Eneko Ennekõike, who is passionate about his home town of Eibar, told me about Julen Zabaleta, a long-time resident of Eibar who died at the age of 101 a few months past. Julen lived through the Spanish Civil War and World War II. He saw the world change dramatically over the last 100 years, with […]
The baserri was not at all what Kepa expected. He had thought it was likely a rural outpost, surrounded by trees, just like the baserri he shared with his ama back in his own time. This baserri, however, was about as far from that as one could imagine. Latxe had led Kepa through the tunnels […]
The phrase Zazpiak Bat – the seven [are] one – signifies the unity of the seven Basque provinces – four in Spain and three in France. It is also the nickname of the Basque coat of arms – the Euskal Harmarriak. But wait, there are only six panels in the coat of arms! Hold on… […]
Maite stood at the edge of the patio and looked over the city. She watched as, in real time, a new building, a tall sky-scrapper, appeared in the distance. First its core structure grew literally out of the ground. Then the walls. It was another one of these organic structures, with numerous pods growing out […]
Perhaps one of the most defining things that separate humans from the rest of the animal world is our command of fire. Fire is essential to who we are and how we have developed as a species. Indeed, it has been suggested that our taming of fire, and our development of cooking, is what let […]
The trip to the baserri was uneventful. Marina guided Kepa through dark tunnels until they came to a fork. There she handed Kepa off to another woman, dressed in the same dark robes as the men and women he had met earlier. “Don’t worry,” Marina said as she left down the left fork. “It is […]
During the Spanish Civil War, particularly the years of 1936-1937, thousands of women and children, many of the latter without their parents, were evacuated from the Basque Country to a variety of countries, including the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark. I’ll write about some of these others in the future. However, a key […]
Kepa sat in a dark room, huddled with several others who had made their way from the control room to this safe room. Olatz, or Marina – Kepa still wasn’t quite sure how he should think about her – was on the other side of the room, conferring with what Kepa assumed were her lieutenants; […]
Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have turned 78. I miss you dad. My dad had a bit of a temper, especially when I was younger. My brothers and I were on the receiving end of more than one spanking. And dad certainly mellowed as he (or we…?) got older. But the times I […]
This article originally appeared in Basque and Spanish at Euskalkultura.eus on January 13, 2022. On this Memorial Day, we bring you the story of Joseph Etcheverry and Helena (Santana) Etcheverry, a story of our diaspora that, like many others, unites and connects origins in Euskal Herria — in this case Ortzaize and Arrosa, in Nafarroa […]
