Guernica (city)
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- For other uses, see Guernica.
Image:Bizkaia municipalities Gernika.PNG
The city known to speakers of English as Guernica is in Biscay province, in the Basque Country and is part of Spain. Guernica is known to its inhabitants by the Basque language name Gernika (pronounced [geɾˈni.ka], which is anglicised usually as [ˈgwɛɹ.nɪ.kə]). The city is united in one municipality with neighbouring Lumo, and the combined entity is known as Gernika-Lumo (in Spanish, Guernica y Luno). The population of the municipality is 15,571 (2004).
It is currently the seat of the Junta (parliament) of the province of Biscay, whose executive branch is located in nearby Bilbao. For centuries prior it had been the meeting place of the traditional Biscayan assembly, which met under an oak tree, the Gernikako Arbola, which was a symbol of traditional freedoms of the Basque people. The trees are always renewed by their descendants. One of the trees that had lived until the 1800s may be seen, petrified, near the assembly house. A tree planted in 1860 to replace it died in 2004 and was in turn replaced; the sapling which had been set to become the official Gernikako Arbola is also sick so the tree will not be replaced until the earth around the site has been refreshed. A hermitage was built besides the tree to double as an assembly place, followed by the current house of assembly (Casa de Juntas), built in 1826.
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[edit] History
The Lords of Biscay, upon receiving their title, would come to Guernica to swear that they would respect the Biscayan freedoms. Later the lordship became attached to the title of King of Castile so the kings came to Guernica to swear.
Outside the Basque lands the city is best known as the scene of an early instance of aerial bombing by the German Luftwaffe (Condor Legion) on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War (see Bombing of Gernika). The Germans were attacking to support the efforts of Francisco Franco to overturn the Spanish Republican government. The town was devastated, though the Biscayan assembly and the Gernikako Arbola survived. Pablo Picasso painted his famous "Guernica" painting to commemorate the horrors of the bombing. Because of its symbolic value, the current Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country was approved in Gernika 29 December 1978, with the support of the Basque Country government-in-exile, heirs to the 1936 Statue of Autonomy. Every Lehendakari (Basque President) takes his oath there.
[edit] Environment
The Gernika estuary or Urdaibai is a Biosphere Reserve, with a rich area of marsh and sand banks that is home to a great variety of bird species.
[edit] Sports
Gernika is home to the Gernika Jai Alai, one of the main courts for the jai alai sport.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Official site in English, Basque and Spanish
- Image of Guernica
- Painter and art educator Dorothy Koppelman writes on "Aesthetic Realism and Picasso's Guernica: For Life"
- GERNIKA-LUMO in the Bernardo Estornés Lasa - Auñamendi Encyclopedia (Euskomedia Fundazioa) (Spanish)
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