{"id":5746,"date":"2022-10-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=5746"},"modified":"2022-10-23T15:26:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T15:26:47","slug":"basque-fact-of-the-week-julio-caro-baroja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/10\/23\/basque-fact-of-the-week-julio-caro-baroja\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Fact of the Week: The Great Basque Anthropologist, Ethnologist, and Historian Julio Caro Baroja"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background\">It hasn&#8217;t been all that long that Basque studies started delving into Basque prehistory and the myths and legends that shaped the Basque world view. <a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2022\/10\/16\/basque-fact-of-the-week-jose-miguel-de-barandiaran-ayerbe\/\">J<span style=\"font-size: revert; font-weight: revert;\">os\u00e9 Miguel de Barandiaran Ayerbe<\/span><\/a> was a pioneer in these efforts, but he didn&#8217;t work alone and his student, Julio Caro Baroja &#8211; the nephew of one of the greatest writers of the early 1900s &#8211; followed in his footsteps and beyond, scouring the Basque countryside for any tidbit he could find, expanding our own view of what it means to be Basque.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5747\" width=\"260\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal.jpg 520w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Julio Caro Baroja. Photo found on <a href=\"http:\/\/laicacota.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/julio-caro-baroja-1914-1995.html\">Laicacota<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Caro Baroja was born in Madrid on November 13, 1914, to Rafael Caro Raggio and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carmen_Baroja\">Carmen Baroja<\/a>. Rafael was the founder of the publishing house Editorial Caro Raggio while Carmen was an accomplished ethnographer and writer. His uncles were <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/P%C3%ADo_Baroja\">Pio<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ricardo_Baroja\">Ricardo<\/a>. Though born in Madrid, Julio spent much of his childhood in the Nafarroan town of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bera,_Navarre\">Bera<\/a> with his uncle Pio. He published his first essay, on the nature and importance of the house in the town of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lesaka\">Lesaka<\/a>, when he was 15.<\/li><li>Even before starting his doctorate, he was working with Basque ethnographers Jos\u00e9 Miguel Barandiar\u00e1n and <a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Telesforo_Aranzadi\">Telesforo de Aranzadi<\/a>. He got his doctorate in 1940 in ancient history and published his first book shortly after in 1941. He obtained a position with the Museo del Pueblo Espa\u00f1ol and spent time in the United State and the United Kingdom studying both anthropology and ethnology.<\/li><li>In his work, Caro Baroja chased every aspect of life, of the people, to derive the most complete picture of humans and their cultural world. He examined every scrap of information he could find, from &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/caro-baroja-julio\/ar-26703\/\">the testimony of a witch, the letter of a conqueror, the anecdote told by the old Basque sea dog, everything is an expression of a humanity that tries to live its finite and fragile little life in a complicated and difficult world.<\/a>&#8221; In his work, he railed against speculation, striving to document and base his interpretations and arguments on evidence.<\/li><li>He had a particular interest in witchcraft, which grew from a childhood where the people around him believed in the supernatural. This eventually led to his book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buber.net\/Basque\/Features\/Books\/bpu_worldofwitches.php\">The World of the Witches<\/a><\/em>, which looks beyond the Basque Country to the history of witchcraft in Europe more broadly, though with an emphasis on Basque witches.<\/li><li>Caro Baroja published some 30 books and many more monographs, articles, and essays, many dealing with the Basque Country. A <a href=\"https:\/\/scholarworks.unr.edu\/handle\/11714\/754\">collection of his essays<\/a>, translated into English and downloadable for free, was published by the Center for Basque Studies Press. His life&#8217;s work, <em>Los Vascos<\/em> (<em><a href=\"https:\/\/scholarworks.unr.edu\/bitstream\/handle\/11714\/752\/The_Basques_Caro_Baroja.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y\">The Basques<\/a><\/em>), also downloadable, touches on all aspects of Basque culture, from the nature of Basque towns and their economies to the social life of the Basques.<\/li><li>In addition to his interests in the Basques, Caro Baroja also researched and published on minority communities, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Crypto-Judaism\">crypto-Jews<\/a> and the Moors of Granada. In fact, when <a href=\"https:\/\/dbe.rah.es\/biografias\/10808\/julio-caro-baroja\">he was inducted into the Real Academia de la Historia<\/a>, his speech dealt with the topic of the crypto-Jews.<\/li><li>Caro Baroja died on August 18, 1995, in Bera. By that time, he had received numerous accolades for his work, including being named to multiple academies such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euskaltzaindia.eus\">Euskaltzaindia<\/a> (the Royal Academy of the Basque Language). He received the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fpa.es\/en\/princess-of-asturias-awards\/\">Prince of Asturias Prize<\/a> for Social Sciences and a square in Donostia is named for him.  <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Primary sources: Izaga Garmendia, Carmen [et al.].&nbsp;<em>Caro Baroja, Julio<\/em>. Au\u00f1amendi Encyclopedia. Available at: <a href=\"https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/caro-baroja-julio\/ar-26703\/\">https:\/\/aunamendi.eusko-ikaskuntza.eus\/en\/caro-baroja-julio\/ar-26703\/<\/a>; <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Julio_Caro_Baroja\">Julio Caro Baroja<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia (English); <em><a href=\"https:\/\/es.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Julio_Caro_Baroja\">Julio Caro Baroja<\/a><\/em>, Wikipedia (Spanish). The blog <a href=\"http:\/\/laicacota.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/julio-caro-baroja-1914-1995.html\">Laicacota<\/a> collected a number of remembrances of Caro Baroja after his death in 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It hasn&#8217;t been all that long that Basque studies started delving into Basque prehistory and the myths and legends that shaped the Basque world view. Jos\u00e9 Miguel de Barandiaran Ayerbe was a pioneer in these efforts, but he didn&#8217;t work alone and his student, Julio Caro Baroja &#8211; the nephew of one of the greatest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[836,13,19],"tags":[3469,3471,1882,2047,3468,3463,3470],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basque-fact-of-the-week","category-history","category-people","tag-carmen-baroja","tag-crypto-jews","tag-jose-miguel-de-barandiaran","tag-julio-caro-baroja","tag-pio-baroja","tag-telesforo-de-aranzadi","tag-the-world-of-the-witches"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/1170564762_740215_0000000000_noticia_normal-crop.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-1uG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5746"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5805,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5746\/revisions\/5805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}