Eighty years ago, Spain was mired in a civil war that pitted the Republican government and its allies against the Nationalist forces of Franco. As Franco’s forces gained ground in the Basque Country, thousands of people, mostly children, fled to other lands, becoming refugees. Britain alone took nearly 4000 children. This is the story of […]
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 […]
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 […]
April 26, 1937. Market day in the Basque village of Gernika. Though the Spanish Civil War raged around them, villagers still gathered at the market. However, that day would come to live in infamy as the Condor Legion of Germany, at the behest of the Franco and his forces, bombed the symbolic Basque town. Not […]
That Old Bilbao Moon is a complex and multifaceted book. Part memoir, part the history of a generation of Basques growing up in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and World War II, and part the story of the city of Bilbao and her people, Joseba Zulaika’s book takes a page from Dante and […]
Here are two articles that provide some interesting Basque history, both outside of the Basque Country. The first, an article at the Blue Review by Kyle Eidson and Dave Lachiondo, describes an interesting period in the history of the Basque diaspora in Boise. During the middle of the 1950s, when new Basques were immigrating to […]
It seems like we are in a special time for Basque films. A number of projects are either in production or just wrapping up for release that promise to highlight numerous aspects of Basque culture. Here are a few that have caught my eye. The first is Basque Hotel, by Josu Venero: Basque Hotel is a […]
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 […]
1922: Jacinto Etxenagusia races against the Franco-Belgian Leon De Nys along the famous 13 kilometer Zarauz-Aia route, the setting for countless numbers of wagers. Etxenagusia had earlier beat Vicente Erro, who had covered the Tolosa-Pamplona-Tolosa course, 125 kilometers, in just over 15 hours. However, De Nys was a professional runner with excellent times on the […]