Artetsu Saria 2005
Arbaso Elkarteak Eusko Ikaskuntzari 2005eko Artetsu sarietako bat eman dio Euskonewseko Artisautza atalarengatik
Buber Saria 2003
On line komunikabide onenari Buber Saria 2003. Euskonews y Media
Argia Saria 1999
Astekari elektronikoari Merezimenduzko Saria
Egilea: Sandra Ott
Argitaletxea: University of Nevada Press
Orrialde kopurua: 288
ISBN: 978-0874177381
Ezaugarriak: During the first half of the twentieth
century, the French Basque province of Xiberoa was a place of refuge, conflict,
transit, exile and foreign occupation. At the Liberation of France in 1944,
many Xiberoans confronted ongoing local divisiveness, rooted in the interwar
years, and faced new conflicts arising from legal and civic judgments made
during Vichy and German occupation. This book traces the roots of their divided
memories to local and official interpretations of what constituted legitimate
judgment, legitimate behavior and justice during those troubled times.
In order to capture a sense of the diverse ways in which Xiberoan Basques
responded to the Germans in their midst, the author explores and contrasts
the experiences of people in four different communities located within a fifteen
mile radius.
War and occupation anywhere test the resilience of local values and institutions
and often undermine accepted standards of human conduct. The Basque communities
in the Pyrenees of southwestern France were no exception. Between 1914 and
1945, two world wars and the turbulent interwar years had a profound impact
on Basque society, affecting even remote villages and rural farmers. The Great
War of 1914 to 1918 sent many young Basques into French military service and
others over the mountains to Spain or the Americas in flight from conscription.
After the war, labor unrest, class conflict, worldwide depression, and the
rise of fascism brought additional stress to these traditional, deeply conservative
Pyrenean communities. So, too, did the arrival in France of thousands of Basque
and Spanish political refugees from the Civil War in Spain. The fall of France
to the invading Germans in 1940 brought an even more massive displacement
of diverse people into the Pyrenees, a collaborationist regime in Vichy, and
the unwelcome presence of German occupiers.
In this book, anthropologist Sandra Ott examines the impact of war and occupation
on four Basque communities in the French Pyrenean province of Xiberoa. These
communities were long accustomed to the exercise of ancient rights of self-determination
and to unique forms of familial and vicinal interdependence. They had their
own interpretations of what constituted legitimate private and public behavior
and were normally reliant on their own forms of judgment, justice, and reconciliation
to preserve social order.
Using archival documents, many of them classified, and interviews with numerous
Basque witnesses, Ott recounts how these tightly knit communities reacted
to wars, occupation, resistance, and denunciations, as well as to the upheavals
of liberation. Often citing the candid observations of Basques who had direct
experience with these events, she analyzes how war and occupation affected
the Basques’ perceptions of themselves, outsiders, and the boundaries
of their moral and social community. Finally, she reveals how Basque traditional
culture responded to the violence and tumult of war and how ancient traditions
helped restore intracommunity harmony following the divisiveness of occupation
and liberation, and how these traditions shape private and public remembrances
of these events.
War, Judgment, and Memory in the Basque Borderlands, 1914-1945 is
an important contribution to our understanding of the ways a traditional community
responds to crisis and change, and the way public and private memory is influenced
by local culture and values. It is also a moving account of the effects of
foreign occupation and military conscription on Basque communities in the
Pyrenean borderlands between France and Spain.
