Buber’s Basque Story: Part 15

Their trip was only weeks away. Maite had had a long sit down talk with her parents, describing the opportunity and that, right now, she was only going for an interview, that she wasn’t making any commitment to attend school in the United States. She could tell her parents were struggling with the news, but they tried their best to hide it.

“In my aita’s generation,” her aita said, “there wasn’t a lot around here. If you didn’t want to work in the mines or couldn’t stay on the baserri, you didn’t have many options. A few went to study to be a priest. But a lot of them went away to find their fortune. I remember one uncle who spent more than thirty years in Idaho before he came back. And a lot never did. Most found a life there, got married, had kids, and died over there.” He shook his head. “I guess it is the Basque way. There is always opportunity out there — in the pampas, in the wild west, on the seas — if you have the courage to go after it.” He grabbed his daughter’s hands, gave them a gentle squeeze. “And I’m proud of you for having that courage.”

Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!

“Eskerrik asko, aita,” replied Maite in almost a whisper, the tears welling up in her eyes.

Her ama wrapped her hands — those hands that had washed so many dishes, chopped so many vegetables, fileted so many fish — around those of her husband and daughter. “You always make us so proud,” she said. “Do your best at the interview. If they accept you, we will figure out what comes next. But, this is a wonderful opportunity. This is what we always dreamed for you, for you to have the chance to follow your dreams. We couldn’t be happier for you.”

“Biak maite zaituztet!” exclaimed Maite as she pulled her parents into a hug.

Her aita broke the hug and, digging into his pocket, pulled out his wallet. He opened it and dug into one of the side pockets, pulling out an old, crumpled, and torn green note. He handed it to Maite. “My uncle gave this to me when he came back from America,” he said as Maite unfurled the dollar bill, the image of George Washington staring back at her. “He gave it to me thinking I might find it useful one day if I ever visited the United States myself. Of course, I never went. And, I don’t think this is worth much today, but maybe it will be a good luck charm for you on your visit. It always reminded me of adventure and the bigger world out there. May it do the same for you.”

Maite grabbed her parents and pulled them back in for a hug, holding them tight as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Basque Fact of the Week: Basque Surnames

Magunagoikoetxea. Gorostiaga. Arroitajauregi. Bastarretxea. Basque last names are as distinct as they are complex, at least to an English tongue. It is only relatively recently that children took the names of their parents. Rather, Basques were often, though not universally, known by the names of their houses, which were in turn based upon the location of the house. Thus, most Basque names are toponymic in nature — derived from the name of a place. For instance, Uberuaga comes from ur+bero+aga, meaning water+hot+place or hot springs.

  • Basque surnames tend to come in five varieties:
    • Surnames relating to the origin of the bearer. As opposed to the toponymic names, these are names indicating where a person was from, not where they lived or were born.
    • Patronymic, where the name is taken from an ancestor (most names in the Christian world, including the modern Basque Country, are patronymic in nature, at least in how they are used today).
    • Descriptive, or adjective, names, describing the person physically. Though not common today, in the earliest recorded documents of the Basque Country, these were relatively common. Names like Domenca Beguiurdiña “Domenca the blue-eyed”, Johan Belça “Johan the black”, Domingo Chipia “Domingo the little”, and Sancha Ederra “Sancha the beautiful” are documented in the 13th century and earlier.
    • Nouns that are either nicknames or describe the bearer in some way, such as Domingo Echayuna “Domingo the house owner”, Domingo Erlea “Domingo the bee”, and Gra (possibly short for Grace) Sauela “Gra the belly.”
    • Toponymic names, nouns and adjectives, simply juxtaposed with the first name, which refer not to personal particularities, but to the place of birth or residence of the bearer and its characteristics. This is the original origin of the type that abounds so much in current Basque surnames.
  • As late as the 16th century, surnames in the Basque Country weren’t as fixed as they are today. While people had names from their parents, a requirement of the Catholic system, they also went by the name of the house they were either born or resided in. Even to this day, people can be known by the house they live in rather than their formal surname.
  • There is a lot of variation in the historical record in how Basque names are spelled. This is due to a couple of reasons. First, depending on where you lived, you tended to use either Spanish or French alphabets to write the names. Because some Basque sounds don’t have equivalents in either or both languages, this leads to different choices in how to spell a name. Further, different sounds are represented by different letters in Spanish and French. While Basque and Spanish ‘s’ are similar in sound, Basque and Spanish ‘z’ are not. The opposite would be true between Basque and French.
  • Thus, in my own research, I’ve found a multitude of spellings for the same name. As one example, modern Idoeta can be written as Ydoeta and Ydueta. This certainly makes doing genealogy research a bit more challenging.
  • If you are interested in learning about your own Basque surname, we have a list of some surnames we’ve provided information about in the past. For names not on the list, the best option would be to ask at the Basque genealogy group at groups.io. Run by Cecilia Puchulutegui, this is an excellent forum for asking about your name. The people there are all very helpful and willing to provide what information they can.

Primary source: Mitxelena Elissalt, Koldo. Apellido. Enciclopedia Auñamendi. Available at: http://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/es/apellido/ar-1383/

Goian Bego, Dave Lachiondo

On Friday, August 7, the Basque community lost a great one, Dave Lachiondo.

Dave was a pillar, not only of the Boise Basque community, but also of Boise more broadly. He had served as both principal and president of Bishop Kelly High School, impacting an untold number of lives. His long career in education touched so many students’ lives, not only at Bishop Kelly, but at Boise High and Fairmont Junior High. His accordion was often heard at Basque events, adding that spark that makes a gathering of people something more, making it an experience, giving it marcha.

I didn’t know Dave well. We traded emails a few times, like when he told me back in 2010 about Hidden in Plain Sight exhibit that was going to be put on display at the Ellis Island National Monument Museum. I didn’t meet him until 2013, through the most unlikely of chance encounters. My family and I went to attend a performance of the Trey McIntyre Project, who had come to Santa Fe and had a piece, a Basque-inspired ballet, that had been commissioned by the Basque Museum and Cultural Center in Boise. Not even weeks before, I had met Dave’s daughter Alicia on the set of Longmire, where we were both extras on an episode featuring a mystery involving the murder of a Basque sheepherder. Alicia had been doing her residency in New Mexico and her parents were visiting when she took them to the Trey McIntyre performance. Bumping into them, I got to meet Dave, who was at the time the Director of the Basque Studies Program at Boise State University.

Since that time, we have a few random chats, primarily about Basque stuff. I was always struck by both Dave’s enthusiasm and his direct manner. He didn’t try to dance around the edges, he just said what was on his mind. And he seemed to have big ideas on his mind.

Dave leaves behind a wonderful legacy, epitomized in his two daughters who are both extremely accomplished, leaders in their fields and communities.

Goian bego, Dave.

Buber’s Basque Story: Part 14

Over the next month, Maite confirmed with the group at Berkeley the logistics for her interview. The interview was scheduled for the beginning of the trip so that Maite didn’t have that hanging over her the rest of their vacation. 

“What do you think?” Kepa asked after taking a sip of his coffee. They sat tucked in the back corner of a tavern in Bilbao, Kepa having come out to talk about their trip during one of Maite’s breaks from class. A map of California was splayed across the table and Kepa’s got a pen in hand. “We can start in Berkeley, swing out to San Francisco for a few days…”

“See Alcatraz!” interjected Maite.

Kepa nods, a big smile on his face as his pen circles San Francisco. “See Alcatraz and then drive along the ocean south towards Los Angeles. My cousin lives in Santa Barbara, so we could spend a couple of days there and check out the area.”

Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!

Maite nodded. “Then on to Los Angeles for a few days…”

“I wonder if we will see any movie stars?” asked Kepa. 

“Oh, I’m sure,” replied Maite. “I think Brad Pitt and Scarlett Johansson are always just walking down Sunset Boulevard, ready to get their picture taken with every tourist that comes along.”

“I know they don’t do that! But, maybe someone like Jon Hamm or January Jones…”

“Are you still obsessed with Mad Men?” asked Maite.

“It gets boring in that baserri. It’s better than ama’s telenovelas!”

Maite just shook her head, suppressing a smile as she looked at the map. “From there, we could swing over to Las Vegas and then to the Grand Canyon. What do you think? Or should we go there first and end in Los Angeles so we can fly home from there?”

“Good question,” replied Kepa as he pulled out his phone. After a few moments, he passed it to Maite. “There are no direct flights from either Los Angeles or Phoenix, so I’m not sure it matters much, but there are fewer stops if we fly out of Los Angeles.”

“If we do any real hiking around the Grand Canyon…” started Maite.

“It’s going to be bloody hot!” interrupts Kepa. “Not sure how much hiking we will want to do.”

“We can’t go and not hike at all!”

“Fair enough. But, then it makes sense to fly out of Los Angeles so we have a little time to rest and recover from hiking before getting on a plane.”

“Deal,” said Kepa, as they continued to examine the map and discuss other places they might see.

Basque Fact of the Week: Concept of Emptiness in Basque

The idea of something being ’empty’ is typically a negative one. When the glass is half full, we are taking an optimistic view of the situation, but a glass that is half empty is certainly negative. The Basque language has similar connotations around the word huts. Possibly stemming from Neolithic times when an empty stomach or empty food stores were about as terrible a situation one could experience, the concept of emptiness carries with it a sense of failure, of lack of substance or value.

Image from Pinterest.
  • To describe someone as having failed or an item that is worthless, Euskara has a number of phrases that incorporate the idea of huts or emptiness. For example, huts egin du (literally “has made empty”) means someone has failed while gauza hutsala da (“it is an empty thing”) or hori hutsaren hurrengoa da (“that things is next to emptiness/nothingness”) describes something of no value.
  • The idea of air filling emptiness and thus being related to emptiness is clear in Basque, just as in English (“he is full of hot air”). Air fills the emptiness, giving it volume, but no substance. It exaggerates appearances. Harroputza (“boastful”) literally means “hollow air,” in the same sense of a little bird that puffs itself out to look larger. Similarly, zaputza, meaning angry, possibly derives from zaha-putza, a bag or skin that is inflated with air but nothing else.
  • Other expressions related to blowing out air, such as eztula (“cough”) and zintza (“blowing your nose”) also contain negative connotations. Horrek ez du zintza bat balio, meaning “that isn’t worth a blow of your nose,” express contempt. (Similar in spirit to the English “not to be sneezed at.”) On the other hand, hori ez da ahuntzaren gauerdiko eztula (“that isn’t the cough of a goat at midnight”) means something is very important.
  • And, the idea of the wind, haize, being empty leads to several words to describe people. Haizeputz (“puff of wind” meaning haughty), haizeburu (“head of wind” meaning dumb or silly) and zorohaize (“crazy wind”) are all words to describe people in a bad light.
  • Being full has the opposite sense. Saying someone is not bete-betea, or is not “full,” means that he or she is not all there.

Primary source: Hartsuaga Uranga, Juan Inazio. Vacío y Lleno. Enciclopedia Auñamendi. Available at: http://aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus/es/vacio-y-lleno/ar-154035/

Buber’s Basque Story: Part 13

“What? Coming with me?” asked Maite.

“Sure!” replied Kepa. “It’s only an interview, right? We can make it a vacation. I’ve got a cousin in California, so close to Berkeley…”

“You do know how big California is, don’t you?” interrupted Maite.

“Bah!” answered Kepa. “Once we are across the ocean, it’s all close. We can rent a car, travel the coast…”

“I’ve got a distant cousin over there too,” said Maite. “We could visit both of them, I guess, my cousin and your cousin.”

Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!

“That’s the spirit!” said Kepa excitedly. “This is going to be a great adventure! When is your interview?”

“Well, I haven’t scheduled it yet” replied Maite. “If I got accepted, they want me to start in January. I wrap up my studies here in July, so probably sometime in August?”

“That’s perfect! I have my vacation then, so I can easily get away from work.”

Maite smiled. “Sounds like a plan. Now I’ve just got to tell my parents…” she said as her smile faded.

“Knowing your parents, they will be thrilled for you. And, again, this is just an interview and vacation. We won’t be gone for more than a few weeks. They’ve got a lot of friends around here, they will be fine.”

“You are probably right. Ok, then,” she said, “I’ll write Berkeley as soon as I get home and schedule the interview. Then we can buy tickets!”

“I’ll write my cousin, he’ll be excited to see us,” said Kepa. “He’s been over here a few times, but I’ve never been there to see him.”

“I remember him! He’d always hang out in ama and aita’s bar, just sitting at the end, watching handball on the tele and sipping on his beer. What was his name?”

“Javi. Yeah, he was a little shy and doesn’t speak Euskara or Spanish very well. When I wasn’t around, he didn’t have much to do. He always came with his aita — my osaba — and his aita was always hanging out with old friends, playing cards, telling stories from their childhood. Javi didn’t understand them so he hung out in the bar. After a few visits, though, he and I got to be better friends. He’ll be happy to hear I’m going out there.”

“Great! And I’ll write my cousin in New York. She’s pretty distant, my ama’s cousin’s daughter, and I’ve only met her once, but it would be cool to see New York and have someone local that can show us around.”

“Excellent! I can’t wait!”

Fighting Basques: A Passion for flying — The Etcharts of Montana in World War II

This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario. You can find all of the English versions of the Fighting Basques series here.

Wedding photograph of Catherine Urquilux and John Etchart, 1912. All photos courtesy of the Etchart family.

Like many young people of his generation, and like in many cases following in the footsteps of his parents or close relatives, Jean Etchart Chabagno, a young man from Nafarroa Beherea born in the town of Aldude in 1882, began his own life journey in the late 1900s to the United States. There he joined his older brother Mitchel, who had previously emigrated to California. His father, Ferdinand Etchart Iriquy (Aldude, 1826-1905), had arrived in California in 1848 by way of Argentina upon news of the discovery of gold that same year. Ferdinand was among the first Basques to arrive in the United States during those times who, with their achievements, encouraged chain emigration, particularly in relation to the expansion of the sheep industry in the American West, which remained active for more than 100 years and attracted thousands of Basques and Navarrese from both sides of the Pyrenees. Many of these Basques would return after years of hard work and sacrifice, while others would remain in the United States, forming a diaspora that has never forgotten its roots (1) .

“Echoes of two wars, 1936-1945” aims to disseminate the stories of those Basques and Navarrese who participated in two of the warfare events that defined the future of much of the 20th century. With this blog, the intention of the Sancho de Beurko Association is to rescue from anonymity the thousands of people who constitute the backbone of the historical memory of the Basque and Navarre communities, on both sides of the Pyrenees, and their diasporas of emigrants and descendants, with a primary emphasis on the United States, during the period from 1936 to 1945.

THE AUTHORS
Guillermo Tabernilla
is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association, a non-profit organization that studies the history of the Basques and Navarrese from both sides of the Pyrenees in the Spanish Civil War and in World War II. He is currently their secretary and community manager. He is also editor of the digital magazine Saibigain. Between 2008 and 2016 he directed the catalog of the “Iron Belt” for the Heritage Directorate of the Basque Government and is, together with Pedro J. Oiarzabal, principal investigator of the Fighting Basques Project, a memory project on the Basques and Navarrese in the Second World War in collaboration with the federation of Basque Organizations of North America.

Pedro J. Oiarzabal is a Doctor in Political Science-Basque Studies, granted by the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). For two decades, his work has focused on research and consulting on public policies (citizenship abroad and return), diasporas and new technologies, and social and historical memory (oral history, migration and exile), with special emphasis on the Basque case. He is the author of more than twenty publications. He has authored the blog “Basque Identity 2.0” by EITB and “Diaspora Bizia” by EuskalKultura.eus. On Twitter @Oiarzabal.

Josu M. Aguirregabiria is a researcher and founder of the Sancho de Beurko Association and is currently its president. A specialist in the Civil War in Álava, he is the author of several publications related to this topic, among which “La batalla de Villarreal de Álava” (2015) y “Seis días de guerra en el frente de Álava. Comienza la ofensiva de Mola” (2018) stand out.

Jean (also known as John), his brother Mitchel and his cousin Martin Chabagno moved to Elko, Nevada, and started a successful sheep operation in 1901 with a fourth partner (a local banker) which was based on transhumance and the abundant availability of free pasture land. Following a workplace accident that John suffered in 1909, the company was dissolved in equal parts. John received $20,000, which at the time was a small fortune, considering that his first salary as a sheepherder had been, eight years earlier, $20 a month. John might well have chosen to return permanently to his hometown, but he only did so for a short period of time, returning to the US in 1910. He settled in Saco, 80 miles west of Glasgow, the capital of Valley County in Montana which was founded in 1887 (2). The county — with an area of ​​13,000 square kilometers, rich pastures, and a population not exceeding 140,000 people in 1910 — was the ideal place to establish the type of livestock business that John had in mind. After buying land and a first flock of sheep, he returned to Aldude in 1912 where he married his young love Catherine Urquilux Mococain, born in 1888 in Aldude. They made Valley their first and last home and never returned to Aldude.

John continued to expand his ranch with the acquisition of new land and livestock. By 1920, Rancho Etchart was considered one of the most important in the Valley. Within it grew the five children produced by John and Catherine’s marriage: Ferne (1915-1984), Jean “Gene” (1916-2018), Mitchel “Mitch” (1921-2019), Mark (1924-1992) and Leonard (1928-2015). With Euskera as their mother tongue and the only language spoken at home, the two oldest arrived at school without knowing a word of English. After being reprimanded by the school teacher, their mother decided to teach her children English, gradually forgetting Basque. In a 2017 interview with Gene that took place in Billings, Yellowstone County, conducted by Joseba Etxarri, director of Euskalkultura, and one of the authors of the blog Pedro J. Oiarzabal, the 100-year-old Gene remembered only a few words and individual phrases in Basque that he learned in his childhood. At the time of John’s sudden death on April 17, 1943, Etchart Ranch was roughly 250,000 acres in size and had about 40,000 to 50,000 sheep and a good number of Hereford cattle. John had become one of the most influential ranchers in the American West. Catherine passed away in 1978, at the age of 90, in Billings.

Young Mitch and Mark playing with a toy airplane.

From childhood, the brothers Gene, Mitch and Mark cultivated a true passion for aviation, popularized by the circus shows and high recklessness of the acrobatic aviators of the Roaring 1920s. Despite the initial reluctance of their parents — Catherine’s younger brother Jean Baptiste Urquilux had died in a plane crash in Santa Monica, California, in 1919 — Gene paved the way for his brothers in the world of aviation, which would guide and shape their professional lives, particularly those of Gene and Mitch and their service with the US Air Force during World War II.

The Etchart family in 1941. Standing, from left to right: Leonard, Mitch, Ferne, Gene and Mark. In the center, John and Catherine.

After graduating from high school, Gene Etchart received his first flying lessons with his father’s permission, becoming a private pilot in 1938. Gene obtained his first plane, an “Aeronca“, at the age of 20, which was of great use for locating lost cattle, supplying and visiting his father’s scattered sheep camps, and controlling the coyote population. By 1940, he had become Montana’s youngest commercial pilot and instructor, engaging in coyote hunting from the air, a dangerous activity at heights between 50 and 100 feet. At that time, Gene began flying as an instructor for the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). The CPTP was designed to augment the soldier training program due to the lack of trained military pilots at the time. Before the outbreak of war, Gene owned and operated three CPTP flight schools in Montana. Gene inspired many young people to fly, including his brother Mitch, whom he taught to fly in 1940. By July 1941, Mitch had become a certified flight instructor himself, earning his business license at the age of 19. He worked as a CPTP instructor for a flight company in Belgrade, Montana until the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Mitch and Gene, in military uniform, in Oxnard, 1943.

When the United States went to war, Gene, along with his siblings Mitch and Ferne, went straight away to Oxnard, California. There Ferne Etchart worked on the Air Force base itself, while Gene enlisted in the Army Air Corps in December 1942. Gene continued to train pilots for the Army at the Mira Loma Flight Academy until 1943, when he had to return home to take over the ranch due to his father’s death. Gene was discharged with the rank of lieutenant.

Mitch Etchart in his air pilot uniform, 1944.

Mitch Etchart went on to instruct aviation cadets performing basic training on the “Stearman” biplanes and later in a second phase of their training with the more complex “Vultee” BT-13 in Lancaster, California. In July 1943, Mitch was commissioned as a second lieutenant, flight supervisor, and control pilot in the Army Air Corps in Oxnard. In June 1944 he began his training as a fighter pilot, flying the P-39 and P-40, and received training as a gunner in the AT-6 “Texan“. Shortly before the war ended, he transitioned to the P-51 fighter, but did not fly in combat operations. The US had detonated the first atomic bomb, and the end of the war was imminent. He returned to the family ranch in September 1945 and remained in the Air Force Reserve, 9418th Fighter Squadron at Glasgow Base, Montana, for 20 years until his retirement as Lieutenant Colonel (3).

In Gene’s absence, Mark Etchart took over his brother’s flight school in Miles City, Montana, until his return in 1943. Mark became a pilot in 1942 and eventually obtained a commercial pilot’s license and instructor qualification. Despite his devotion to airplanes, Mark was not recruited by the Air Force but by the Navy, at the end of the war, graduating in 1946. Like his father John, and his brothers Gene and Mitch, Mark also became involved in agricultural and livestock policy and public land and water management issues, at Valley County, state and national levels. Although Mark’s father tried unsuccessfully to win a seat in the state legislature, it would be Mark who would become a state senator for Valley County for five terms, between 1975 and 1985. Previously, he had been a member of the Montana House of Representatives, serving between 1961 to 1969. He also became president of the Montana Pilots Association. Mark passed away in 1992 and the Etchart Ranch was sold in 1993.

Mark Etchart in his naval uniform with his mother Catherine, 1945.

Gene, Mitch and Mark continued to make their dream of flying come true for the rest of their lives, both for pleasure and business, flying being quite effective for managing their extensive ranches. Gene maintained his flight status until 2010, at almost 95 years old, pioneering the use of planes in ranch work. He kept his flight license active for 72 years, one of the oldest in the country. Mitch stopped flying in 2009 at the age of 88. He had over 10,000 flight hours and was a certified flight instructor with more than 69 years of experience. In 2001, the Montana Pilots Association awarded Mitch the Senior Pilot of the Year Award and his name was inscribed on the Wall of Honor at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. In 2004 Mitch received the Wright Brothers “Master Pilot” Award. Gene passed away on May 3, 2018 at the age of 101 in Billings. He was probably the oldest Basque World War II veteran. Mitch passed away on August 13, 2019 in Glasgow, two days after his 98th birthday.

  • (1) Laxalt Urza, Monique. “Catherine Etchart. A Montana love story”. Montana, The Magazine of Western History, (1981): 2-17.
  • (2) Saitua, Iker. “John Etchart: A Basque leading stockman in the American West”. Euskonews, No. 742 (Septiembre 2019) Euskonews, No. 742
  • (3) Tabernilla, Guillermo y González, Ander. (2018). Combatientes vascos en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Madrid: Desperta Ferro.

If you want to collaborate with “Echoes of Two Wars,” send us an original article on any aspect of the WWII or the Spanish Civil War and the Basque or Navarre participation to the following email: sanchobeurko@gmail.com

Articles selected for publication will receive a signed copy of “Basque Combatants in World War II”.

Basque Fact of the Week: Egunkaria, the First Basque-Only Daily Newspaper

Today, if you go to the Basque Country, you will see Basque media pretty much everywhere. There is a Basque-language television station, a Basque newspaper (Berria), Basque radio stations, and Basque magazines. There are bookstores full of books written in Euskara. However, the concept of a daily newspaper written entirely in Basque is relatively new. The publication of Egunkaria in 1990 changed the landscape for Basque media. Thirteen years later, Spanish authorities shut the newspaper down.

Image from El Temps.
  • The first issue of Egunkaria, meaning daily in Euskara, hit the stands on December 6, 1990. The idea for Egunkaria grew out of meetings that started in November, 1989, based on the principles of being aimed at Basque-speakers; having a national, broad, and united appeal; being independent of political parties and the Spanish media; and being non-institutional but subsidized. By 2003, it contained an average of 70 pages, sold 15,000 copies, and reached 44,000 readers.
  • In February, 2003, Spanish judge Juan del Olmo ordered the newspaper to be shut down. The Guardia Civil raided the newspaper’s offices and froze their assets. The charges were “illegal association” and “membership of, or collaboration with, ETA.” The newspaper was forced into liquidation by these charges, essentially ceasing to exist. A similar fate had hit the newspaper Egin only a few years before. Several people associated with the paper were arrested and detained, including Iñaki Uria, Joan Mari Torrealdai, Txema Auzmendi, Xabier Alegria, Pello Zubiria, Xabier Oleaga, and Martxelo Otamendi. Several of these men reported being tortured while held by the Spanish authorities.
  • The closure of the newspaper sparked international outcry. The British newspaper The Independent made a donation to help Egunkaria‘s eventual replacement, Berria, get going. Famed writer Salman Rushdie, then president of the PEN America, spoke out in support of the defendants. A number of human rights organizations also protested these actions.
  • Almost immediately after Egunkaria‘s closure, a new temporary daily newspaper, Egunero, was published, the first issue released on February 21, 2003 with a circulation of 50,000. And, in June, 2003, a more permanent replacement, Berria, hit the stands, with Martxelo Otamendi, former director of Egunkaria, as its director. Berria is still being published.
  • The criminal case against Egunkaria and the men detained was finally settled in 2010, by which time Egunkaria had long ceased to exist. The Criminal Court of the Audiencia Nacional of Spain stated that there was no grounds to have the newspaper closed. Specifically, they said that “the narrow and erroneous view according to which everything that has to do with the Basque language and with culture in that language is promoted and/or controlled by ETA leads to an incorrect assessment of facts and figures, and to the inconsistency of the accusation” and that “the allegations have not proven that the defendants have the slightest relation with ETA, and this determines in itself the acquittal with all pronouncements favorable to the defendants.”
  • One of those defendants, Joan Mari Torrealdai, died on July 31, 2020 of cancer that he said was caused by the torture he had received. Not only was Torrealdai instrumental in Egunkaria — he was President of the newspaper’s Administration Council — he was editor of the journals Jakin and Anaitasuna, Chairman of the PuntuEUS Foundation, and the author of many books focused on Basque writing and language. In 2007, he was made a full member of Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language). He was 78 years old.

Primary sources: Wikipedia: Egunkaria (English); Wikipedia: Egunkaria (Euskara); Egunkaria.info.