Fernando Pérez de Laborda
(Getxo, Biscay, 1962)
has a degree in German Philology from the University of Hamburg. In 2000, he moved to Gares/Puente la Reina, in Valdizarbe, Navarre, land of origin of his father’s family. There, he began to carry out research into the history of local Basque, and published several books: Gares, historia de un topónimo (co-author, 2011), Casas de Valdizarbe y Valdemañeru. Nombres e historia (co-author, 2014), Diccionario de Valdizarbe y Valdemañeru. Léxico patrimonial actual: euskera y castellano (2017). Historia del euskera en Valdizarbe y Valdemañeru (2019), and El euskera en Navarra. Síntesis de una historia (Editorial Mintzoa, 2023). He has translated and published Un libro Pirenaico by Kurt Tucholsky (Txalaparta, 2018). He has also worked on the creation of documentaries such as Penitencia de Pili Múgica (2018), Quijotes y Semillas (Patxi Úriz, 2019), and Zumiriki de Oskar Alegría, filmed in his town of Puente la Reina and shown at the 2019 Venice Film Festival.
It’s going to be hard for us to present this book by Fernando Pérez de Laborda in which he shows us what our country and people are like from the point of view of 1,219 very different people. And it isn’t because Euskal Herria. La mirada extranjera (The Basque Country: The View from Abroad) is a book that covers a topic we’re not familiar with, or does it in such a way that we don’t vibe with. Quite the contrary.
In the 645 pages that make up this book, readers will be able to find references from the people who visited us and left their opinions, which we have been collecting here on the blog. They’ll be able to find these references, and much more, because the author has included 1,219 men and women from all over the planet who have spoken about us and defined us as a society, some of them from the knowledge they gained while visiting us, and others from hearsay. But, and this is the most important part, almost all of them came with a perspective and mind that were “free” of preconceptions, free of the vision of us shared by the history and politics of France and Spain.
All of us are who we are, but, especially, we are what others perceive we are. The image we transmit, the people, the societies and nations, is what really defines us.
That’s why this work by Fernando Pérez de Laborda is so important for us Basques. When most of the history books we have at school or have access to have “projections of who we are” drawn by those who do not recognize us as a society or a nation, it is a gift that someone has gone to the effort to compile a vision of us that 1,219 men and women had when visiting us and then shared.
We often say that there are few international media outlets that we would consider “friendly.” And this isn’t because they always speak well of us (that would invalidate them as good sources of information), but rather because they speak independently, with their own criteria, and not copying what large Spanish and French media sources say, as the latter are, as we never tire of saying, tools for the construction and maintenance of the Spanish and French states. Some examples of “friendly” media include The New York Times and The Guardian.
But let’s go back to the beginning, where we said that it wasn’t going to be hard for us to present this book. It is so because what Fernando Pérez de Laborda has written to present is work is exactly what we would ourselves would have written. We felt so represented, so reflected, in this text, that we wouldn’t change a single comma.
Well, yes, there is something we would change (those who know us know how hard it is for us to not change at least something). When the author discusses the 1,219 viewpoints he’s collected:
“Todos ellos constituyen, por lo tanto, una larga lista de analistas objetivos que componen un relato singular y diferente sobre la historia de Euskal Herria, una imagen real y auténtica del importante papel que ha jugado el pueblo vasco en la construcción de la moderna Europa.”
“All of them then make up a long list of objective analysts that make up a unique and different telling of the history of the Basque Country, a real and authentic image of the important role the Basque people have played in the construction of modern Europe.”
We would have changed the focus, and wrote this:
“Todos ellos constituyen, por lo tanto, una larga lista de analistas objetivos que componen un relato singular y diferente sobre la historia de Euskal Herria, una imagen real y auténtica del importante papel que ha jugado el pueblo vasco en la construcción del mundo que conocemos.”
“All of them then make up a long list of objective analysts that make up a unique and different telling of the history of the Basque Country, a real and authentic image of the important role the Basque people have played in the construction of the world we as we know it.”
Because we Basques have been present, and indeed had leading roles, in many of the great steps that led to the world we live in now, through all corners of the globe and in every level of society.
We’re proud of what we’ve done on this humble website, collecting some of the viewpoints of everything Basque. And we’re thrilled that this book can offer our society, and anyone anywhere who’s interested in learning about who and what we are, a tool that will allow them to have a clear, clean, and objective view of what this nation is and who the people who make it up are.
We love the whole text, but there are two sentences that stand out for us:
“La gestión que ellos hacen de sus propios recursos es impecable. Pocos pueblos hay en Europa tan bien organizados. Defienden lo suyo porque entienden que nadie les va a ofrecer nada mejor.”
“The management that they make of their own resources is impeccable. There are few peoples in Europe who are so well organized. The defend what’s theirs because they understand that no one is going to offer them anything better.”
And another one, longer, but very important:
“El ansia de libertad e independencia del pueblo vasco, que se repite como una coletilla a lo largo de las crónicas, no hay que contemplarla como un término negativo, como una necesidad de levantar barreras con respecto a los Estados vecinos, sino más bien como una determinación para poder interactuar sin trabas entre los propios territorios históricos y el extranjero y poder así gestionar sus propios recursos. La voz, por consiguiente, no tiene la misma consideración que la que se le otorga, a día de hoy, a la palabra nacionalismo o separatismo. Ya lo advirtió el escritor norteamericano Mark Kurlansky en 1999: ‘No hay palabra que peor defina a los vascos que el término separatistas.'”
“The Basque people’s yearning for freedom and independence, which is repeated like a postscript throughout the chronicles, must not be contemplated as a negative term, as a need to raise barriers between neighboring States, but rather as a determination to be able to interact among the historical territories themselves and other nations without obstacles and thereby be able to manage their own resources. The word, then, does not have the same consideration that it is usually given these days with the word ‘nationalism’ or ‘separatism.’ American author Mark Kurlansky noted this in 1999: ‘There is no word that defines the Basques worse than the term “separatists.”‘”
Do not hesitate: this is a book that you must read, at least if you want to know what the true image of our nation is, without the filters that deny or hide its existence.
You can purchase it on the Editorial Txalaparta website.
Euskal Herria. La mirada extranjera
Fernando Pérez de Laborda
In 1997, while visiting a flea market in the city of Hamburg, I came across a book that, years later, would mark the course that I’d have to follow to complete a work like this. The book was by Kurt Tucholsky, its title Ein Pyrenäenbuch (A Pyrenean Book), and the text was a travelogue of the trip he took in 1925, from west to east, of the entire north slope of the Pyrenees. The testimony Tucholsky gave about the Basques seemed so interesting to me that I ended up translating it and publishing it thanks to the Txalaparta Publishing House.
The same house then proposed to me to dig deeper into the international literary panorama to see how many foreign authors had passed through the Basque Country without our having known about it. That was when I started delving into travel literature to find traces of their visits, and of the descriptions they gave of our habits and our character. I did not wish to limit myself just to travelers, however, but also go a step further and include personalities who, though they had never had the opportunity to visit our country, had shown great interest in it. That’s how I discovered Leibniz (1687), the mathematician who was disregarding his Latin studies only to try to find out what the origin of the Basque language was. It was he who commissioned Pierre d’Urte, the Basque Huguenot who’d been exiled to London, to write a Basque dictionary that was found 200 years later in a castle in Oxford. Then there was Pier Paolo Pasolini (1975), a fervent defender of the dialects of Italian, who commented that the defense of language must reach the limit of separatism, and using the Basque people as an example. The Basque diaspora must also have had its place, given the profound mark it has had on the development of many States. Basque whalers and American sheepherders had left their memory wherever they went. Proof of this are the works of Selma Huxley and Robert Laxalt, and also a funny anecdote by Perkins in 1852 in California, where the Mexicans were left dumbfounded by how the Basques spent their time after work lifting stones for fun. They couldn’t believe it.
The collection of authors is made up of 1,219 men and women in chronological order, from Titus Livius in the 1st century BC to the specialized journal Heritage Daily, which declared the Hand of Irulegi as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of 2023. The book presents chronicles highlighting quotes and illustrations that come from an incredibly diverse set of points of view. The great majority of authors who visit us come without preconceived notions that might color their tale. They are therefore not influenced by what had already been noted by French and Spanish historiography. The testimonies these travelers offer are, in many cases, diametrically opposite those which are told is said chronicles. Most of them tell us, with certain bitterness, about the misfortune of the violent separation that the border cut through the middle of our territory causes, and about the political paradox of seeing a people divided between two States.
Sometimes they are nothing more than simple travelers; others, however, are famous people (Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Nabokov, etc.) who, despite observing us with a critical eye, never cease to have an agreeable view to a people suffering the agony destined for all small peoples: the struggle to try to create a space for themselves on European soil and not suffer the destiny of the dispossessed. To not suffer the fate of being erased, forever, from the map of nations. That is what great erudite Wilhelm von Humboldt stated in his 1799 letter to poet Goethe, when he stated he had “never met a people who had maintained such a marked national character.”
The effort shown by some of these visitors to mix with the people, to share their rooms and participate in their recreations and disputes, represents for them a direct implication that alters the order of things. All of them end up surprised by a society that is ruled by means of moral values and a sense of justice that rather separates them from the model imposed by those powerful tales that neighboring States promote. If anyone wanted to know about someone’s life, first they’d have to consult their autobiography, and then they’d have to discover the opinion those who knew the person had of them. Talking to neighbors would of course not be the best option. In our case, the lens through which the Spanish and French see us is interested and quite small. That’s why it’s important to find other sources, people who come without preconceptions, with their neutral viewpoint. That’s why this book has a touch of an anthropological view. Sarrionda already said in the prologue that the book is “a source of historical information of unique value, especially for social, cultural, and perspective history.”
Travelers observe, delve, and take not, and they’re surprised by the vitality of a people that probably should have ceased to exist a long time ago. But they’re still alive and kicking, with all the particularities that make them so unique and, at the same time, so anachronistic. Finding a people in Europe that preserved their lost traditions, that spoke their original language, and that lived their yearning for freedom and self-government in such a passionate way earns them, at the very least, respect and recognition. They generally empathize with their ways and means, even when these are sometimes too efficient. But many do say this: the Basques have a lot to lose with the social anarchy that has reached the other Spanish provinces. The management they make of their own resources is impeccable. There are few peoples in Europe that are so well organized. The defend what’s theirs because they know that no one is going to offer them anything better.
And the list of authors goes on, offering a wide and diverse look at our towns, our landscapes, and our peoples. They are anthropologists who never cease to be amazed when witnessing customs they’d thought had vanished, travelers who perceive the simple dignity of the residents, historians who collect political and social principles that seem out of time, journalists who share tragic reports from the front, politicians who praise the order that the fueros settle, soldiers who write diaries from the trenches, hired mercenaries who desert because they cannot face the injustice, feminists taken aback by the freedom the women enjoy, sociologists who allude to the reigning social egalitarianism, and sailors who extol the bravery of the whalers. They all then make up a long list of objective analysts who tell a unique and different tale about the history of the Basque Country, a real and authentic image of the important role the Basque people have played in the construction of modern Europe. The Basque people’s yearning for freedom and independence, which is repeated like a postscript throughout the chronicles, must not be contemplated as a negative term, as a need to raise barriers between neighboring States, but rather as a determination to be able to interact among the historical territories themselves and other nations without obstacles and thereby be able to manage their own resources. The word, then, does not have the same consideration that it is usually given these days with the word “nationalism” or “separatism.” American author Mark Kurlansky noted this in 1999: “There is no word that defines the Basques worse than the term ‘separatists.'”
This book, from an insider’s point of view, a critical but affectionate look at everything we have been.
Last Updated on Mar 2, 2024 by About Basque Country