If you look at the Pyrenees on a map, they're like a line. Moreover, if someone tells us to paint the Pyrenean mountain range, we would surely plant the mountains together, although it looks something like what in English they call skyline. This image of the saw allows us to quickly associate the mountain border, as the boundaries and lines are almost synonyms for us.
However, we must bear in mind that modernity has greatly changed our spatial imaginary. We understand the territories of the world as maps. That is, for us territories have surface, and the limits are imaginary lines that are placed on that surface, graphic lines. But this has not always been the case. Before developing cartography, the view of the territory was different. In Roman times, for example, territories were understood horizontally. The triangulation of the territory was unknown, as we do today. To understand or describe the territories, the routes were used, that is, only the stops to be made from one place to another. That is why it is said that Rome dominated peoples more than territories. Modern colonization, on the contrary, focused its attention on the dominance of the territory and, with it, deepened the science of maps. The plane has conditioned our spatial imaginary.
"Until yesterday in these Pyrenean mountains there were no limits, but there were shared places, houses of different peoples, music, bertsos, exchanges and anger and fights among the public"
Let us now return to the Pyrenees. The truth is, if we look closely, we won't see a mountain range, because the mountains are not located next to each other, but they're like they're in a state of disorder. They have no form of line, but a proud mountain sea. In fact, this large territory, like other mountainous territories, has become accustomed very badly to the straight lines of modernity and has greatly hindered the project to official states "sufficiently". Therefore, although in 1635 France and Spain decided in the Pyrenees that their limits between them were necessary to establish that rectilinear cairn, to impose their new milestones, to investigate the level curves, to study the imperfections, to look carefully at the communal territories... with all these circumstances. It took about 200 years. Specifically, until 1868, they did not have the treaty of Bayona until then. 200 years to put a simple line, there's a little time.
That is, until yesterday in these mountains there were no limits, but there were shared places, houses of different peoples, music, bertsos, exchanges and fights among the public. Among the giant states, skipping through the jaws, small towns have had unique data flows.
For example, in the early 11th century, very far away, someone wrote a poem in honor of a santa named Santa Fer de Agen, perhaps based on folk songs. In that song a thousand years ago, so far away, so mysterious, that we cannot know if it was written in Catalan or in Occitan, in that long song dedicated to Santa Fe, we find the typical atmosphere of Pyrenean exchange; and more: There are three Pyrenean peoples. These three peoples, who are not stateless, have survived and continue to face fictitious lines.
Tota Basconn'et Aragons
and found delz gascons
sabon qals is aqist canczations,
o In the case of a reasonable remedy…
[All Basques and Aragonese,
and lateral Gascones
You know what those songs are.
or if the reasons are real]
Marfa, 1954. At Blackwell Elementary School in this Texas desert village, children were forced to participate in a peculiar ceremony. The teachers distributed pieces of paper to them and asked them to write: “I will not speak Spanish, neither at school nor at rest.” They put... [+]
Her daughter learns to play the ukulele. He once acted with Somewhere over the rainbow notes. The author of this version was Israel Kamakawiwo?ole. As you see, Mr Israel’s last name is quite special to us. So special that “Cira, this is not an English surname, maybe behind... [+]
A few years ago, I wrote a little book about Tene Mujika, which is called Udazken Argitan. When I started doing that biographical essay, I met our protagonist today, Mr. Watson Kirkconnell. In 1928, Kirkconnell published a nice book of European Elect anthology, which included... [+]
A few months ago, I read a very interesting book. National thougth in Europe. A cultural history, by Joep Leerssen, in Catalan version (El pensament nacional Europa, Editorial Afers, 2019). It explains how Europe developed national thinking or, in other words, the national... [+]
The mystery of the origin of the Basque country has intensified with the hand of Irulegi. For me, the discussions on this hand are being nice, because we reiterate that history sometimes flees from the logic we establish from the present and is as human as the people who... [+]
Two weeks ago we left the Occitans preparing their people for war. It wasn't any war. During the 13th century, the sieges were ruthless in the territory of Occitania and suffered unforgettable violence.
We said the Crusade was, in fact, heraxial anti-cataract. The world of... [+]