Not far from Gernika, in the forests of the small village of Kortezubi, resides one of the most unusual art displays one can imagine. The trees are painted with splashes of color and geometrical forms that, individually, have no rhyme or reason, but together, when viewed from the right spot, form figures and shapes that […]
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 […]
One of the most infamous episodes in the Spanish Civil War is the bombing of Gernika, in which the German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion attacked the Basque town on Monday, April 26, 1937, starting around 4:30pm in the afternoon. Monday was a market day, normally bringing thousands of people to the small town in the heart […]
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 […]
On June 10th, A&E broadcast the episode of Longmire that features the crew dealing with a Basque community in Wyoming, Death Came in Like Thunder. For those who missed it but are interested in seeing it, you can catch it on A&E’s website. The plot centers around the murder of a Basque sheepherder, the grandson […]
The bombing of Gernika has become an integral part of the greater Basque experience, quite possibly of Basque identity itself. Every Basque, whether born in Bilbao or Boise, knows what happened in Gernika. Reproductions of Picasso’s Guernica can be found in even the simplest of basseriak in the rural Basque Country, in places where modern […]
1892: Castor Uriarte Aguirreamalloa, architect and author, is born in Catabuig, Philipines. In 1937 he witnessed the German bombardment of Gernika, during which the village fronton, which he had designed, was destroyed. He later tried to get Picasso’s Guernica moved to Gernika without success.
Sunday, April 26, marks the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Gernika. When I posted on a previous anniversary, I wrote that the Wikipedia article on the bombing briefly mentions that, in addition to Gernika and Durango, Gerrikaitz was also bombed. I was intrigued by this as my dad is from that town and I […]
