Fight and resurrection of the Basque people. Basque history from the appearence of nationalism in the interpretation of the Basque Nationalist Party (1977- 2006)

Abstract

References to the past are essential in the documentation compiled by the Basque Nationalist Party because a concrete interpretation about history is inherent to its doctrine. This article analyzes the version of the Basque history during the last century and a half that the Basque Nationalist Party has maintained and spread for the last thirty years. This article stems from its ideological assumptions, not from a historiographic analysis. The plot is the following: nationalism appears as a response to a violent abolition of charters by Spain. The Basque Country is specifically identified to this nationalism, and conceived as a Basque People of a thousand-year-old identity and origin. The interpretative axis of this period would be the secular and permanent confrontation with the Spanish oppression and also the different phases and circumstances which take place in the same period. The result would be the gradual Basque restoration, insofar nationalism spreads. This historical view, in chapters, would legitimize the mouvement and would mainly justify particular policies such as different perspectives to violence or the situational support of the autonomistic pragmatism.