Center for BasqueISSN: Studies 1537-2464 Newsletter Center for Basque Studies N E W S L E T T E R Sandra Ott joins Center faculty Sandra Ott is a new faculty member at the speed my progress I found a family in the SPRING Center who started working half-time in nearby village of Pagole with whom I April and will go to full-time in July. A U.S. boarded so that I was around Basque 2002 native, she comes to us from St. Antony’s speakers the whole time. After one month of College in Oxford, England. She was that, I lived in a small village near St. interviewed by CBS Newsletter editor Jill Michel, where they spoke yet a different Berner. Please see more about Dr. Ott on dialect. I finally moved to Santazi and found NUMBER 65 page 4. a local family to live with. JB: What is your background with regard to Basque studies? In this issue: SO: I decided to concentrate on the Basques for my doctorate in social anthropology at Sandra Ott 1 Oxford as result of a conversation with Peter Rivière, who suggested the Basques as a Eskerrik asko!3group few anthropologists had studied in Nationalism, English, except for Bill Douglass. I wrote to Globalization & Terror Bill in 1975 asking for assistance in setting 4 up my first field trip. He recommended the Politics after 9/11 5 French Basques and suggested I meet with Eugène Goyheneche in Ustaritz. So I Highlights 6 contacted him, and visited in summer 1976. Advisory Board 7 He recommended fieldwork in Santazi (or Ste. Engrace, as it’s known in French), in Dr. Sandra Ott, social anthropologist, Online classes 9 Soule, because it was “the end of the new faculty member at the Center. world”—everyone spoke Basque there, and I Visiting scholars 10 was interested in working in a Basque- My first trip to Reno was the following Studies Abroad in speaking community. While there I went spring—spring of 1977. I was here in with Goyheneche and Ramon de la Sota to residence for a month, and stayed at Louis’ the Basque Country 11 see the pastorale about the history of Ste. Basque Corner [a local Basque hotel/ Liburutegitik 12 Engrace. restaurant] for six dollars a night. During those years, I got to know Jon Bilbao [the I had tried to learn Basque at Oxford with Center’s Basque bibliographer and library tapes and a dictionary. My first attempt at curator for many years] very well. On my last formal study was at Mendiberri, a Basque day here of that 1977 trip, Jon came to my language school in the French Basque office and said “Sandra, pack up your things, region. They were teaching batua (unified we’re going gambling.” I protested, saying Basque); I requested Xiberotar studies, to be “But I have to catch an airplane at seven in A semi-annual publication of the able to work in Ste. Engrace. The school the morning to go back to England.” He said Center for Basque Studies, found a garage mechanic who was a native “I don’t care; you’re going gambling with University of Nevada, Reno Souletin speaker, and he and I had daily me. You’ve been in Reno for one month and Reno, NV 89557-0012 tutorials sitting under a tree outside the haven’t been to the casinos yet.” So he took convent where the school was located. To (continued on p. 2) 1 Center for Basque Studies Newsletter me back to Louis’ to put my books away, and published work, The Circle of Mountains, there I had my first picon punch; then we particularly the chapter on blessed bread. I went to the Nugget where I met John recently discovered, when I was in Santazi Ascuaga [Basque owner of that hotel/casino] with my adopted Basque family, that it was for the first time. We had seafood there and the priest in Santazi in 1942, when the then gambled until five in the morning. I Germans first came there, who decided that remember that Jon lost twelve dollars and I the households would take turns providing won nine. Later on I worked as Jon’s food for the Nazis. The obligation would assistant director in the summer school in pass in the same direction as blessed bread, Euskadi, and as the first director for the but the two obligations would never beginning of the Studies Abroad Consortium, coincide—in other words, they would not in San Sebastián. mix a secular duty with a spiritual one. JB: You go back quite a ways with the That piece will probably be published as an Center, then. You’re coming full circle. What article, as part of a collection by the about currently? What are you working on University of Toulouse and the Ecole des now? Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Then I want to return to my work on the SO: I identified myself to someone Resistance movement in the French Basque yesterday as a “resurrected academic.” Country, because very little has been Having been a university administrator for published about that. nearly twenty years, I’ve only been a The sculpture Orreaga by Nestor resurrected academic JB: Aren’t you Basterrechea is displayed in for three weeks… writing a novel on Getchell Library at UNR, on loan What I’m working on that as well? from J.R. Cengotitabengoa and actually involves Gema Egaña de Cengotitabengoa. new research for me. “I identify myself as SO: The novel was I was invited to started during my The Center for Basque Studies attend an a ‘resurrected sabbatical in 2000, Newsletter is a semi-annual international when I had six publication sent free of charge conference in Tarbes, academic.’” months’ leave from to any interested person. If you France in May, by my job. I will set it would like to receive the French historians aside for another newsletter in paper format, who have long been interested in my work year or so, because in coming here the first please send your name and on the Basques. The theme of the conference priority is to publish journal articles and postal address to: is “Religion and Mountains” so I decided to work towards an academic book. But the write about the role of the Basque clergy in academic work I’m doing is going to enrich Center for Basque Studies / 322 the first part of the twentieth century that novel anyway. One will help the other. University of Nevada, Reno because work I’d done in 2000 for my Those are my immediate research interests. Reno, NV 89557-0012 sabbatical focused on the German occupation of the French Basque country. I’d already JB: What hopes do you have for your time Or e-mail us at: [email protected] done a lot of background on the Second here at the Center? Do you have specific World War, the occupation in the French goals in mind? Of course some of your duties The newsletter is also available Basque Country, and knew something about are defined for you… electronically, in a printable what the priests had done during that time. format. If you would like to This conference has an emphasis on forms of SO: I can’t emphasize enough how receive the newsletter in local religion. I decided to write about “The delighted I am to be here. I’m lucky to have electronic format, thus saving Secular and Spiritual Role of the Basque this post and I’ve been sitting in my office printing and postage costs, Clergy in the 1930s and 1940s.” I’m looking all week feeling immensely happy about please let us know your e-mail at the involvement in the Basque clergy being here. The library is tremendous, what address. against the secularism and liberalism of the a great resource it is! And the luxury of Republic at the time, and the influence of being able to read and write, after so many Please visit our web site: Abbadie Pierre Lafitte on the preservation of years in university administration where my the Basque language, and what became the time and energies have been solely beginnings of the French Basque Nationalist concentrated on personnel, finances, IT, and basque.unr.edu movement. administrative details. The return to scholarship is a gift and I feel immensely grateful and privileged to be here. So my Produced by Center for Basque Following that, I’m going to combine my historical approach with an ethnographic primary goal is not only to return to my Studies, University of Nevada, approach as a social anthropologist by academic work but to produce scholarly Reno. Jill Berner, editor. focusing specifically on the mountain articles and books that will enhance the The University of Nevada, Reno is an Equal community of Santazi, the role of the clergy reputation of the Center and be of interest to Opportunity / Affirmative Action, ADA institu- there during the German occupation. I’m not only Basque scholars, but I hope will tion. 05/02 10,000. going to link that part of the paper with my have international interest, given that I’m 2 Center for Basque Studies Newsletter also bringing to the Center my specialization because those kinds of exchanges do in France. Among the faculty I’m the French enhance the academic community and also Basque representative. I think that will enable scholars from the Basque Country to Eskerrik asko! complement the specializations of the other widen their intellectual horizons; it’s a faculty members.