Guernica: Franco, Hitler, Picasso and the Sacred Oak of the Basques

infanta! madonna! guernica! hiroshima!
    (From Study No X, by Pierre Coupey)

A couple of weeks ago, we made our first visit to Guernica (Gernika in Basque), 20 miles or so east of Bilbao. Gernika is the town which was bombed mercilessly by the Germans (at Franco´s behest) during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, in a kind of practice-run for the bombings of the second world war, and which inspired Picasso´s famous painting of the same name.

Franco was out to get the Basques because anyone wanting to control Spain has to reckon with the Basques, who have never really wanted to be part of Spain (it's complicated....) and have retained a tight hold on their border-land, their language and their identity throughout their history. Franco wanted to consolidate his grasp on the whole country, and the Basques were not standing for it. So he decided to show them he meant business by enlisting Hitler to attack perhaps the most symbolically significant town in the Basque Country.

Gernika is central to Basque culture as it´s where Basque leaders (‘Lehendakariak’) for centuries swore (under a sacred oak tree on the hill above the town) to respect the ‘fueros’, the ancient Basque ‘foral laws’ which guaranteed certain democratic and territorial rights to the Basque people.  These laws were often noted by philosophers and politicians of the past as being a forerunner of democratic constitutions. There’s a monument in Bilbao to the American president John Adams, for instance, who cited the Basque fueros as a major influence in the formation of the US constitution.

Controversially, the fueros were suspended when the Spanish constitution of 1876 was introduced, after the complex Carlist Wars which focused on the Basque Country; but the Lehendakariak (since 1978 the presidents of the Basque Country Autonomous Region, under the provisions of the ‘Gernika Statute’ which gave a considerable measure of autonomy back to the Basques) are still sworn in to office here in the beautiful assembly buildings by the oak tree (which fortunately were not destroyed by Hitler´s bombs). (I'm afraid it was a rather dull day when I took the pictures and it was midwinter so the trees are not in leaf...)

Whenever the oak tree looks like dying, a new one is planted next to it using an acorn from the existing tree. Currently, the remains of the previous oak are contained within a classical style canopy while a young oak is doing its ceremonial duty nearby.

Inside the assembly buildings, there´s a lovely oval assembly chamber, and a ceremonial hall with a spectacular glass ceiling showing the sacred oak and the Basque people.

The window was made by a distinguished 19the century Bilbao stained glass workshop whose windows can be seen in various places in Bilbao, too. Perhaps the most spectacular is the great window in the main Bilbao railway station, Abando, which depicts the Bilbao industrial revolution.

Gernika´s sacred oak tree and its bond with the fueros – central symbols of Basque national identity – and its suffering at the hands of the Germans and the Spanish state during the Spanish civil war – make it a poignant and politically highly significant place.  The town itself, devastated by the bombing – and Franco went on to bomb many other Basque towns, though not as devastatingly as Gernika – has now been rebuilt, and is home to two fine museums – the Museum of the Basque Country, and a Peace Museum, which together tell the story of Basque identity, culture and conflict from the stone age to the Civil War, and on to ETA terrorism and contemporary Basque nationalism.

And what of Picasso’s painting? Picasso’s role as an ambassador of peace and an anti-fascist activist – which came about partly through his natural political leanings and partly as a result of the iconic status of the Guernica painting – is something I’ve only recently learnt about, first through a great exhibition, ‘Picasso and Modern British Art’ which I saw in Edinburgh last year, and currently through an exceptionally interesting exhibition that´s on at the Guggenheim now, called ‘L’Art en Guerre: France 1938-1947 - from Picasso to Dubuffet.’ The painting itself is in Madrid, who won’t allow it to be moved to Guernica – yet another nail in the coffin of the tense relationship between Madrid and the Basque Country.

Although Guernica has strong symbolic and ceremonial significance, it´s not, by the way, where Basque government happens. The Basque Parliament, and the residence of the Lehendakari, is in the beautiful city of Vitoria (Gasteiz in Basque) in the south of the Basque Country, which I’ll write about later, and Basque Government buildings are distributed through the three main cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and San Sebastian.