Thursday, May 4, 2023

Kim Hays--Switzerland's Secret Aristocrats

DEBORAH CROMBIE: First up today, a REDS ALERT! The winners of Ellen Crosby's BLOW UP are Karen in Ohio and Bibliophile. Email Ellen at ellen.crosby@gmail.com with your details!

And, now, on to today's guest, Kim N. Hays, the author of one of last year's break-out debuts, PESTICIDE, set in Bern and featuring Swiss detectives Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli. The second installment in Kim's police procedural series, SONS AND BROTHERS is out now! I raved about the first book and am now in the midst of SONS AND BROTHERS and loving this one, too. The characters are complex and empathetic, and the Swiss cultural details like the one Kim is sharing today are fascinating. Welcome, Kim!



Switzerland’s Secret Aristocrats

It’s confession time: I have a weakness for aristocrats.

My politics lean left, and I grew up with Democrat-voting parents descended from struggling immigrants. I believe in equality and despise snobbery. But strange things happen to you when you read countless fairytales about princesses and have an anglophile librarian mother who tells you tales of English kings and queens and introduces you to Lord Peter Wimsey books. My teenage passion (never outgrown) for Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances only made matters worse.  

Now I live in Switzerland, home of the original castle of the Hapsburgs, a dynasty founded a thousand years ago that ruled great chunks of Europe for centuries. I’m finally surrounded by dukes, countesses, and barons, right?

Well, no. Back in the days of that eleventh-century Hapsburg castle, there were titled nobles galore, including Berthold, fifth Duke of Zähringen, who set off from his castle near the German city of Freiburg to conquer a good part of what was then Burgundy, including my home city of Bern in 1191. But you can’t have nobles without a king or queen to bestow titles on their favorites, and after the confederated cantons that became Switzerland liberated themselves from their Hapsburg overlords, they didn’t want a monarchy. So today there are no titled families pulling the strings in various Swiss cities and cantons.

Notice that word “titled.” In fact, the Swiss cities are home to an untitled elite who wield the influence of an aristocracy. These men and women, whose families were dominant for centuries in their regions of origin, carry names that are instantly recognizable today to anyone who lives where their ancestors once held authority. Members of the Escher family in Zürich, for example, or the Burkhardts in Basel, the Sulzers in Winterthur, Patrys in Geneva, or von Graffenrieds in Bern: many of these men and women are active in the government, economy, social welfare, and cultural life of their cities and cantons. And quite a few of them are very rich. Some even own castles. But none of them uses a title.

Perhaps because Bern was once the largest city-state north of the Alps, its collection of untitled aristocrats is the best known in Switzerland. The organization they’ve founded together is Bern’s Burgergemeinde, or community of burghers, which owns enormous quantities of land and hundreds of buildings in and around the city and spends a great deal of money keeping the city’s museums and symphony going. Newcomers to the city have been buying themselves into this elite circle for decades. Still, the original and most important burghers of Bern have ancestors who were running the city in the Middle Ages, during the years when the trade guilds were the most important institutions in all the Swiss cities.

Today’s Bernese aristocrats still belong to guilds, since most of their forefathers began as the city’s bakers, tanners, carpenters, and stoneworkers. These early tradesmen and merchants rose to become first guild masters and then members of the city council. Eventually, a core of them declared themselves patricians and became a ruling elite, until Napoleon conquered Switzerland and overthrew them. But their family names—and their influence—didn’t disappear.

Some of the sons of these great families made their living as mercenary captains.  Switzerland may be neutral today, but for over eight hundred years its young men sought their fortune as killers-for-hire. Starting in the sixteenth century, professional soldiers from wealthy Bernese families would recruit whole companies of poor peasants and laborers seeking wealth and adventure (or maybe just a job) and lead them off to fight for foreign rulers in European wars. The Pope’s Swiss Guard is a relic of the time when one in ten Swiss men was fighting for a foreign power. As a result of these services to European royalty, a few of the mercenary officers from patrician families were given aristocratic titles that could be passed on to their children. But these are never used in Switzerland.

I once got up my courage to ask my delightful OB/GYN, whose father was then the president of Bern’s community of burghers, if he had a title. He told me that when he went to a medical congress in, say, France, he could sign the hotel register as Baron. “But I’d never do that, of course,” he assured me earnestly.

How could I write mysteries set in Bern and not include these Bernese aristocrats in my stories? For Pesticide, the first book in the Polizei Bern series, I created Frau von Oberburg, a very old but lively member of the community of burghers who lives in an apartment on Junkergasse, a real street in Bern that by its very name (a Junker is a Prussian aristocrat) is a good place to house a member of the gentry.

Now, in my second Polizei Bern book, Sons and Brothers, I’ve actually killed a Bern burgher. My newest aristocrat is named Johann Karl Gurtner and is from the Emmental region of Canton Bern, where he grew up in a small castle that is the property of his mother’s family, the von Eichwils. He is a well-respected surgeon and works hard in his family’s traditional trade guild as a charitable volunteer. 

But if you want to know who killed him, you’ll have to read the book!

Am I the only one with a secret passion for lords and ladies? Does anyone else share this un-American fascination with aristocrats?

DEBS: I think question is so appropriate, with the coronation of King Charles III coming up this weekend!  I grew up loving Georgette Heyer, too, and of course my first detective love was Lord Peter Wimsey, so I guess I was indoctrinated early. What about you, REDs and readers?

Sons and Brothers, the second police procedural in Kim Hays’s Polizei Bern series, was published on April 18 by Seventh Street Books. In it, a cardiac surgeon in his seventies is attacked and drowned in Bern’s Aare River. The district attorney suspects the victim’s estranged son Markus, but Bern police detectives Linder and Donatelli have other ideas about the crime. In her endorsement of the book, Julia Spencer-Fleming says, “Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli are compassionate, conflicted, and utterly compelling. Sons and Brothers is a must-read.”



Kim Hays is a dual Swiss/US citizen who lives in Bern with her Swiss husband. The first book in her Polizei Bern series, Pesticide, was shortlisted for a Debut Dagger Award by the Crime Writers Association. Deborah Crombie called it “a stand-out debut for 2022.” For more information about Kim and Switzerland, see www.kimhaysbern.com.

 

59 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Kim, on your new book . . . SONS AND BROTHERS sounds just as intriguing a PESTICIDE and I’m looking forward to finding out who did in the good doctor.

    As for the secret passion for lords and ladies, I think we’ve all probably experienced just a bit of a weakness for the aristocracy and likely will always enjoy a good story featuring those aristocrats . . . .

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    1. Thanks, Joan! I hope you'll enjoy S+B! Glad to know I'm not the only one with a weakness for titles.

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  2. I think we all like to fantasize about being nobility and never having to work. The reality is we probably would really be the servants. But never let reality get in the way of a good fantasy, right?

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    1. You're so right, Mark. The "good old days," even if you were a noble(wo)man, were very harsh.

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  3. Congratulations, Kim, and great to see you on the front of the blog! Debs didn't mention that you are OUR Kim of the back blog. ;^) Thanks for that history of the Swiss elite. I had no idea.

    My mother and Queen Elizabeth were nearly the same age and looked a bit alike, so I always had a soft spot for her. After my first Malice Domestic, I went home with Sherry Harris, and she and I watched the Kate and William royal wedding, which Sherry's husband had TiVOed for us. Charles' coronation doesn't move me one bit and I won't be watching.

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    1. Hi Edith! Glad you enjoyed my tips about the Swiss rich and not-so-famous (except here at home in Switzerland.) I actually don't think Charles is/will be such a bad king, especially with his support of "green" issues, but the charisma isn't there for me. I, too, had a soft spot for the Queen.

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    2. I don't think Charles will be a bad king, either. He has a lot of good ideas and wants to modernize and scale down the monarchy. But I don't think any king or queen will be as beloved as Elizabeth.

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  4. Reading fairytales as a child, I was dreamy about princesses and princes, especially since the tales had happy endings with people of humble origins ending up in a palace. :-) In my teens I got into biographies and read stories about Elizabeth Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, the Medicis, and some of the luster dimmed. As an adult, from what I glean from both historical and contemporary royalty, these seem like highly dysfunctional families living like celebrities. So, no, I would have to say I'm not all that fascinated.

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  5. I've always been fascinated by the British royalty. Love the pomp and circumstance. I am planning on getting up early Saturday to watch the Coronation of King Charles III, My son shares a birthday with him, November 14th. My son was born on his 30th birthday. I have a Lady Diana coffee book that I enjoy looking through every now and then. Her funeral was on my birthday and I went to work that morning crying my eyes out.

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    1. Anyone whose handle is "Queen of the Nile" must like pomp and circumstance! I very much enjoyed watching parts of Harry and Meghan's wedding for that same reason. I never imagined then how badly that story would go.

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    2. We couldn't have made up the H&M story!

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  6. Kim, congratulations! I am rushing this morning but want you to know that both of your books are on my TBR list and I am determined to read them before summer ends. Congrats again!

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    1. Thanks very much, Judy! I hope you enjoy them, whenever you get to them. I know how hard it is to find time to read. Book #3 will be out in 2024.

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  7. From Celia: So fascinating Kim, and it’s delightful to meet you on the front as Edith puts it. Well here I am, the English woman born and bred. I was nine in 1953 and listened to the coronation broadcast sitting on the dorm floor of my school in Ceylon so yes I love hereditary titles. Not so sure I approve of their being handed out as prizes to retired pols but I love our ennobled actor Dames, Judi Dench et al. I still have my Georgette Heyer Pan paperbacks and my Dorothy Sayers library. Busman’s Honeymoon being my fav. So Kim, your telling of the aristos of Switzerland is right up my reading alley. Thank you so much. I would love to know how you landed in Switzerland. Now I’m off to buy a book.

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    1. Hello, Celia. My Heyers are also all old Pan books that I picked up secondhand. And, much as I love Gaudy Night, my favorite Dorothy Sayers is Murder Must Advertise. As for accomplished people being ennobled, I particularly love the fact that P. D. James was in the House of Lords. (P. S. I moved to Bern 35 years ago when I married my Swiss husband, whom I met on a park bench in the South of France.)

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    2. Kim, one of these days we want to hear THAT story!

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    3. From Celia: Kim what a great story. Yes Murder must Advertise is a great story too and PD James. She had so much to contend with. My mum was “finished” in Switzerland, she spoke fluent French and told stories of their ski instructors. This was in the ‘30’s but it’s one European country I’ve never visited.

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  8. Congratulations Kim on your new book. I enjoyed the first one and I’m now looking forward to read Sons and Brothers.
    Reading your post, I saw burglars instead of burghers at first. When I understood my mistake, I laughed because in novels the two often go hand in hand, stealing the smallest for more wealth.

    In my life I’ve read tons of historical novels in which figured aristocracy or burghers. I enjoyed them but I can’t say that they particularly interest me in real life.
    Danielle

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    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed Pesticide, Danielle, and I hope you'll find S+B equally entertaining. I certainly see your point about the dishonest rich--think of our own American robber barons!

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  9. Lovely to see you 'on the front' today, Kim! Congrats on your second book, and thanks for the elucidation about titles. I'm with Celia in loving the "ennobled actor Dames". While I have some fondness for the British royal family and I do plan to get up early to watch the pomp and circumstance of the coronation, I also believe it's time to reconsider the whole kit and kaboodle.

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    1. Thanks, Amanda! It's fun to be here "in front!" Many thanks to both Debs and Julia for making that possible. I think the whole royal family in the UK would be more acceptable to modern sensibilities if they could just tone the whole thing down. The Norwegian and Dutch royal families seem to have a lot of public support, but I think they spend a lot less public money. One of those comparisons to look up on Google one of these days.

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  10. Congratulations Kim! I look forward to reading your books. I too had an anglophile librarian mother who introduced me to Lord Peter Wimsey (I think she was even more a fan of Harriet Vane!) and read Georgette Heyer's novels as a teen. I like reading about aristocrats, although I don't think too hard about the inequality or suffering of others that created the great wealth.

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    1. Thanks, Gillian. Sounds like our mothers would have liked each other! Yes, Georgette Heyer's dukes and earls are always very nice to their servants, tenants, and underlings, so we don't have to worry about exploitation. I'm okay with escapist books not causing me too much worry! After all, that's what they're for.

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  11. Thanks, Gillian. Sounds like our mothers would have liked each other! I think one of the reasons our Bernese aristos spend so much of their money supporting classical music, museums, parks, and forests is to make their great wealth (at least as a group) more palatable to the general public. Not very different from large American corporations supporting the arts, is it?

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  12. Congratulations, Kim, and thank you for the fascinating history lesson! And for the reminder that I need to read Pesticide, which I'm pretty sure is in one of my e-libraries.

    I just realized, reading this, that my daughter's much beloved Bernese Mountain dogs are named for your region. Does it mean anything when I tell you one's name is Barli?

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    1. Hi Karen, and glad you enjoyed the piece. Yes, Bärli (or Baerli, spelled without the umlaut) is the Bernese way of saying Little Bear and the bear is our canton's emblem. As some of you may know, we even have a bear park in the medieval Old City where three bears live year-round. Bern's mascots were traditionally kept in a large pit, but the whole area was redone about twenty years ago to give them a much more pleasant "forest" environment with a swimming pool. Mind you, I'm not saying they wouldn't rather be out in the wild, although at this point, after living in their park for so many years, I'm not sure how they'd manage.

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    2. Fascinating, Kim. Somehow I never made the connection between Bern and Bernese Mountain Dogs. Duh.

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  13. I can’t say that I’m intrigued by aristocrats… but I love Switzerland and Berne was one of the first places we visited there. So a book set there? I’m in!

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    1. Hi Hallie! Don't know how I came to miss your comment yesterday--I can only blame jetlag. I'm so glad you love Berne (I'll spell it in English as you do; it's a bit of an affectation of mine to spell it the German way). I promise all the aristocrats in the books either have minor roles or are DEAD!

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  14. Congratulations, Kim! Good to see you on the "front". Looking forward to reading Sons and Brothers, but first, Pesticide - I someone missed that when it was released!

    Never thought about the Swiss aristos, yet you know there had to be some. The Hapsburgs certainly ruled the world right into the 20th century. I am a definite anglophile and will be up at 6 and glued to Brit Box.

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    1. Ha! I hadn't yet seen your comment, Kait, when I advised Hallie to start with PESTICIDE, as you say you plan to do. Although I should add that the books definitely stand alone. But since there's a somewhat complicated ongoing romance between the two detectives, you'll appreciate that aspect of the story better if you start with the first book instead of the second. Thanks for the support, and salutations to a fellow anglophile.

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  15. Welcome to JRW, Kim Hays and congratulations on your new novel!

    Visited Switzerland years ago. So beautiful there. We visited Lauterenbraunn (sp?) valley and stayed in a small village near Gimmelwald.

    Interesting trivia about Switzerland. I learned that they started the census in Switzerland as far back as 1300 ? , which means that even if you are not royalty nor aristocracy, you can trace your Swiss ancestors back that far!

    Secret interest in aristocracy? Highly doubtful that my interest in royalty and aristocracy is a secret. LOL. I visited Castles when I visited England, Scotland and Wales.

    Diana

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    1. Thanks, Diana. I also love visiting castles, although I'm more interested in exteriors (even ruins) than interiors. Wales has some beauties, doesn't it? You're absolutely right that Switzerland is a great place hen it comes to genealogical research. Each Swiss family name has its own "birthplace" or hometown, and the Church (first Catholic, before the Reformation, and then both sets of clergy) kept meticulous track of births, marriages, and deaths for each village. Even if your last name is "Müller" (very, very common), you can usually find out where your family's Müller comes from, often back to the 1300s, as you say.

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  16. Debs, thanks for letting me know that I won Ellen's book. I just sent her an email. Diana

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  17. Congratulations on Book 2, Kim. I read Pesticide and was just beginning to get antsy about when the next book was out. I just ordered it on Amazon - So happy.

    I profess a complicated interest in royalty. Why should so few have so much? But isn't the lifestyle fabulous to gawk at now and then. Castles are fun to tour, as are royal gardens.

    I really appreciated your history lesson on the aristocracy/burghers in Switzerland.

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    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed Pesticide! Hope the same will be true for Book #2. The third book goes into production soon, and I'm almost finished revising the fourth one, so I can promise you won't have to be antsy for too long after you finish Sons and Brothers.

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  18. I've flipped your experience, Debs - I read, and very much enjoyed, SONS AND BROTHERS, and am now in the middle of PESTICIDE, the first book in the Linder and Donatelli series.

    As I told Kim, one of most interesting aspects of the series, for me, is the setting - most Americans think, "Alps, cuckoo clocks, Swiss banks," and that's it for our knowledge of Switzerland. Maybe you read HEIDI, which is like only ever having read HUCKLEBERRY FINN as a story set in the US. They're classics, but they're kind of dated, and definitely not the whole picture!

    I think Kim could and should be the Donna Leon of Switzerland... except Donna is also an American/Swiss citizen! So I'll say readers who enjoyed the deep dive into daily Italian life, culture, and modern problems in the Guido Brunetti books will find the same things in the Linder and Donatelli mysteries.

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    1. I am a huge Donna Leon fan, Julia, so you couldn't have paid me a better compliment. Thank you! As you so clearly understand--and appreciate!--I want these books to show a true picture of life in Switzerland as I've experienced it for the past 35 years. I love Bern with all its quirks and fascinating characters, and you reassure me that my deep affection for the city and canton shows through in my writing, even when I write about the darker sides of my home.

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  19. Congratulations, Kim! I love exploring new places through books--it will be interesting to visit Switzerland and to get to know it through your characters. I'm always on the lookout for new series set in different places, with intriguing characters.

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    1. Flora, I hope you'll enjoy both of the Polizei Bern books (with more to come). I think you'll like my detectives, Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli.

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  20. I admit to a fascination with modern royalty. Why do they even exist in this day and age? In the case of Great Britain their purpose seems to be purely public relations. But jeez. What a bill!
    Kim, your series sounds like something I will really enjoy reading!

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  21. Thanks, Pat--I hope you'll give the series a try. And I agree with you: is the entertainment value royalty provides worth the price? Here in Bern, our non-titled aristocrats keep a very low profile. But as a group, they have a lot of power in the city and canton because of their wealth and cultural capital.

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  22. Hello, Kim! It was so good to see you at Malice, even for a brief conversation.

    I have a strange interest in the workings of the British royal family - but not enough that I would call myself an Anglophile. At the doctor's office this morning they were going through the intricacies of the coronation this weekend on the news. It was fascinating.

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    1. I'm also very sorry I missed you, Edith. I think we don't have to reproach ourselves too much, though--I think I was told there were 600 people there.

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  23. Susan Nelson-HolmdahlMay 4, 2023 at 1:03 PM

    I have read and enjoyed both Pesticide and Sons and Brothers. Police procedurals are an interesting method of learning about the real cultural experience of a region or country. I have enjoyed learning more about Switzerland society from your books. I have visited Switzerland twice, but for only brief visits. It’s is a beautiful place very different from my native California. My daughter recently participated in an international soccer tournament in Berne. All the players were Roche employees. My daughter is a design engineer of medical devices for Roche, mostly those involving lasers and blood. Very different from her Mother the Attorney and Software Engineer.

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    1. I'm very impressed to hear about your daughter, Susan. Designing precise medical equipment doesn't sound that different to me from using the careful thinking, planning, reviewing, and problem-solving that goes into being either an attorney or a software engineer. So I'd say your daughter's almost a chip off the old block. Of course, you may not be so athletic! Plus, I'm so glad you enjoy both of my books. Sons and Brothers only came out 17 days ago, so it's fun that you've already read it!

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    2. I’m athletic too. I participated as a member of several boy’s sport teams after Title IX was passed because the girl’s teams were not yet equivalent. I’m a runner and I run marathons and half marathons in recent years. Jenn’s twin brother Bryan designs batteries for Lab 126, aka Amazon labs.
      Do you have a publication date for your next book? I was originally introduced to your first book here on Jungle Red. I particularly enjoy reading unique police procedurals like yours, so I knew when Son’s and Brother’s was available and made plans to read it soon after. I read a lot of books running on the treadmill.
      I hope your jet lag doesn’t last too long!

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    3. It's the next morning now, and thanks for your sympathy for my jetlag. At least flying back from the East Coast isn't as bad as from the West Coast. Ha! So you're an athlete, too. I don't have a publication date for the third book yet, but I imagine it will be early April 2024. I'll let you know once I find out, if I can.

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  24. Kim, congratulations on your new book, Sons and Brothers. The buzz is still going strong for Pesticide, and it looks like I need to get on board and read it. I love police procedurals, and I'd love to learn more about the culture and history of Switzerland.

    I do have an interest in royalty, not an obsession by any means, but I enjoy the history of it, mostly England's royal history. Oh, I also have an intense interest in the Romanovs of Russia, the lives of the Romanov children and the deaths of all of them by firing squad, a botched operation that resulted in more deaths by bayonet than bullets. I enjoy British historical fiction that involves kings and queens. Ariana Franklin (pen name for Diana Norman who passed away much too soon in 2011) had her Mistress of the Art of Death/Adelia Arguilar series was connected to Henry II, and I learned so much about Henry II from those books. Interestingly, she had a stand-alone book, City of Shadows that takes place in 1922 in Berlin and revolves around a woman who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicolas II. Of course, my interest in the Romanovs is connected to my interest in the English royalty, as Tsar Nicolas II was the nephew of Englands King Edward VII, and Tsarina Alexandra, Nicolas' wife, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria's daughters really did their part in mixing through marriage the different houses of European royalty with English royalty. Unfortunately, they were also carriers of the hemophilia gene.

    So, when I watched the wedding of Charles and Diana, the weddings of William and Harry, the funeral of Diana, Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, and Queen Elizabeth's funeral, it's the history of it that appeals to me. I will be watching the coronation of King Charles III because of history, too, and it will be the first and maybe only coronation I see.

    I mostly read fiction, mystery and crime fiction, these days, but I will try to sneak in an occasional non-fiction. So, I probably read more fiction about royalty than I do non-fiction. Rhys Lady Georgie books are amazing for the history of English royalty. Lady Georgie is 35th in line to the throne, and the time setting of the 1930s has Queen Mary often asking Georgie to do a little task for her. This often includes spying on Mary's son, David, the Prince of Wales. Rhys is a master at blending in the history with the story line. In the series, we're now at the time when King George V has died and David is the new King Edward VIII and Georgie goes to Paris with her husband Darcy, where the stirrings of Nazism are appearing.

    So, I welcome with open arms your new series, Kim, set in Switzerland that deals with the undercurrent of influence and power in a royal/not royal Switzerland.

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    1. Thank you very much for that open-armed welcome, Kathy! I'm so pleased you brought up Ariana Franklin's books, which I also read, both her sadly-all-too-short Adelia Arguilar series and the stand-alone you mentioned. She makes Henry II fascinating. And you're right--part of why we all find nobility and royalty fascinating is because of their place in world history.

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  25. I'm so with you on Lord Peter Wimsey, Debs!
    And Kim, yay! What a treat to meet you at Malice.
    Royalty, hmm. Well, I guess when I was a little girl I had some princess thoughts, and Grace Kelly was a thing. And in college I had a massive crush on Henry V. And the history is fascinating. But that's...about it. Except for the clothes. I do love to see what they are wearing, and miss the fashion mentor that was Princess Diana. Otherwise, ah, I think I care more about "royals" in fiction than in real life. SO eager to read your new book!

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    1. Hank, I was madly in love with Kenneth Branagh's Henry. I think I saw the film in the theater about five times!

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  26. It was great to meet you, too, Hank, and hear you speak so brilliantly at the Malice Domestic conference. I guess you're right about real-life royals and aristocrats--some of them can be pretty boring. I'm not interested in upper-class twits, either, even royal ones, the ones who run around Europe doing shocking things and getting into silly magazines. But as movers and shakers behind the scenes, benevolent or ominous, they can be pretty powerful, even today.

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  27. Dear Friends, it's 10:30 p.m. here, and I just got home from the US today at noon, so I'm quite jet-lagged. I apologize in advance to anyone else who writes comments tonight: I won't be able to respond to you until tomorrow morning when Debs will be introducing a whole new subject for Friday. But never fear, I will reply to Thursday's comments. Good night and thank you all for your kindness and support.

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    1. Kim, you are a trooper!! Thanks so much for being a great guest, even with jet-lag!! Get some well-deserved rest!!

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