Basqueland On Popular Culture

| 2013 |
| Berlin Perspectives. Pop and Nation.
Sergio González Gil
|

[Basqueland on popular culture] |
[Escriba aquí una descripción breve del documento. Una descripción breve es un resumen corto del contenido del documento. Escriba aquí una descripción breve del documento. Una descripción breve es un resumen corto del contenido del documento.] |

INDEX

Rise of Basquenationalism as political force………………….3

Reasons for this success?................................................4

Growth of the Basque political movement……………………..4

Franco’s repression and birth of ETA……………………………..4

What is an abertzale?.....................................................5

Football………………………………………………………………………….6

Biology and tongue…………………………………………………………7Conclussion…………………………………………………………………….8

Sources………………………………………………………….................9

BASQUELAND ON POPULAR CULTURE

I don’t seek in this essay to describe extensively all the states of the Basque nationalist movement nor display an accurate work on this issue. I consider that there have been already lots of publications aiming to pursue this goal, quite enough to fill shelf after shelf. Therefore, my target isto give firstly a quick overview on the roots of the Basque nationalism, and then go on with some of the everyday-life onsets where nationalism is clearly identifiable.

Rise of Basque nationalism as political force
Sabino Arana, helped by his brother Luis, is considered to be the father of the so called “Basque nationalism”. The Arana brothers are responsible for the creation of some of themost recognized signs of Basque identity; for instance the “Ikurriña” or the flag of the Basque Country, the name “Euzkadi”, used to design the territories that make up the Basque land or the lyrics of the current Basque national anthem.
We must emphasize though, that Arana had not been the first to encourage a national identity, strengthening the differences existing between Basques andSpaniards. Others had fomented a literary and romantic sense of Basque distinctiveness before. We should therefore understand this nationalism as a rather long-term process. In fact, this feeling of distinctiveness goes back to the end of the XVIII century, and by this time, the ideas and thoughts of Herder’s philosophy can easily be identified. Just to illustrate with examples what has just been said, in1780, the Basque settler Landázuri mentioned the Basques provinces referring to them as an own nation. In 1801, the well-known German researcher Alexander von Humboldt went all across the territories and acknowledged several national features that led him to consider the Basque land as an independent territory from Spain.
As we can see, the ideas of an own national identity had already emergedlong before Arana came in to play his roll. Nevertheless, I consider of big importance to stick with the figure of Sabino Arana as the real father of the Basque nationalist movement for really bringing this ancient ideology into politics, but at the same time for encouraging so many of his fellows to fight for their own identity and place the movement onto a modern scene.

Reasons for thissuccess?
At this point it is important that we ask ourselves: what where the reasons for this success? Arana and his followers (mostly members of the petit bourgeoisie) could not fully understand the changes happening in the last decade of the nineteenth century due to the emergence of the fast and extensive industrialization process lived in the Basque provinces of Vizcaya and Álava. On the otherhand, the rural exodus and the progressive creation of shanty settlements on the edge of the emerging industrial cities brought a huge stream of immigrants from other provinces outside the Basque territories that began to take the place of the local inhabitants. These “foreigners” started gradually to establish their own lay customs, their liberal non-denominational ideology and the...