{"id":11574,"date":"2024-03-26T10:26:57","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T09:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/presentation\/"},"modified":"2024-03-26T11:00:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T10:00:09","slug":"presentation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/presentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"11574\" class=\"elementor elementor-11574 elementor-11039\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d1c5b1c e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"d1c5b1c\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b3a4a24 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"b3a4a24\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-b19a88e e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"b19a88e\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;gradient&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a6838b1 elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"a6838b1\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 18-04-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-image{text-align:center}.elementor-widget-image a{display:inline-block}.elementor-widget-image a img[src$=\".svg\"]{width:48px}.elementor-widget-image img{vertical-align:middle;display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"527\" height=\"623\" src=\"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Joseba.webp\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-11042\" alt=\"Joseba Agirreazkuenaga Zigorraga\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Joseba.webp 527w, https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Joseba-254x300.webp 254w, https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Joseba-300x355.webp 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 527px) 100vw, 527px\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1099eb9 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"1099eb9\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;gradient&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-c90ee5c elementor-widget elementor-widget-hub_fancy_heading\" data-id=\"c90ee5c\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"hub_fancy_heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"ld-fancy-heading-6acce2ce5c0ce\" class=\"ld-fancy-heading pos-rel\">\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"ld-fh-element d-inline-block pos-rel  elementor-heading-title lqd-highlight-classic lqd-highlight-grow-left h2\"  > Joseba Agirreazkuenaga\nZigorraga<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-8a80fcc elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"8a80fcc\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 18-04-2024 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>Joseba Agirreazkuenaga, Full Professor emeritus of contemporary history (University of the Basque Country). Member of the Biography &amp; Parliament Research group (www.ehu.eus\/eu\/web\/biography-parliament\/\u2013\/joseba-agirreazkuenaga). Euskadi research award, 2019. President of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (ICHRPI), 2015-2023. Author of 27 books, such as <em>The Making of the Basque Question<\/em> (2011) or <em>Euskal Herritarren burujabetzaz<\/em> (2012), 99 chapters published in collective books, and 86 articles in indexed journals.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-0a7f504 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"0a7f504\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-afbf5e9 elementor-widget elementor-widget-hub_fancy_heading\" data-id=\"afbf5e9\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"hub_fancy_heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"ld-fancy-heading-6acce2ce5d284\" class=\"ld-fancy-heading pos-rel\">\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"ld-fh-element d-inline-block pos-rel  elementor-heading-title lqd-highlight-classic lqd-highlight-grow-left h2\"  > Foreword<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e7aac05 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"e7aac05\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>The authors of this grand visual encyclopaedia believed that I, the author of this foreward, could undertake writing a proper introduction, a proof of trust to which I am much obliged. However, I am not so convinced. Historical cartography is a subject that requires patient expertise and is achieved through long-term experience and perseverance in critical analysis. Moreover, it also demands the passion of a seasoned collector and unquenchable curiosity, virtues that come together in the trajectory that I know about regarding both authors. The work you hold in your hands is solid in its content and meticulous in the selection of cartographic representations, designed by outsiders rather than by local people over the last millennium, with their focus set on the whole of the Basque Country \u2013 Vasconia, or different parts of it.<\/p><p>This is no ordinary work, but the result of an experience performed by two researchers who independently transformed their passion for cartographic representation of the Basques into critical knowledge when producing maps. Their respective introductions set out the objectives and concerns pursued by the work, and this introduction of mine will try to frame it in a historiographic perspective.<\/p><p>In 1892, Anton Abbadia, or Abbadie in French, organised the <em>Euskaldun Bestak<\/em> in Donibane Lohizune, Basque for Saint-Jean-de-Luz. These Basque festivals took place for 40 years, under the banner of the <em>Zazpiak Bat<\/em>, \u201cthe 7 Basque provinces make just one\u201d. In his final speech, he acknowledged that his voice was fading, and, once again, invoked the value represented by the unity of the <em>Zazpiak Bat<\/em>. Participants in the event, then, stood up and sang the Basque national anthem, the <em>Gernikako Arbola<\/em>.<\/p><p>For its part, the <em>Societ\u00e9 d\u2019ethnographie nationale et d\u2019art populaire<\/em> organised a congress on Basque studies, namely, the Congr\u00e8s de la Tradition Basque, from 15 to 22 August, 1897 in Donibane Lohizune- Saint-Jean-de-Luz and researchers from both sides of the Bidasoa river were invited, along with <em>bertsolaris<\/em> (Basque troubadours) and traditional dancers from Zuberoa, Beasain and Bilbo. According to the chronicle of the Congress, the attendees sang the glories of an <em>Euskal Herria<\/em>, or Basque Country, made up of 7 sister provinces (\u201c<em>pour les gloires de la ch\u00e8re Eskual-Herria, des sept provinces s\u0153urs<\/em>\u201d). The president of the regional government of Gipuzkoa, Manuel Lizarriturri, a conservative liberal,celebrated the preservation of \u201cthe characteristics of the inhabitants of <em>Euskal-Erria<\/em>, who call themselves the offspring of the <em>Zazpiak Bat<\/em>, and serve as a bridge between the two sister nations, France and Spain, made to understand each other forever, and to love each other\u201d.<\/p><p>One of the speakers, Adrien Plant\u00e9, president of the <em>Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des sciences, lettres et arts de Pau<\/em>, spoke and published a contribution entitled, \u201c<em>Les Basques ont-ils une histoire<\/em>\u201d? (Do the Basques have a history?). Whether the French or the Spanish, as citizens of their respective nation-states, had one or not was beyond doubt. One of the organisers of the event, the mayor of Donibane Lohizune, Dr. Albert Goihenetxe, replied that \u201c<em>Basques are like honest women: they don\u2019t have a history<\/em>\u201d. The male chauvinist interpretation of the illustrious doctor from the Basque coastal town, prompted the speaker to question the strength of Basque nationality: \u201c<em>Qu\u2019est-ce qui a fait la force de la nationalit\u00e9 basque?<\/em>\u201d, since, although they did lack a history, such as it was understood at the height of European colonial thought, nevertheless, the social institutions of their constitutions, known as Fueros or Fors, had made them a legislating people, who respected women\u2019s rights in their customary legal system.<\/p><p>In the 18th century, it was common to distinguish between cultured and barbarian nations, i.e. those without a grammar and dictionary. It was therefore imperative for the Basque language and Basque speakers to produce a grammar and a dictionary, a project that culminated with the writer and historian Manuel Larramendi (1690-1766), when he wrote and published a grammar of the Basque language entitled <em>El Imposible vencido. Arte de la Lengua Bascongada<\/em> (1729), as well as the <em>Diccionario triling\u00fce del castellano, vascuence y lat\u00edn<\/em> (1745). However, that was not enough, because, as Friedrich Engels explained in the mid-19th century, the peoples who had not achieved independence, for example, the Basques, owed their status to their lack of necessary vitality and were therefore left off of maps. They belonged to the past, to peoples without history, and the same was true of the peoples colonised by Europeans in the continents of America, Africa or Australia. The attribution of a supposed absence of history was only the prelude and necessary framework for the justification of civil and political negationism, as well as the practice of colonialism.<\/p><p>When in 1801 Wilhelm von Humboldt noted that \u201cthis wretched people has thus lost even the unity of its name\u201d, he concluded that \u201cwhen it comes to all of the people scattered throughout the Basque-French country, the Basque provinces and Navarre: [they are] Basques\u201d. A few years later, the British traveller Richard Ford wrote: \u201cThe Basques call themselves Euscaldunac, their country Euscaleria (sic), and their language Euscara\u201d. However, for those who wrote in Basque, the reference to the euskaldunak of the past and the name <em>Euskal Herria<\/em> for the territory from Zuberoa to Biscay was commonplace and self-evident, as pointed out by the physician and essayist Joanes Etxeberri (1688-1749) in his works.<\/p><p>These subjects and agents, the Basque speakers, are not timeless or \u201cnatural\u201d, and live in a space that was represented graphically on successive maps and they express themselves and constitute themselves as such by means of stories and narrations, manifesting a greater or lesser self-awareness, of <em>ipseity<\/em>. The analysis and representation of their will and experiences corresponds to historians and cartographers who imagine them in space. But not only them, because poets, novelists or documentary producers can also modify and recreate these views, including anachronistic manipulations. This is why critical reflection and production of well-documented works based on scientific rigour is necessary in light of the fact that any scientific work is subject to review. States, nations, peoples, are discursive constructions, necessary for our common life, which emerge, develop and transform over the course of time. History provides the grounds to learn how to think historically, analysing short cycles and long durations, while cartography attempts to fix a creative delineation that helps to specify and settle our memory.<\/p><p>The purpose of this visual encyclopaedia is to show the image that has been made of the Basques and their territory in cartographic documents and maps. It is an exercise in both systematic and selective reflection on and compilation of the representation of their space over the last millennium.<\/p><p>When the Greek-Latin geographer Strabo (64 B.C. \u2013 21 A.D.) described the peoples of the northern Iberian Peninsula in the first century A.D., he classified them into gens or groups, but at the end of the Roman Empire, a territory names its inhabitants, Vasconia the Vascones, or Vardulia the Varduli, in the current territory of Gipuzkoa.<\/p><p>The emergence and differentiation of particular histories from universal history took place at the end of the Middle Ages. The territory, the plot of land, and not the gens or group, is the point of reference for dividing up the discourses of universal history. In the world map of the monastery of Saint-Sever exhibited in this work, the world is surrounded by oceans and provides a means to explain the Apocalypse in the 11th century. The map shows time and space combined, but the monastery is also represented in the territory called <em>Wasconia<\/em>, bordering on <em>Gallicia<\/em>, since the Pyrenean mountains extend from present-day Galicia to Girona, a vision that lasted at least until 1930 in French geography. In the 11th century, Vasconia extended along both sides of the Pyrenees, as already noted in the 7th century by the anonymous Geographer of Ravenna, who established a high density of Vascon settlements in <em>Guasconia<\/em> or <em>Vasconum patria<\/em>, and <em>Spanoguasconia<\/em>.<\/p><p>The printed cartography and information that has been preserved about the Basques expanded in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly due to the expansion of the maritime civilisation of the Basques. The inhabitants of the coasts that sink into the so-called Kantabrian Sea, Sea of <em>Biscaia<\/em>, Sea of the Basques (<em>mer des Basques<\/em>) or the Bay of Biscay in successive maps participated directly in a new phenomenon, such as that of globalisation, a planetary expansion led by the Europeans of the Atlantic coast. The fact that the merchant and navigator Juan Sebastian Elkano, a native of the Basque coastal town of Getaria (Gipuzkoa), commanded the first circumnavigation voyage around the planet together with Johan Acurio from Bermeo and other intrepid navigators from various European nations, was not a product of chance. The Bay of Biscay had become a great shipyard for the construction of all kinds of maritime vessels and its merchants showed the financial capacity to undertake ambitious projects in the service of their respective monarchies. The establishment of the Consulate of Bilbo in 1511, with jurisdiction over Biscay, Gipuzkoa and Araba (Alava), is its institutional exponent. Likewise, Bayonne and Donibane Lohizune regained economic momentum, while charts were published in French, Spanish and Basque from the 16th to the 18th century, and a Basque school was formed to map the fishing grounds of Newfoundland, based on the experience earned on the European Atlantic coasts. Nautical charts and courses were highly valued documents by fishermen, merchants and sailors. The Flemish and Dutch, however, created an industry for the dissemination and commercialisation of maps. The reader will find the ones related to the Basque Country presented and commented on in this work.<\/p><p>Esteban Garibay (1533-1599) was an outstanding Renaissance historian who explained the transition from the Basque society of the <em>handikis<\/em> or <em>jauntxos<\/em>, the local warlords who played a leading role in the late medieval War of the Bands, to its integration into the new Spanish composite monarchy whose expansion seemed to know no boundaries. This was a period with a multiplicity of competing powers which selected the subjects of their narratives. In the General Assemblies, they fashioned new accounts and stories in the context of the French and Spanish composite monarchies in order to preserve public power in their sphere. Gipuzkoa was mapped in 1578 with precise information and placenames, probably on the initiative of Esteban Garibay, who happened to be in Antwerp between 1571 and 1572, preparing the edition of his work <em>Los Quarenta Libros del Compendio Historial<\/em> (\u201cThe Forty Books of the Historical Compendium\u201d). The Regiment of Biscay, public governmental body elected at the General Assemblies of that seigniory, also commissioned a map of Biscay in 1591, so that this territory would appear on the world map that was being published in Flanders, but it was never produced. On the other hand, the Kingdom of Navarre was the most abundantly mapped Basque territory from the 16th century onwards. However, the mapping or cartography of a Kingdom of Navarre conquered by Castile between 1512 and 1524, besides being an act of recognition of its status as a kingdom, could also respond to military objectives, since maps, like navigation charts, were the route and guide of the armies, as well as a means of communication between the kingdom and its inhabitants. From the 16th century onwards, the rise of new fiscal-military monarchies in Europe promoted a profound knowledge of their territories through cartography.<\/p><p>The publication in print of political customs and practices, such as the idiosyncratic Laws, <em>Fueros<\/em>, represented the recognition and legality of the political and legal corpus since the relevant royal permission was necessary for its printing. Similarly, the production and financing of a map contributed to the public recognition of the territory in question. That is why in the 19th century, the Basque authorities undertook the publication of successive territorial maps of the Basque Country.<\/p><p>Likewise, in the 21st century, the production and dissemination of a work of historical cartography, such as the present one, is also an act of re-reading, prestige and recognition of the Basque Country -Euskal Herria.<\/p><p>The 17th century was a period of scepticism and philosophical relativism which contributed to lay the foundations of documentary criticism instrumental for the development of historical sciences. In this context, Arnaud Oihenart (1592-1637), a lawyer of the \u201cSilviet\u201d or assembly of the common people of Zuberoa, as well as a lawyer of the Parliament of Navarre, published a history, <em>Notitia Utriusque Vasconiae, tum Ibericae tum Aquitanicae<\/em> (\u201cNews of both Vasconias, the Aquitanian and the Iberian\u201d). In this book, the historiographical subject is the \u201c<em>vasconicus (&#8230;) [those] who in Latin are called Kantabrians, whom the French call Basques or Biscayans and the Spaniards call Vascongados<\/em>\u201d. He criticised the myth of Basque-Kantabrianism that underpinned the historical discourse on the Governments held by the regional General Assemblies. A contemporary of his, the chronicler of the Kingdom of Navarre Joseph Moret, edited a history of Navarre adapted to the framework of the Spanish composite monarchy. In the continental Basque Country, located to the north of the Pyrenees, a unitary perspective of the Basques continued to be cultivated in the course of the 18th century, i.e. the writer from Zuberoa Joan Filipe, or French Jean Philippe, Bela composed a Basque history of the \u201cseven\u201d territories. In 1765, the Basque Society of the Friends of the Country, an institution established under the influence of the Enlightenment, saw the need to design a Basque \u201cnational history\u201d.<\/p><p>During the liberal revolution of the 19th century, the academies and universities of the Spanish and French nation-states invented a past suited to the conception of the new national citizens, i.e. they proceeded to a Spanish and French nationalisation of the historical past in which the history of the Basques was marginalised or vanished, reduced to cultural and folkloric terms. In contrast, historians such as Arturo Campion and Carmelo Etxegarai promoted the transition from legends and myths to a renewed Basque history, based on the critical methodology of historical sciences which developed from the foundation in 1918 of Eusko Ikaskuntza, the Society of Basque Studies, imbued with an innovative approach fostered by its secretary general, the academic and professor \u00c1ngel Apraiz. They promoted the design of a map of the Basque Country, while Bonifacio Etxegarai wrote the entry \u201cVasconia\u201d in the Enciclopedia Espasa (1929), outlining a political-institutional vision of synthesis. Two years later, he had a decisive influence on the blueprint for the \u201cPreliminary Draft Statute of the \u201cBasque State\u201d drawn up in 1931, contributing likewise to the organisation of the 1936 VII Basque Studies Congress, devoted to Historical Studies.<\/p><p>In this context, the most innovative contribution from historical sciences was the excellent research published by Theodore Lefebvre (<em>Les modes de vie dans les Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es atlantiques orientales<\/em>, Paris, A. Colin, 1933) to explain the formation and development of the Basque material civilisation over the last 500 years. This work also contains the first atlas of the economic and social history of the Basque Country. A few years later, in 1949, Julio Caro Baroja published <em>Los Vascos. Etnolog\u00eda<\/em>, a groundbreaking analysis of the history of the Basques that complemented, based on a synthesised vision, both the work of Bonifacio Etxegarai and the history of material civilisation elaborated by Th. Lefebvre.<\/p><p>For his part, during his exile in the Americas, the lehendakari, or Basque president, Jose Antonio Agirre championed and stood up for the democratic legitimacy of the Basque Government, which he had to explain to his students at Columbia University. He was therefore much in need of a renewed Basque history for a new institution, a history charged with the future. In 1947, he presented a paper at the VII Basque Studies Congress in Biarritz, where, together with Ildefonso Gurrutxaga, he promoted the elaboration of a new history that was not conditioned by Franco\u2019s dictatorship. Both from Buenos Aires and from the University of Nevada at Reno, new thoughts emerged on the past of the Basques, taken as a whole.<\/p><p>In 1980, we published a two-volume <em>Historia de Euskal Herria<\/em>, illustrated with 192 maps, including historical cartography. The awakening of History flooded Basque social reality, which raised an interest in historical cartographic works that became the object of research.<\/p><p>At the National University of Distance Education (UNED) in the town of Bergara, in 1984 the professors Felix Ugarte and Juan Madariaga undertook a research project on historical cartography and, in 1989, Felix Ugarte published a fundamental, seminal and benchmark work on research into the historical cartography of the Basque Country, entitled <em>Kartografia. Euskal Herriari buruzko kartografia historikoa (1900 aurrekoa)<\/em>. This work produced the first systematic index of the historical cartography of the Basque Country, for which he made an exhaustive consultation of public archives in the Basque Country, Spain and France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, as well as the private collection of Jaime Rodr\u00edguez Sol\u00eds. According to his estimates, 50% of the cartographic production corresponds to maps from the 19th century, 33% to the 18th century, 8% to the 17th century and 3% to the 16th century.<\/p><p>On the other hand, the Azkue library of Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language, promoted exhibitions of historical cartography in successive toponymy conferences. The first one took place in 1986 in Vitoria-Gasteiz, consisting of 161 maps. In 1987, it was organised in Urdu\u00f1a with 161 maps; this collection of maps was also exhibited in Gernika, Leitza, Zarautz, Iru\u00f1ea (Pamplona). In 1990, on the occasion of the ninth centenary of the foundation of Lizarra-Estella, the above-mentioned cultural institution organised the 3rd toponymy conference in the same town, as well as a cartographic exhibition of 50 maps. Jos\u00e9 Antonio Arana, director of the Azkue library, produced and published the corresponding catalogues of the successive exhibitions.<\/p><p>On the occasion of the production of the <em>Gran Atlas Hist\u00f3rico del mundo vasco<\/em>, chapter 18 featured \u201cHistorical cartography of Euskal Herria\u201d, and summarised research carried out by Felix Ugarte, illustrated with a collection of 22 historical maps belonging to the Jaime Rodr\u00edguez Sol\u00eds collection.<\/p><p>In 1994, one of the co-authors of this book, Ram\u00f3n Oleaga, made his first contribution to historical cartography of the Basque Country by selecting maps and writing texts for an exhibition organised by the Basque Museum in Bilbo, the catalogue of which was entitled <em>Mapa Bilduma, Colecci\u00f3n cartogr\u00e1fica<\/em>. He has subsequently curated exhibitions on Bilbo and other localities. Additionally, in 2004, his 130-page, large-format volume entitled <em>Representaci\u00f3n hist\u00f3rica de los territorios y lugares de Euskal Herria<\/em> made a decisive contribution to the understanding of the milestones that mark the evolution of historical cartography of the Basque Country. Oleaga later examined and published the 66 maps of historical cartography contained and exhibited in the Euskal Herria Museum in Gernika, as well as a monographic study of the historical cartography of Biscay up to the present day.<\/p><p>For his part, Jose Mari Esparza has published numerous works of a different nature. He has done research on his hometown Tafalla. As for this endeavour, it is well worth mentioning his coordination of a seminal research group for the study of democratic memory. He therefore delivered, in 1986, a two-volume edition entitled <em>Navarra 1936. De la Esperanza al Terror<\/em>, a work of oral cartography throughout towns and villages of Navarre about the Franco\u2019s repression that contributed to changing the representation of the past in contemporary Navarre. Closely related to this work, <em>Imago Vasconiae<\/em>, in 2011 he published a book entitled <em>Mapas para una naci\u00f3n<\/em>, a compilation of 120 maps with their respective comments on the representation of the territories of the Basque Country, followed in 2012 by <em>Euskal Herria kartografian eta testigantza historikoetan<\/em>. The book was a publishing hit, as confirmed by the release of consecutive editions of the work. Lastly, we should highlight his book <em>Vasconavarros. Gu\u00eda de su identidad, lengua y territorialidad<\/em> published the same year as a direct precursor to the work we present here.<\/p><p>Their amassed experience and unrelenting research allow now both authors to coordinate their knowledge and efforts to publish and disseminate the maps that define the image and evolution of the graphic representation of the Basque territories.<\/p><p>This work follows the path of other publications on historical cartography in large format that contribute to enhancing and lending prestige to the collective cultural heritage of a given people, political community, or nation. It will suffice to cite as examples, four outstanding works that constitute an indispensable reference: <em>El mapa de Espa\u00f1a. Siglos XV-XVIII; Cartograf\u00eda de Galicia (s\u00e9culos XVI \u00f3 XIX); Imago Cataloniae. Maps of Catalonia, traces of history; Andalusia. The cartographic image until the end of the 19th century<\/em>.<\/p><p>Nevertheless, the prime purpose of this work is that it can also become a contribution to the international project undertaken by Rodney W. Shirley with his <em>The Mapping of the Word. Early Printed World Maps. 1472-1700 and History of Cartography<\/em>, and that, in the future, an established group will be founded to continue research into historical cartography.<\/p><p>All scientific knowledge is an interpretation, including that of this book. The different representations of the Basque Country help us to understand ourselves, and invite us to debate about the Basques historically, as subjects-agents with a historical awareness and wisdom.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joseba Agirreazkuenaga Zigorraga Joseba Agirreazkuenaga, Full Professor emeritus of contemporary history (University of the Basque Country). Member of the Biography &amp; Parliament Research group (www.ehu.eus\/eu\/web\/biography-parliament\/\u2013\/joseba-agirreazkuenaga). Euskadi research award, 2019. President of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions (ICHRPI), 2015-2023. Author of 27 books, such as The Making of the Basque [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11495,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11574","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11574"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11582,"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11574\/revisions\/11582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imagovasconiae.eus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}