In an interview with the magazine Aiurri, the author of the book, Xabier Lasa Bergara, highlights a photograph that shows eleven bertsolaris who participated in the Andoain tournament, held a month before the outbreak of the war, including Joxinixio Etxeberria Merdilledi. "Although I've been watching, I haven't found any other similar cases in the whole of the Basque Country. This tournament indicates what kind of verse love there was at that time in Andoain."

The Basque Renaissance with strength in Andoain

The first part of the book deals with the central thesis of Lasa Bergara: that the Basque Renaissance revived the most prosperous period during the Republic (1931-1936) and the pain that Francoism brought to bertsolaris and dialects: "In reaction to the fact that the threat of the political and cultural uniformization of Spain felt real after the abolition of the Fueros, a movement for the Basque language and culture and customs, called the Basque Renaissance, was born in the Basque Country, which surged during the Republic at the initiative of the generation of Aitzolen."

At that time, Andoain had 4,000 inhabitants, who are examples of the flourishing of the Renaissance movement in the town, as the book tells us, literature, journalism, theater, bertsolarismo were treated in Basque...

The military coup of 1936 completely reversed this reality, establishing a single language (Spanish) and a single mentality (Francoism) by means of weapons: “You just have to see that many of the Basques were shot, many were imprisoned, exiled and intimidated. The message was clear to those who worked for the Basque language. But still, during the Franco era, some of the Spaniards did their homework."

Joxinixio Etxeberria Merdilledi, bertsolari warrior

The second part of the book explores the biography. In the words of Lasa Bergara "he put his acting verse at the service of dialeccalism and patriotism". He sang at the rallies of the ELA union, the ENB farmers’ union or the EAJ and also sang in the final of the main championship of bertsolaris in the Basque Country, in which Chirrita won. In the words of Lasa Bergara, "he received the tradition or shadow of the Flrita on the one hand, and took the verse out of the cider houses and into the theaters on the other hand, the more modern of Basarri". During the Republic, Lasa found verses written by Etxeberria in the newspaper El Día and in LUZ.

He also stood out as a warrior, in a military strategy that seems to have a special instinct and was a spy or "spy" on the Biscayan front: he made night incursions towards his enemies, dressed as a carlist or phalangist. José Antonio Agirre was trusted by the president.

Lasa Bergara confessed, "I thought it was a completely novel character. He died in a tragic way.” He was killed in the trenches of Artxanda by the Francoists in the great offensive against Bilbao, with the machine gun in his hands and shouting for the Basque homeland. It was reported that a well-known carlist from his own neighborhood (Cabecera) killed him with bayonets.

Andoain's verses, since 1936

The last part of the book contains biographies of 53 other people from the 20th century Andoain verse world: "It would be a question of the belief that has spread over the last few decades that, before the release of the bertsolaris Sorozabal and Mendiluze, the Andoain have hardly contributed to bertsolaris." Among these 53 are those who have all kinds of relations with the verse: from the plazas, from the friends, from the bastards, from the operatives, from the passionate bertsos, from the singers of the old verses...

The only woman, Anastasi Etxeberria: "I also wanted to mention female bertsolaris in the book, but I found it very difficult. At that time the bertsolaris sang mostly in bars and cider houses and the women had closed the road. I think there were a lot of women who could sing. For example, Anastasi Etxeberria, from the Maxartegi farmhouse, is said to have performed verses with his father in the living room; with the doors closed, with no other witnesses. This passage tells us a lot."