Basque Studies Commons^™

Managing Monumental Crises: The Bakardade (Solitude) National Basque Monument, Carmelo Urza, William A. Douglass

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This paper provides a brief chronological overview of Basque immigration and participation in the sheep industry of the American West. It describes the process leading to the conception and development of the National Basque Sheepherder Monument in Reno’s Rancho San Rafael Park, including the discussions with regards to whether it should be Traditional/Realistic or Modern/Symbolic in nature. It explains the potential crisis that threatened to sidetrack the Monument, the inaugural ceremony and the symbolism of the statue Bakardade/Solitude by Basque sculptor Nestor Basterretxea and its relationship with the characteristics of the Basque people. Finally, it incorporates the figurative sculpture donated …

We Can Only Say What A Basque Is Not, Blake Allmendinger

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

What does it mean to be Basque, and why has this question become more complicated in the twenty-first century? An examination of several artists and their work provide possible answers to this question. American avant-garde artist Man Ray produced an experimental silent film in 1926 entitled Emak Bakia. Why he used this Basque phrase—which roughly translates as “Leave me alone”— is a mystery that has never been solved. In 2012, Basque filmmaker Oskar Alegria decided to track down the source of Ray’s inspiration in his documentary, The Search for Emak Bakia, 2012. By a strange twist of circumstance, …

Miren’S Story: The Evacuation Of A Child Refugee From The Basque Country In 1937, Julia Palmer

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Ten-year-old Miren Alonso was one of almost 4,000 Basque children evacuated from the Basque Country in northern Spain to Southampton, England by the Basque Government in May 1937, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This article, based on extensive oral testimony, provides a firsthand look at a historical event that remains largely unknown to most people. It is also one of only a few long-term studies of the evacuation from the perspective of an individual. This is a summary of Miren’s experience before, during, and after the evacuation, framed within the social, political, and historical context of the period. Her …

Inter-Subjectivity: How Should A Spanish Oral Historian Analyse The Oral Life Stories Of Eta Activists?, Nicolás Buckley

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

The Basque pro-independence terrorist group ETA (an acronym for what translates to ‘Freedom for the Basque Country’) announced a definitive ceasefire in 2011. A year later, I began a PhD on how the Basque conflict could be understood from the life stories of ETA activists. After completing my research, I asked myself: What kind of tensions emerged during the interview process with ETA activists who collaborated in my research taking into account my family background and my Spanish identity? Instead of just appearing as a bidirectional relation between the narrator and the interviewer, inter-subjectivity reveals more powerful mechanisms as it …

Comparing The Scottish National Party (Snp) And The Basque Nationalist Party (Eaj-Pnv)’S Social Policies Towards Refugees And Asylum Seekers, Emily Woodruff

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In 2022, countries and territories across Europe experienced a sharp increase in the number of people seeking asylum, mainly due to the war in Ukraine. Over 3,5000 Ukrainians have sought refuge in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) and as of July 2022, over 7,000 Ukrainians have sought refuge in Scotland (“3.587 refugiados de Ucrania”, 2022 and The Scottish Government, 2022). This increase is on top of the over 250,000 foreigners living in the BAC and the thousands of refugees already resettled throughout Scotland (Ikuspegi, Observatorio Vasco de Inmigración, 2022 and “Refugee resettlement”, 2022). Given the large number of refugees and …

The Distinctively Basque Stone Shelters Of California’S White Mountains, Michael R. Wing, Elizabeth H. Wing, Amin M. Al-Jamal

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Basque and French shepherds in California’s White Mountains built dry stone shelters that persist today. Despite French names carved on logs associated with a few of these structures, the typical pattern for these shelters is Basque: they closely resemble the cabañas pastoriles (shepherd’s huts) of Bizkaia. A square floor plan with walls about one meter high enclose a single chamber. The stone work is carefully laid to make one wall face. A narrow doorway, often in a corner, faces downhill in any direction except west and can be flanked by low stone “spurs”. A fireplace is usually built into the …

Places Beyond Memory: The Affective Landscapes Of Bernardo Atxaga's Días De Nevada, Mark Pleiss

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This study highlights a heretofore-unexplored narrative device in Bernardo Atxaga’s fiction by highlighting how the author’s representation of spaces surrounding Reno and the Great Basin in Días de Nevada models what Berberich et al. (2016) call affective landscapes. The approach contributes to, and looks beyond, the traditional focus on memory in criticism of Atxaga, and it illustrates the story’s engagement with the emotional experiences of populations in the North American West that are not explored or rarely treated in the author’s other works. Finally, this paper contributes a new conceptual model to studies like Elena Delgado et al. (2016) that …

Luisa Etxenike's Trilogy On Terrorism, Agnieszka Gutthy

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This article discusses the themes of the three novels of Luisa Etxenike: El ángulo ciego (Blind Spot, 2009), Absoluta presencia (Absolute Presence, 2018), and Aves del Paraíso (Birds of Paradise, 2019). The novels form a trilogy on ETA terrorism, and each novel is dedicated to a different emotion caused by this violence: fear, guilt, and shame. In her novels Etxenike moves away from the portrayal of terrorists and toward portrayal of the victims. She approaches the theme of ETA violence and of social fragmentation and suffering it has caused emphasizing the culture of blame and fear that this violence instills …

Creative Becomings: The Ongoing Definition And Redefinition Of Basque Identity In Uruguay, Martín Gamboa

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This article describes the presence of cultural traits of Basque tradition in the visual arts and Uruguayan literature of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Likewise, the research deconstructs the concept of “cultural legacy” applied in studies regarding multiculturalism in Uruguay. This approach implied a type of degradation at a cultural level, in which successive generations (first, second, third, and fourth) gradually lost their “original culture”. However, the cultural traits of the Basque ethnic group that appear in the visual arts and literature were shaped by the descendants of the first and second generations. The research demonstrates that certain cultural …

Protest Music And Survival In The Basque Country During The Franco Regime, Michael J. Dodick Jr

Honors Theses

This thesis is an examination of the origins of the Basque Nationalist movement that originated in the late nineteenth century, the Spanish Civil War that followed, and how a dictatorial regime damaged a minority autonomous region, the Basque Country. Within this scope, a singular, unique musical and artistic collective contributed efforts in preserving and growing Basque culture, a culture that had been refined to place focus on nationalistic ideals, unifying traditions, Euskera, and the nation of Euskadi. Ez Dok Amairu, the focus of this thesis, was a short-lived artistic group that concentrated on producing art, literature, and music (among other …

Voicing Narrative Through Transatlanticism And Transformation In Historia De La Monja Alférez By Catalina De Erauso, Morgan Schneider

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes various aspects of Catalina de Erauso’s Historia de la Monja Alférez, escrita por ella misma (1829). The first chapter explores notions of interior and exterior as categories that determine not only the protagonist’s movement in space but also their expression of self-identity over the course of the text, focalized through first-person narration. Additionally, the chapter brings to light how the interior narrative parallels Erauso’s desire to share their transformation from nun in a Spanish convent to a soldier in the Americas with picaresque tendencies. Erauso leverages the power of exterior appearances through the self-fashioning of their public …

Joseba Gabilondo. Introduction To A Postnational History Of Contemporary Basque Literature (1978-2000): Remnants Of The Nation. Tamesis, 2019., Belén Rodríguez Mourelo

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Joseba Gabilondo. Introduction to A Postnational History of Contemporary Basque Literature (1978-2000): Remnants of the Nation. Tamesis, 2019. xii +338 pp.

El Ascendiente Latinoamericano En La Literatura Euskaldun: “Realismo Mágico”, “Literatura Mundial” Y La Emergencia Del Campo Literario Vasco, Gustavo Jimenez Vaquero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation, “El ascendiente latinoamericano en la literatura euskaldun: ‘realismo mágico’, ‘literatura mundial’ y la emergencia del campo literario vasco” (“The Latin American Ascendency of Basque Literature: ‘magical realism,’ ‘world literature’ and the emergence of the Basque literary field”), analyzes the influence of Latin American literature in the formation of modern Basque literature vis-a-vis contemporary debates of World Literature. Contradicting the nationalist agenda governing the metanarrative elaborated by Basque literary histories, my work uncovers the Latin American ascendency of modern Basque literature in the canonical works of a group of Basque writers who played a key role in the modernization …

Basque Studies At Boise State University, Ziortza Gandarias Beldarrain, Nere Lete

World Languages Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise, the capital of Idaho that we Basques feel so close to and our own despite being far from the Basque Country, is a twinned city with Gernika-Lumo, known to us as the "eighth Basque province". Today, 12-15,000 people of Basque origin live in the state of Idaho. It can be unanimously said that the history of Boise and the history of the Basque diaspora have gone hand in hand since the discovery of gold in the American River in California in 1849. The first Basques arrived in Idaho in 1890, when silver was discovered in De Lamar and Silver …

Into The Basque Country: The Spiritual Underpinnings Of Eduardo Chillida's Gure Aitaren Etxea, Katherine J.E. Scalia

Theses and Dissertations

In 1988, Eduardo Chillida dedicated his sculpture, Gure Aitaren Etxea, to the victims of the 1937 Spanish Civil War aerial attack on the city of Gernika. This thesis maintains that beyond memorial, the sculpture can be understood as a sacred site and examines the sources of the sculpture’s spiritual dimension, paying particular attention to the work’s underlying Basque influences. Gernika’s cultural significance, the intricacies of the Basque language, and the history of Basque Nationalist ideology are addressed. The paper concludes, however, that while Chillida found great stimulus within his own culture, the sculpture’s ability to serve as refuge, sanctuary, …

The Basques Of New Orleans, Koldo San Sebastian

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Basques have found their way to many corners of the world, and one of those is the distinctive city of New Orleans in the United States. The relationship of Basques with Louisiana antedates the independence of the United States, and, of course, incorporation of that territory into the American Union. The Basque presence was most evident throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, when a significant community of Basque mariners resided in New Orleans. This article provides a historical overview of the Basque connection to Louisiana, from the expulsion of the Acadians that sent Basques south, …

Meta-Fiction, Parody, And The [Basque] Apocalypse Revealed To All, Larraitz Ariznabarreta

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

The literary and cultural scholar Joseba Gabilondo has exerted considerable influence on the field of Basque and Iberian Literary Studies. His scholarly work often generating attention for his opinions expressed about canonical Basque Literature and authors. This article returns to his publication of Apokalipsia guztioi erakutsia. Although the book obtained the “Erein Narratiba” award in 2009, the collection gained no scholarly attention and hardly received any critical reviews. But recent changes have occasioned a second look, an in-depth critical reading, that seems timelier than ever. The literary scholar Gabilondo would, of course, agree; since, as he conceded to Gorka Erostarbe …

The Canonization Of Carmen: Reflections On A Basque Pastorale, William A. Douglass

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This article explores many of the ways in which performance of a modern Basque pastorale, or morality play—an art form with medieval roots—explores issues and conundrums of contemporary Basque society and culture. These include maintenance of the Basque language and identity, the attitude of Basques towards others, notably Spaniards and gypsies, and vice versa, and the survival of Basque rural life in the face of the many challenges to it. Karmen Etxalarkoa Pastorala is but the most recent recounting of the tragedy of Carmen, the quintessential gypsy of Prosper Merimée’s novel and Bizet’s opera. In the work, she claims …

Reaching Out: The Basque Transnational Body In The Poetry Of Kirmen Uribe, Enrique Álvarez, Ester Hernández-Esteban

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In this paper we explore the contribution of Kirmen Uribe, a Basque writer, artist and cultural activist, to the process of political reconciliation in the Basque country, a socially transforming compromise brought about by the dissolution of the Basque terrorist organization ETA in October 20^th, 2011. Uribe achieved literary recognition and public notoriety within the Iberian cultural landscape with the publication of his novel Bilbao-New York-Bilbao in 2008, for which he received the Spanish National Literature Prize for Narrative in the following year. However, we argue that it is with his earlier collection of poems Bistatean Heldu Eskutik …

Special Focus Introduction: Bodies, Transnationalism And Affect In Recent Hispanic Poetry, Enrique Álvarez

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Introduction to special focus section: Bodies, Transnationalism and Affect in Recent Hispanic Poetry.

The Differences In Talk About Violence And Terrorism: A Case Study Of Northern Ireland And The Basque Country, Mcclellan Davis

Honors Theses

The Northern Irish and Basque conflicts have been studied throughout the years, as both serve as examples of conflicts involving ethnonationalist terrorist groups and successful disarmaments. While there are similarities, there are also distinctions between the two conflicts. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) both fought for independence from a larger government, inflicted horrific pain on populations where they considered themselves members, but ultimately both ended without accomplishing their goal of separatism. This thesis seeks to understand the differences within these conflicts and their subsequent peace processes/disarmaments, which I believe contribute to the differences in ‘talk’ …

Size Matters: The Values Behind Basque Food, Font And Semiotics, Kerri Lesh

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Text production indexes a set of values as semiotics are utilized to market gastronomic products. These values are referenced through the language used, various font styles and sizes, and the food being promoted. The Basque Country has become a “Culinary nation,” world-renowned for its unique culture and gastronomy. This paper looks at how semiotics are used to create value in marketing locally-made wine and cider. A ubiquitously seen Basque font is used for both cider and wine to reference traditional components of Basque culture, while font size on Rioja Alavesa wine labels stresses the distinction between neighboring regions. The use …

Basque Radical Rock: The Punk Ethos In Basque Identity, Edurne Arostegui

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This paper aims to chart the origins of the so-called Basque Radical Rock movement and its varied use by different social groups, from political organizations of the time to anarchist, marginalized youth needing to express the pessimistic view of their present circumstances. Basque Radical Rock represented a growing sense of modern Basqueness and difference that shaped the scene, moving away from pastoral images toward urban decadence. Although politics did influence the growth and spread of music throughout the Basque Country, many did not feel represented by these causes. The youth’s backlash against socio-economic conditions and their nihilistic view of the …

Silence And Invisibility As Weapons Of Hegemonic Nationalism In Fernando Aramburu's Patria, Olga Bezhanova

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

Fernando Aramburu’s Patria (2016) has undoubtedly constituted one of the most explosive publishing successes of Spain’s literary market of the recent years. The author depicts Basque nationalism as a flawed product deriving from irrational violent impulses that supposedly lie at the core of the Basque identity, while privileging a hegemonic Castilian nationalism. Aramburu’s perspective, however, is tainted by his geographic and affective distancing from Euskadi, which arises not only from the fact that he has been living in Germany since 1985 but also from his identity as an author who writes only in Spanish. His novel misses the mark, as …

Horse Meadows And Bohler Canyon Arborglyphs: History Recorded On The Trees, Nancy Hadlock, Richard Potashin

Eastern Sierra History Journal

In this close reading of Arborglyphs in canyons above the Mono Basin, the authors discuss how and why Basque shepherds and others carved their names with knives into (mostly) Aspens. Documenting these expressive markings is one way to reclaim the shepherd-artists' names and something of their experiences in the High Sierra tending their flocks.

Sueños De Tánger: Extraterritorial Basque Crime Fiction On Immigration To Spain, Shanna Lino

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

As the world increasingly turns its attention to the European refugee crisis and to the 1.8 million who have arrived on that continent since 2014 as a consequence of being forced to flee their native countries’ war-torn cities and villages, questions continue to arise regarding the ethical and political responsibilities of Western nations to facilitate this exodus and to provide refugee and immigration services en route and at destination. Spain remains the intended port of arrival for thousands of Malians, Mauritanians, Moroccans, and Western Saharans who sometimes manage to escape war and extreme poverty only to find themselves stalled on …

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Spanish Wines (And A Few Things You Did), John Phillips Wacker

Senior Theses

The Spanish wine scene is incredibly diverse, and an immense number of different wines are made in the country. Likewise, Spain is incredibly rich in culture, with a wide array of languages, histories, cultures, and cuisines found throughout the nation. The sheer number and variety of Spanish wines and the incredible variety of cultures found in Spain may be daunting to the uninitiated. Thus, a guide to Spanish wine and culture, which not only details the two but links them, as well, may prove very helpful to the Spanish wine newcomer or perhaps even a sommelier.

This thesis-guide was compiled …

Poéticas Minimalistas De La Ciudad Contemporánea: Iribarren, Mínguez Y Del Val, David Delgado López

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Throughout the Spanish poetic production of the 20^th century, cities have developed a relevant role as a recurring space at the same time as society urbanized and an exodus took place from agricultural areas to the work centers offered by the cities. Since the second half of the 19^th century the city has been the meeting place for people from different backgrounds where the poet found, from his exclusive point of view, a new universe to develop in his work. However, the evolution of capitalist society sponsored the poet's transition from an artist to a worker in the …

The Basques In Idaho, John Patrick "Pat" Bieter

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This is the 45th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Pat Bieter’s booklet by the Idaho State Historical Society in 1973. It served as one of the earliest English language introductions to the Basques in general, and specifically the Basques of Idaho relating the story of the Basque homeland and why Basques immigrated to America and settled in Idaho. This re-publication with permission returns us to the pioneering work of this author. In addition to his writing on the Basques, Bieter founded Boise State's first studies abroad program which later became part of the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC).

Ethnic Identity Formation Among Basque-American Adolescents, Catherine M. Petrissans

BOGA: Basque Studies Consortium Journal

This article focuses on the ethnic identity formation among one hundred Basque-American youth between the ages of nine and fifteen who were interviewed at the beginning and end of a two week long Udaleku held in Bakersfield California in 2013. This project explores four key questions related to the internal thought processes used by camp attendees to account for or try to make sense of their ethnicity. First, were camp attendees confident or confused about their ethnicity? Second, have participants attempted to “explore” their ethnicity and, if so how? Third, what does “being Basque” mean to camp participants and is …