Basque Country (historical territory)
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- This article is about the traditional overall Basque domain. For the Spanish autonomous community, see Basque Country. For the French part (also named Pays Basque) see Northern Basque Country.
Geography
According to the Basque tradition, the Basque Country is made up of seven traditional regions. The four regions Laurak Bat to the south, within Spain, form Hegoalde (“south zone”), while the three to the northeast, within France, form Iparralde (“north zone”). The seven regions are:
Southern Basque Country
Three Spanish provinces comprising the heart land, were grouped into the Basque Autonomous Community (Euskadi):- Araba(Álava in Spanish)capital Vitoria-Gasteiz (Vitoria is the Spanish name, Gasteiz the Basque name)
- Biscay (Bizkaia in Basque, Vizcaya in Spanish), capital Bilbao (Bilbo in Basque), also the capital of the Basque Country
- Gipuzkoa capital San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque)
Northern Basque Country
- Lower Navarre (Behe Nafarroa in Basque, Basse-Navarre in French), capital St. Jean Pied de Port (Donibane Garazi in Basque)
- Lapurdi (Labourd in French), capital Bayonne (Baiona in Basque)
- Zuberoa (Soule in French), capital Mauléon (Maule in Basque)
Borders
The southern Basque Country falls within the Spanish autonomous communities of the Basque Country and Navarre, and the Northern Basque Country forms part of the French département of Pyrénées Atlantiques.
History
- Further information: Basque people
The Roman presence manifested in some roads and ill-studied small towns, probably recycled local settlements. Pamplona was formally founded by famous Roman general Pompey, who used it as headquarters in his campaigns against Sertorius.
In the 3rd century though, apparently under the pressure of feudalization, Basques at both sides of the mountains seem to have revolted in a movement associated into the Bagaudae and established an independence de facto. This independence stood the Visigothic attacks, establishing the Duchy of Vasconia, at times vassal of the Franks or united to Aquitaine.
This Duchy of Vasconia was unable to resist the troubles caused by the struggles between the Muslim raiders, Eudes the Great of Aquitaine and Charles Martel of the Franks. By the end of those struggles, Martel possessed the Duchy.
In the South, the Kingdom of Pamplona, later Navarre, was (for at least between 805 and 1200) the only political entity to encompass the Basque Country on both sides of the Pyrenees (Soule was actually autonomous and Bayonne and coastal Labourd soon fell to the English). The kingdom reached its greatest size under Sancho III of Navarre (c. 985–1035). Sancho's kingdom encompassed not just Navarre, with most of the Basque Country, La Rioja and the NE of Castile, but also Castile and Aragon themselves, which at the time were just counties. Sancho, known as The Great, also exerted protectorate over Leon and the fragile remains of Vasconia, whose name was already evolving into Gascony.
After Sancho's death, the kingdom was divided among his four sons, with one getting Pamplona, another Castile, the third Aragon and this last getting both Sobrarbe and Ribargoza. A fraticidal war broke out soon after and Pamplona was divided. It was during its incorporation to Aragon that the name Navarre was applied.
In 1157, Ramiro the Restorer, after a dynastic dead-end became King of Navarre and started a series of wars against Castile which ended in a peace that leaves La Rioja and Bureba to Castile but the Western provinces still in Navarrese hands. Nevertheless, the Castilians launch another invasion that finally incorporates the three provinces to it, though allowing continued self-rule (Fuero) (except Treviño).
In 1512, the troops of Ferdinand II of Aragon took the Southern part, but Basse-Navarre, north of the Pyrenees remained independent until 1620 when it was incorporated into France, with which it had been in personal union since 1589, when the King of Navarre inherited the French throne.
Navarre and the Northern provinces also kept their particular forms of self-rule. The French provinces lost it with the centralization that happened with the French Revolution, which therefore found local resistance. The autonomous government of Gipuzkoa asked for incorporation to the French Republic to remain united, but that request was ignored.
During the French invasion of Spain by Napoleon, the Basque provinces were initially held more easily by the French, with no resistance. However, due to abuses during the occupation, the people took to arms there as well.
In the 19th century, the Liberal approach to the state, that implied centralization and homogenization in a single nation-state, caused the Basques to adhere to the reactionary Carlist party in the Carlist Wars, wars that ended when the Basque governments in rebellion saw no more possibilities to them. In the process, Basque provinces lost most of its autonomy but kept at least remnant, particularly tax-collection, that has served for a recent partial restoration.
Particular impact had the displacement of the customs border from being between the Basque provinces and Spain to the coast and the border with France, a border that runs through the middle of the Basque Country. The traditional route Pamplona-Bayonne was cut and the fruitful smuggling activities that fed the interior provinces just vanished. The coastal provinces may have been more favored though.
As result of the end of the Carlist Wars, and embedded by the ideas of nationalism that impregnated Europe in the late 19th century, the Basque people felt impelled to refound the Basque struggle into more modern foundations. Among several others, Sabino Arana and his brother Luis, founded the modern Basque Nationalism, in the late 19th century.
This ideology found fertile ground especially in the bourgeois class that flourished then in Bilbao and the other industrial areas of the country. Initially it had some clerical and racist undertones, specially as a reaction to massive Spanish and Galician immigration, as workforce for the growing industry, based specially in the rich iron, much appreciated by the British foundations. Naval industries, metallurgy, small weapons... all that made of Bilbao and many Gipuzkoan towns, thriving economic centers. An influential Basque burgueoise class was born with it.
Basque Nationalism, basically aligned in the Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV), founded by Arana, aimed, via democratic means, to achieve some sort of self rule that approximated or superated (independence) the self rule that once granted the foral autonomy. It worked hard for it under the Republic, when also a leftist party (EAE-ANV) existed. Yet it didn't achieve it until 1937, in the last months of resistance against the fascists.
Under Franco, there was a fierce political repression that softened slowly as decades passed. There existed a Basque Government in exile, alternatively based in Venezuela or Paris but its activities were limited to ghostly representation and difficult undercover activities. Eventually, a schism in the nationalist youths EGI, created a new group that asked for immediate action. It was named Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Nation and Freedom) and it's now best known as ETA. It would eventually become a very active and bloody urban guerrilla organization.
The rise of liberal democracy in Spain, after 40 years of a traditionalist Catholic government under Franco, also eventually brought autonomy for the Basque Country, though Navarre has so far been governed by pro-Spanish parties that prefer a separate statute and special and polemic linguistic laws. The Basque Autonomous Community, comprising only the Western provinces, has been ruled by nationalist-dominated governments. After 38 years of armed struggle, ETA declared a permanent truce in March 2006.
See also
- Basque Country (autonomous community)
- Northern Basque Country, in France
- Basque people
- Basque Mythology
- List of not fully sovereign nations
External links
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| Hegoalde: Guipuscoa | Álava | Biscay | Navarre Iparralde: Labourd | Basse-Navarre | Soule | |
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