A Future Built on Remembrance

Contemporary Basque society can only be understood in connection to the consequential events of the fleeting twentieth century. This had a lasting impact on the psyches of the Basques. A clear example of this, in the case of the Basque Autonomous Country (BAC), is that (part of) society still refer to the period beginning in 1936—or even further back, in 1931—to justify, understand, and explain present-day circumstances.

Xabier Irujo is the director of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is a professor of genocide studies. He was the first Guest Research Scholar of the Manuel Irujo Chair Fellowship at the University of Liverpool, William Douglass visiting lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Eloise Garmendia Chair at Boise State University. With BA and MA degrees in philology, history, and philosophy, he holds two doctorates in history and philosophy. He has directed numerous doctoral theses and is part of the scientific committees of five academic and university publishers. He is the author of more than twenty books and a number of articles in specialized journals and has received awards and distinctions at the national and international levels, including the Gernika Prize for Peace and Solidarity in 2019. He has dedicated the last two decades to studying the bombing of Gernika and has collaborated with the Gernika Documentation Center in searching for archival material about the bombing. As a result of these investigations are his trilogies on the bombing of Gernika and the political exile. Among his latest books, we highlight the trilogy on the bombing of Gernika: Gernika: Genealogy of a Lie (Sussex Academic Press, 2019), The Bombing of Gernika (Center for Basque Studies Press - University of Nevada, Reno, 2018), Gernika: April 26, 1937 (Crítica, Barcelona, 2017) and Legal History of the Basque Language (HAEE, Bilbao, 2015).



Unai Belaustegi was an adjunct professor at the Department of Contemporary History of the University of the Basque Country (EHU) since 2016, and an associate professor since 2022. He currently is the Secretary of the Section and Coordinator of the Teaching Team of the Department of Contemporary History in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Graduated in history from the EHU (2006), he holds a Master in contemporary history from the University of the Basque Country (2007) and a Master in teacher training for compulsory secondary education by the EHU (2007). He holds a PhD in contemporary history (2014) with international mention and extraordinary award (2016). He received a predoctoral scholarship from the Basque Government in the 2009 call, with a stay as a visiting researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno (2013). Afterward, he obtained two other postdoctoral scholarships at the EHU that allowed him to develop his research at the University of Santa Barbara, California (2015-2016). He has also been a Visiting Researcher at the University of Messina (Italy, 2017).