My dad, Pedro Uberuaga Zabala, was from Munitibar, Bizkaia. Or better said, Gerrikaitz. At least, he always referred to his home as Gerrikaitz, not Munitibar. This confused me when I went to visit for the first time because the signs for the town say Munitibar. It turns out that this little town, home to less […]
A Basque doctor without borders The life of Gonzalo Aranguren Sabas as recounted by his grandson Gontzal Aranguren Laflin Gonzalo Aranguren Sabas (Bilbao 1903-Hondarribia 1974) was a man of many qualities worthy of mention and whose memory is his best legacy, not only for all his descendants but also for all those who associated with […]
The aftermath of Spanish Civil War and World War II forced many Basque intelligentsia to flee their native land and settle elsewhere. Indeed, the Basque government itself was in exile. Many of those Basques eventually found their way to the Americas where they became important figures, both representing the cause of the Basque government or […]
A couple of weeks ago, on the 84th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika, I posted about Picasso’s Guernica, and how it was inspired by those horrific events. Eneko Sagarbide and Jabier Aldekozea pointed out that Gernika was not the only, nor even the first, Basque city bombed during the Spanish Civil War. In fact, […]
Tomorrow marks 84 years since the bombing of Gernika, that day during the Spanish Civil War when Hitler’s Air Force, at the behest of Franco, bombed the civilian population of the Basque village on a Monday, market day. It was one of the first aerial bombings of a civilian population, though other Basque towns, notably […]
On April 26, 1937, the Basque city of Gernika was bombed. This, and other disastrous events during the Spanish Civil War, led to thousands of Basque children being evacuated from the Basque Country. In their play, Picasso Presents Gernika, Drs. Begoña Echeverria and Annika Speer, both professors at the University of California, Riverside, explore the […]
Song and dance are an integral part of Basque culture. It seems that, whenever you get more than a few Basques together, they spontaneously break out in song and dance. At large dinners, whole rooms can bust out into song. At fiestas, small groups dance in the street. And where there is song and dance, […]
In the movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, there is a scene in which the city of Gondor is being attacked and, to summon help, the so-called warning beacons of Gondor are lit. These are a series of outposts scattered across mountain peaks that are set […]
Whether we like it or not, money makes the world go around. And it is one of the factors that gives a nation its identity. Can anyone imagine the United States without the greenback? And, that’s just one of the reasons why, for example, the United Kingdom didn’t forego the pound when it originally joined […]
In almost any Basque-themed celebration of Christmas, instead of Santa Claus, a very distinct figure appears, wearing not a bright red suit trimmed in white but rather a more mundane outfit, often a blue or black shirt with blue pants topped off with a black beret. In modern times, he is portrayed as a joyful […]
