Franco Battel:
Schwule in der Provinz - Der Schweizer Ruedi S. (1920-2006)
Gays in the Countryside. The Swiss Example of Ruedi S. (1920-2006)
English abstract
In 1993 Ruedi S., a 73-year-old man, got in touch with the Swiss Gay Archives in Zurich. He wanted his diaries, letters and poems to become the property of these archives. Ruedi had grown up in a remote and rural Swiss area, the Emmental, where he had become a cheese maker. Although he later moved to Zurich, he maintained close ties with friends from his rural homeland throughout his entire life. Ruedi experienced his first sexual encounters quite young. As a 13-year-old schoolboy, he started writing letters, poems and diaries. Although Ruedi could not (and perhaps refused to) live out his homosexuality openly, he sought out lovers self-confidently and quite often successfully. These 72 diaries offer important insights into the conditions of "gay" life outside major urban centres, which has largely been neglected by researchers, and into a particular self-understanding that still existed at least in rural Switzerland up until the 1960s, which was distinct from the clearly defined homosexual identity seen elsewhere.