. Her fame as minister was complemented by her cocky public image as a former champion swimmer and war heroine.
Early life
Lilja Kjellberg was born on 17 September 1913 in Ralvakis. She came from a family of mixed Nordic descent, with predominant ancestry from Nordkrusen.
Both her parents were members of the Border Guard, eventually rising to officer rank. Lilja was thus raised from birth in a regimented environment, around various military figures. Her father strove to raise a daughter who was "tough, self-reliant, and dependable", and she remembered him often urging her to outshine her parents.
Lilja began swimming lessons when she was 8. Encouraged by her parents, she decided to pursue her dream of becoming a champion swimmer. Her classmates and teachers in primary school noted her "bull-headed determination". She made her competitive debut aged 13.
Between 1927 and 1939, she participated in numerous national and international championships. She won many awards, and set several records, including being the first Alscian to swim 100 m in less than a minute. Her speciality was freestyle swimming. One colleague described her swimming technique as unrefined, and she mainly relied on endurance and "brute force" while swimming.
After finishing secondary school, she enrolled in the Border Guard, and studied at its military academy. By the 1930s, she was one of Alscia's most popular athletes.
Liberation War
Following Alscia's accession to the Free Territories, Lilja officially became a member of the People's Army. She served in the Liberation War.
Among her units, Lilja gained fame for her thrill-seeking personality and bravery in battle. She also volunteered regularly for entertainment duties to keep up morale among her colleagues, performing in risqué cabaret and striptease shows that took advantage of her good looks and athletic build.
She generally asked to be placed in units that were close to the sea or rivers so she could continue swimming.
During the war, she encountered several famous PA figures, including Seisa Neve and Peggy Carter. Seisa became a mentor to Lilja, and jokingly called herself "a bad influence", since when they were together she would encourage Lilja's ostentatiousness.
Lilja's service and athletic record came to the attention of Darnan Cyras. Towards the end of the war, he asked her to join the post-war Executive Committee to handle the sports portfolio, which she accepted.
Minister of Sport
Lilja took office with the rest of the Executive Committee on 2 January 1958. Her post was retroactively renamed "Minister of Sport" when the Constitution was adopted in 1961.
Lilja espoused a Lagrangian vision of sports as a democratic, universal, and egalitarian activity, opposed to the elitist, privileged, and authoritarian models that existed. She defined free time and leisure as a human right, and focused in particular on promoting sport among the young because she saw them as the future of society.
She found a close ally in public works minister Eðe Saima, whose massive public works projects during the Golden Revolution built up Gylias' stock of sports facilities immensely. Lilja was known for her insistence that "no locality in Gylias can exist without a swimming pool", and she secured the construction of public swimming pools, football stadiums, playgrounds, and similar facilities everywhere from the largest city to the smallest village. These facilities' lavish decoration and Art Deco architecture helped advance the ideal of "private sufficiency, public luxury".
One of her key achievements was establishing the National Recreation Organisation, which brought an unprecedented level of organisation to Gylian recreation. The NRO built on the existing achievements of the Free Territories, where trade unions, voluntary associations, community groups, and political parties had all built networks of cultural activities and leisure facilities.
Lilja forged a close cooperation between the NRO and Gylian Sports Confederation, with whom she also enjoyed cozy relations. She was a hands-on administrator, who issued regular policy directives in great detail, prompting colleague Rin Tōsaka to quip that "Lilja spent her career on the edge of règne ministèriale." She had such an influence over the GSC and NRO that their first directors were generally considered her mouthpieces.
In collaboration with the GSC, she achieved the complete gender integration of sports. She told Parliament, "I don't want to hear any more 'women's champion' this or 'men's champion' that. From now on there will only be people's champions!".
She played a central role in creating the popular "leisure pass" (carte d'loisir), which guaranteed reduced fares for GNRTS services, and was connected to a network of youth hostels, promoting internal tourism.
Lilja was a vocal opponent of cheating, doping, and commercialisation of sports. She imposed a complete ban on advertising and sponsorship in sports venues or equipment, and brought in a draconian code of conduct that included lifetime bans for unsporting behaviour and doping. She devoted much attention to creating a non-capitalist model of funding sports, resulting in a norm of fan-financed clubs.
Judging competition in sports to be inherently capitalist, she achieved the abolition of leagues, tournaments, awards, and trophies.
Public image
Lilja's ministerial career benefited from her cocky public image, befitting a former champion swimmer and war heroine. She was easily recognisable for her long blonde hair, which she tied into pigtail buns, and her military uniform-like usual outfit, which consisted of a khaki shirt and black trousers.
Lilja was known for her self-assured personality, and brought an outsize gravitas and urgency to the Ministry of Sport that was entirely disproportionate to its actual role. She was aware of the contradiction and acknowledged it with good humour, playing up the image of herself as obsessed with her portfolio to the exclusion of all else. "I've been told I treat sport like it's a matter of life and death," she quipped, "to which I respond–No, it's far more important than that!".
Restless and energetic, she took every opportunity to promote sports in public, becoming one of the Darnan Cyras government's most visible ministers. She traveled constantly throughout Gylias to give speeches, gave numerous media interviews, and attended all manner of sports matches and events in person. She made it a tradition to appear at the finish of the Tour d'Gylias to award classification jerseys to the participants, contributing to its status as one of Gylias' most prestigious sporting events.
In public, Lilja played the role of the proud and tenacious show-off with gusto, and carefully avoided anything that would compromise her image. She was personally teetotal, avoiding alcohol and drugs, but never said anything about drug policy beyond cracking down on doping. She led an extremely self-disciplined lifestyle, with fixed sleeping and eating hours.
Her colleague Akane Tsunemori mused in her diary that "I think the people love Lilja precisely because she kind of scares them — so successfully she portrays herself as an almost machinelike specimen, constantly pushing herself to do better, more, faster." Within the cabinet, her closest friends were Julie Legrand, the two sharing similar public images, and Ann Harman, a fellow former PA soldier.
Lilja was immensely proud of her military service, and was a high-profile member of Veterans for a Just Peace. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party, alongside Ann, and enthusiastically promoted the image of "Fighting Social Democracy" (Social-démocratie combattante) so that the party would have a prestigious image equal to its Progressive Alliance partners.
She was first elected to the Popular Assembly in 1958, and then won election to a Herlan circonscription in 1962, 1969, 1976, 1980, and 1985.
Later career
Lilja remained in the Chamber of Deputies after her ministerial term ended. She was a vocal opponent of the Aén Ďanez government.
She was the leader of the SDP from 1976 to 1990. During this period, she played an outsize role within the party, earning comparison to the Rossetti family's domination of the National Unity Party, and pushed hard for the embrace of the "Fighting Social Democracy" image. Although the Progressive Alliance was part of the Aén Ďanez government at this time, she made the SDP strongly "oppositionist" within the PA, and dramatically broke with the government on several occasions by voting against its proposals or abstaining from parliamentary votes.
After the Ossorian war crisis, Filomena Pinheiro offered her the opportunity to return as sports minister, but Lilja declined, arguing that should pass to younger generations.
Lilja retired from Parliament in 1990, but remained active with the SDP and was an esteemed elder stateswoman, continuing to serve in the party's central committee. Notably, she discovered and mentored Toni Vallas, who would later become the SDP's first Prime Minister in 2012.
Death
Lilja died on 17 March 2003 in an Estro hospital of natural causes, six months before her 90th birthday.
Legacy
Lilja was a significant figure in the Golden Revolution, and her role in codifying Gylias' sports policy not only cemented it as the framework followed by all subsequent governments, but brought tremendous development to Gylian sports, making them a cornerstone of Gylias' flourishing civil society.
She is commemorated with a large statue in her hometown Ralvakis, and numerous stadiums and sports venues across Gylias, as well as adjacent streets or transport hubs, are named in her memory.
Private life
Lilja never married nor had children, but she led an active sex life with a string of affairs and one-night stands, notably including novelist Anaïs Nin and television executive Estelle Parker.
She was fanatical about exercise and swam daily throughout her life. She was mainly a practitioner of traditional Nordic religion.