Basques are a people who inhabit the so-called Basque lands located in northern Spain and southwestern France. Its origin is one of the biggest mysteries not only for Europe, but for the whole world.
Who are the Basques? Where did they come from? If we consider these issues from the standpoint of citizenship, then the Basques are Spaniards and French, because they live in Spain and France. But why do these people speak such an unusual language, completely unlike any other language? How did it happen that for thousands of years of wars and incest, the Basque civilization retained its originality? Regarding this ethnic group, there are a lot of questions that researchers still cannot find answers to. In the article we will try to figure out who the Basques are, and also talk about how these European rebels and proud people live today.
Etymology of the name
To understand the meaning of the word "Basque", you need to turn to history. This word goes back to the Latin vasco - the so-called ancient vascons who lived in the pre-Roman and Roman periods in the territory where the Spanish Basques now live. However, this is not the only people who participated in theirgenesis. The ancestors of the Basques were also Aquitans and, perhaps, Cantabri, as a result of which now one can observe a significant dialectal fragmentation among them.
Origin
Genetic studies have established the uniqueness of the people we are considering. Basques are the people who have the highest proportion of negative Rh factor in their blood among all Europeans (25 percent) and one of the highest proportions of type O blood (55 percent). There is a very sharp genetic difference between representatives of this ethnic group and other peoples, especially in Spain. Therefore, it is hardly possible to say that the Basques are Catalans.
The list of versions about the origin of the mysterious people is very wide. At one time, the hypothesis was discussed that the Basques are Armenians. Then opinions were expressed that they were ancient Georgians, who moved from the territory of present-day Georgia to the Iberian Peninsula in ancient times.
Cro-Magnons among us?
It should be noted that the versions that the Basques originated from Armenians or Georgians retain chances of being proved, but most scientists agree that these are the indigenous inhabitants of Europe, directly descended from the Cro-Magnons, who came 35 thousand years ago to European lands from Africa and those remaining there.
Cro-Magnons probably did not participate in any subsequent migrations of peoples, since archaeologists have not found a single piece of evidence that allows us to talk about a change in the population in this area throughout time, up toappearance of the Romans. This means that all those people who today call themselves Europeans are just children compared to the Basques. Amazing, isn't it?
Escuara
True Basques are those who from birth speak a language called Escuara. There are now about a million such people, of whom over eight hundred thousand live in Spain, more than a hundred thousand in France, and the rest in the United States of America and Latin America.
Linguists have been striving to unravel the mystery of the origin of the escuar for a very long time. Some researchers hypothesize that the Basque language is genetically related to the Iberian language, which has now disappeared; others do not support this idea, but through the version of building an escuar on a Semitic-Hamitic basis, the assumption was born that the ancestors of the Basques were Jews. So, in 1900, the book of J. Espagnol, the French abbot, saw the light, in which he proved the origin of the mysterious people from Spartan colonists who had Jewish roots.
A people is a language
At one time, they also tried to make the Escuar related to the Arabic language, then to Japanese, and not so long ago there was an assumption that the Basque language is associated with the languages of nomadic tribes living in West Africa. However, all hypotheses are not confirmed. Recently, French linguists conducted another study and proved that Escuara is an autonomous language and for eight thousand years, since the Paleolithic, has been developingon one's own. This is the only pre-Roman European language of its kind, which has come down to our time from the depths of millennia.
Lifestyle
As already mentioned, the Basques are a mysterious people living mainly in the territory of two countries - Spain and France. In the French provinces of the Basques, all houses are white and contain red wooden elements. Traditional stone buildings survived only in mountainous areas. In general, the Basques are very sensitive to traditions. Both in cities and in villages, they - from young to old - play pelota, arrange bull competitions, wear famous berets on their heads. This small nation has a unique ethnic identity.
Basque character
Basques - for all their originality - are similar to other inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula with a penchant for irrepressible fun. However, along with this, they are also very quick-tempered. But neither a cheerful disposition nor emotionality prevent them from adhering to a patriarchal lifestyle. This applies especially to those Basques who live far from industrial centers. The mountain dwellers are very religious (most of them Orthodox Catholics) and lead secluded lives.
Kitchen
Basque cuisine is considered one of the best in Europe, and the point is not in the use of sophisticated recipes, but in the fact that these people use mostly only fresh products to create dishes. For example, when fruits and vegetables ripen, the Basques eat them; when a sheep is slaughtered, the meat is eaten. Marinating, s alting, freezing - everythingthese and other similar blanks are not accepted by this people. Basques prefer to eat boiled or stewed foods, they practically do not eat fried foods, and they also do not use spices. The most famous dishes are cod in white sauce and stewed pike fins. Basques love mushrooms, truffles, rice, seafood. They make all kinds of desserts from nuts, berries, fruits, milk. This people produces excellent cheeses and wines.
Clothes
Basque national costumes look very elegant. Women's consists of a fluffy blue or blue skirt and a black short jacket, decorated with lacing and shiny appliqués. The most popular materials for such an outfit are velvet and chintz. Men's costume consists of tight black or brown breeches, black stockings, a belt of the same color, a dark waistcoat and a jacket made of leather or thick fabric with shiny buttons.
Samples of Basque clothing dating back to the late Middle Ages (16th century) have survived to our time. These were sheepskin capes, sewn with coarse thread on the sides and had a cutout for the head.
Echoes of history
Attempts to divide the territories inhabited by the Basques have been made since the sixth to eighth centuries. At different times, the lands located on both sides of the Pyrenees were owned by England, Aquitaine, Spain, and France. And each time the owners wanted to subdue and completely "dissolve" the mysterious people. Ultimately, Basque sovereignty was replaced by local autonomy: for more than five centuries, the Basques in both France and Spain had a special status and privileges intaxation, trade, military service.
All these provisions were contained in the traditional code of laws, which is known as "fueros". All cities, village communities, villages, towns had their own fueros, but at the end of the nineteenth century, the Basque institutions of self-government were abolished, private fueros were destroyed, and the territories were included in the Spanish state and became part of the administrative and legal system of Spain.
From that time on, the inextinguishable, passionate, persistent and selfless desire of the Basques to become a separate state arose.
Freedom-loving and proud
After the liquidation of the autonomy of the Basques in 1937, a movement of this people for national self-determination arose. In the fifties of the twentieth century, the terrorist organization "Euskadi ta Askatasuna" (translated as "Motherland and Freedom", abbreviated as ETA) was created. Over 50 years, the terrorist attacks carried out by her killed around 800 people.
Recently, ETA, following the Irish extremists, announced the cessation of terrorist activities. But for how long? After all, the budget of the Basque terror amounted to more than tens of millions of euros … Of course, I would like to believe and hope that forever. And the Basques themselves, even those who live in remote communities, are tired of having a reputation as an indefatigable, persistent and bloody people in their claims. In fact, they are not like that at all…
