Last week, while visiting the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, for a kick-off meeting for a new project, we visited the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Nuclear Engineering is housed in Etcheverry Hall, clearly named after a Basque. It turns out that Bernard A. Etcheverry was a professor of irrigation and drainage during 1915-1951. […]
Relatively, as compared to the other peoples of Europe, the Basques converted to Christianity rather late. While Christianity seems to arrived in the region in the 4th or 5th centuries, it didn’t really take hold amongst the population until roughly the 12th or 13th centuries (Wikipedia has a summary of what is known and debated […]
The big news out of the Basque Country is that ETA, Euskadi ta Askatasuna, who had declared a ceasefire in 2011, has officially disarmed. ETA grew out of the resistance to Franco’s dictatorship and disaffection with the economic and political realities of the late 1950s. They changed the political course of Spain when they assassinated Luis […]
Those of us that are the sons and daughters of Basque immigrants that came in the early or middle 1900s often have a somewhat romantic and, maybe, antiquated view of the Basque Country. While traditional pursuits such as folk dance are still very prevalent in the Basque Country, they aren’t as pervasive as a typical […]
Basques have had their impact on world history and there are key historical figures that most Basques already know. St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, was born in Loyola. The first person to (deliberately) circumnavigate the Earth, Juan Sebastian Elcano, was from Getaria. However, there are many other Basques that have made important […]
Alan King continues to share some great stories. He has two new Basque stories on his website. Kidnapped by the Basajaun tells the story of a shepherd frees a young woman who had been kidnapped by a basajaun and forced to live with him. The Dog with Charcoal Eyes is about a man, about to be […]
A while back, David Cox provided his thoughts on Dolores Redondo’s The Invisible Guardian. I’ve finally read it myself and here are my thoughts… The Invisible Guardian follows Inspector Amaia Salazar, a young detective from the village of Elizondo in the Baztan Valley who is trying to establish herself in the Pamplona police force. However, […]
As part of the buildup to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrating the Basque culture, Vince Juaristi is writing a series of articles highlighting the connections between the Basques and Americans. He has graciously allowed me to repost those articles as they appear on Buber’s Basque Page. Sprawled between the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol, the Smithsonian hosts the […]
As part of the buildup to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrating the Basque culture, Vince Juaristi is writing a series of articles highlighting the connections between the Basques and Americans. He has graciously allowed me to repost those articles as they appear on Buber’s Basque Page. Sprawled between the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol, the Smithsonian hosts the […]
Christine Echeverria Bender is a prolific author, focusing on the fictionalized adventures of Basques during the Age of Discovery. Her novels have touched on the first circumnavigation of the globe (completed not by Magellan, but the Basque Elcano) and the role of the Basques in Columbus’s voyages across the Atlantic. One of her most recent […]
