The Basque

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, although the origins of the Basque people are unclear but possibly of Turkish, Magyar or Berber descent, the Basques may be the oldest indigenous race in Europe; their language Euskera has supposedly been traced back to Babel. The author points out that, for centuries, the region south of the Pyrenees was recognized as "una tierra apartada", a self-governing area, subject to an absolute monarchy and had its own code of laws and rights (fueros); in 1876, the Basque country was assimilated into the rest of Spain. The paper relates that the Spanish Civil War had a major impact on the Basque because the Franco regime, which exercised cultural repression over the whole nation, was particularly severe in those regions where a language other than Spanish was spoken.

From the Paper:

"The father of Basque nationalism, Sabino Arana, described by Mark Kurlansky as an 'unpleasant zealot', insisted that to be Basque a person's four grandparents must all have been born in the Basque country and have Euskera names - a qualification which would be much modified when the terrorist organization ETA admitted to its membership people whose families came from elsewhere in Spain. Both Arana's party and ETA were officially founded on the saint's day, 31 July, of the Basques' most famous son, Ignatius Loyola. (The first Basque underground movement in the 1950s, formed by a handful of Guipuzcoans, initially called itself by the acronym ATA, unaware that in the dialect of the neighbouring province, Viscaya, ata means 'duck'.) "

More papers on The Basque:

• Term Paper # 104031 : "ETA and the Basque Nationalist Movement"
• Research Paper # 112697 : "The Basque Culture of Bilbao"
• Essay # 96015 : "Euskera, the Basque Language"

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