WHY EUZKO-GOGOA? THE BASQUE LITERARY AND INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORIC CULTURAL MAGAZINE EUZKO-GOGOA (1950-1960)
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Authors
Beldarrain, Ziortza G.
Issue Date
2018
Type
Dissertation
Language
Keywords
Basque Language , Diaspora , Exile , Gender studies , Imagined communities , National identity
Alternative Title
Abstract
A magazine written only in the Basque language with the focus of maintaining alive a culture and language on the brink of extinction under the hands of a totalitarian government. A cultural work created by an exiled priest who was able to develop a network of fellow Basque intellectuals to save and rebuild their beloved motherland through their language. This dissertation examines the imagined community created in the cultural magazine Euzko-Gogoa published in Guatemala and Biarritz (Northern Basque Country) between 1950-1960.The War of 1936 and the subsequent Franco dictatorship depleted the Basque cultural initiatives promoted during the Spanish Second Republic. This project analyzes the reconstruction of the defeated Basque nation made in Euzko-Gogoa’s pages that helped maintain and rebuild a wounded nation. The dissertation will give both a historical and cultural background of the Basque Country and the magazine while also analyzing the publications and the result of its work.Through different forms of analysis such as cultural, national, and postcolonial studies, it will demonstrate how Euzko-Gogoa not only created an imagined community, but also a national consciousness that would create a bridge for the next generation of Basques. This imagined community was created based upon a traditional Basque nationalist ideology seen in the preindustrial Basque Country as a reference for the nation’s future. As described throughout the dissertation, one will understand the differences of life lived in exile and the Southern Basque Country and how an imagined community built in the pages of Euzko-Gogoa conflicted with the reality of a nation.