- Unanue, among other things, has left the records of the 30 years of bertsos at Zestoa in the hands of the documentation centre. The background of Goikolea, on the other hand, mainly includes the recordings of the bertsos that took place in the Valley of Léniz in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Xenpelar Documentation Centre has received two valuable donations in recent weeks. The Bertsolari zestoarra Xabier Unanue took the collection of bertsos collected in the loft of his house on February 9. The collection consists, among others, of performances by bertsolaris in Zestoa between 1976 and 2007, performances on the eve of Santa Águeda and recordings of various performances by bertsolaris in Euskal Herria during the last 60 years. It is about 320 recordings in total, as well as over 42,000 transcribed verses and other collections of verses.
On the other hand, the Documentation Centre has also received, at the beginning of the year, the collection of recordings and verses by Bertsos professor and Mondragonese agent Patxi Goikolea. In the late 1970s Xanti Iparragirre, Juanito Akixu and Goikoleak were able to recreate Bertsolarism in the Valley of Leintz with the implementation of the Bertsos school of Alme, a fund that collects the verso recordings made by the latter at that time. It is mainly audio recordings from the 1970s and 1980s, with a total of 185 cassettes. Moreover, Goikolea has transcribed some 330 verses collected in these recordings and has offered a collection of these texts to the Xenpelar Documentation Centre.
These collections, besides being a good witness to the legacy of local Bertsolarism, are a valuable treasure to know and investigate the Basque Bertsolarist movement in recent decades. Coinciding with the granting of these two funds that capture this intense work of years, XDZ will make an inventory and make them available for consultation at its headquarters in the coming months.