“PHOTOHISTORY- where past and present come together”

MOBILITY TO GERMANY 1st photograph “Uribarriko Andra Mari” Basilica of Durango Taken by Anekris Bediaga Diez the Basilica “Uribarriko Andra Mari” of Durango represents the official religion in Durango in the XV century. As in Germany, the official church here was the Roman Catholic Church. Nevertheless, during that century many inhabitants of Durango and its surroundings had other faiths: • Here in Durango, as it happened in Bohemia with the Priest Jan Hus, a local Friar named Alfonso De Mella created a different doctrine breaking from the official church, which easily spread around. Similarly, the dragon appeared in Furth at a time of war between the Roman Catholic Germans and the Heretic Bohemians. In Durango, although Mella had many followers, the heretics were a bit more clandestine than in Bohemia. It is said that Durango was called “Tronperri” (City of trumpets) because the heretics were warned by trumpet when the Roman Catholic army was approaching Durango. • There were other believes too. Many people, especially from the villages that surround Durango, believe in the Goddess of the Nature named “Mari” and in many other supernatural beings, such as “Basajaun” and “Tartalo”, which lived in the forest.

MOBILITY TO GERMANY 2nd photograph the statue of Fray Juan de Zumarraga Taken by Anekris Bediaga Diez, the statue of Fray Juan de Zumarraga represents the status quo. Although he was not responsible for the burning of heretics and witches at the stake because he was born after those events, the friar was a member of the infamous Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition was the tool used by the government to restore order and control the behaviour of the people, by punishing them when they did not comply with the rules. It was the same Spanish Inquisition which accused Alfonso de Mella of heresy. In spite of being able to escape his death by fleeing to the South of the Iberian Peninsula, Mella was eventually killed by the Muslims who were ruling that area at the time.

MOBILITY TO GERMANY 3rd photograph Fire Taken by Anekris Bediaga Diez, the fire represents the death sentence for those charged with heresy or witchcraft. As in other parts of Europe, once the Inquisition was established in Durango, many people were found guilty of those crimes and sentenced to die at the stake. Among those accused we find the following: • Heretics, who were mostly, widowed women. At that time, it was difficult to earn a living without a husband. Hence, they found a way to survive by turning to heresy. Within the group, all possessions where shared, including their bodies (promiscuity). • The believers in the Goddess of Mother Nature Mari and other supernatural beings from the forest, where they celebrated the solstices by killing different animals such as goats and sheep and ate their roasted meat. The church accused them of witchcraft by relating goats to the Devil. • Other people were accused of witchcraft by their enemies, for instance, herbalists, who were women that knew about the properties of plants and used them to heal people's illnesses. They used to do the work assigned to doctors, who had to be men in the Middle Ages, and also earned their living by working as midwives. Lots of people resorted to them, so they were seen as a threat by doctors and that is why doctors influenced the church and the Status Quo to charge them with witchcraft.

MOBILITY TO GERMANY 4th photograph Anboto Taken by Maria Baseta Ibarra Anboto represents one of the mythological mountains of the Basque Country. It was believed that Mari (a powerful goddess that represents Mother Nature and its fertility) lived there. The photo also represents the greenness of nature in some parts of the Basque Country. With this picture we are linking the mythology in Furth represented by the Dragons and all its stories with the mythological beings from the Basque country represented by Mari and many other beings that inhabit the forests. In the same way that there are many stories about Dragons in Germany, the Basque Country has lots of stories about supernatural beings such as Mari, Lamiak and Basajaun that inhabit our mountains, rivers and forests.

pHOTOHISTORY CORNER

AUGMENTED REALITY SPOTS

MOBILITY TO ROMANIA. NAROA: In the Basque Country people only wear traditional costumes during the festivals or at Christmas, specifically the day which Olentzero, who is like a Santa Claus for us, comes to our homes leaving presents under the Christmas tree. But in Romania many people use them every day. These festivals and dance teams make the Basque culture boost around young people. This is so important, because wearing those costumes and dancing all together, make people have a good time. Since we celebrate the Santo Tomas festival every year in our school, we have decided to bring a photograph taken by a group of students who were attending “Image and Sound” classes.

MOBILITY TO ROMANIA. ANATOLI. Adrian Damsescu, a doctor with a degree in Romance philology from the Complutense University in Madrid and nowadays teacher at the Transylvania University in Brasov, Romania, said on a trip to the Basque Country that a lot of words in Romanian language are so similar to some words in Euskara (Basque language), or they have a derivative word from a Basque lexeme. According to him, it happens because in the 3rd century, a lot of Basques emigrated to the imperial borders of Dacia. We looked for some examples and we found some of them. We discovered that a lot of words related to water, which in Basque is UR, had that lexeme or the same pronunciation, for example: Ud (wet), sURgau (mountain spring), tURtURic (icicle), abUR (steam)... Other words are puskatu (shoot) Pusca (Rifle), putz or purtz (fart)... Maybe right now all of you are thinking about what kind of relation all this has with the subject we are working, traditional costumes. The answer is easy. It is possible that around that century the Basque were wearing their traditional costumes and the Romanians could take some ideas for their own costumes, so we started to compare. We have known that there are so many types of traditional costumes in Romania. The same happens here. So we decided to compare the most important parts of a Romanian traditional costumes with the Basque ones: - Both of them are related to the villagers, they reflect the traditional life and their desire of freedom - In both cases they wear a shirt, even if the person is a woman or a man. - Women wear skirts, but in this case, while the Basque wear long ones, the Romanians wear shorter ones. - Boys wear long white trousers in both cases. - In the head girls of both countries wear scarfs. - Romanians boys wear traditional hats related to the old Dacia’s and the Basque wear a beret called “boina”. I want to underline that although we like it, all this is only a hypothesis.

MOBILITY TO ROMANIA NAROA: Hi, to everyone. We are the Basque group, Cristian, Anatoli and Naroa. When we were told that we had to research about the unification of the Romanian territories 100 years ago to conform the Romania we know these days and about the traditional costumes in those territories, in order to make a connection with the Basque traditional costumes, we did not know how to start. Some of the members of the group have Romanian parents. Thus, we researched the unification of Romania with their help. We have also made a connection between the unification of Romanian territories with the unification of our language.

MOBILITY TO ROMANIA CRISTIAN: In The Basque Country there have been different kinds of unifications too. The unification of our language is one of the most important ones we have experienced. As many of you surely know, in The Basque Country we speak the oldest language of Europe (Euskara). It is the only language with no Indo-European origin. Although the language has survived thousands of years, in the middle of the twentieth century it was in a difficult situation. On the one hand, it had suffered state repression, and on the other hand, it had not had any clear written rules about grammar, vocabulary and spelling. As a result, it was difficult to create the appropriate conditions for the correct development of the language. In order to turn the situation around and transform the Basque language into a modern language, a group of linguistics established the necessary rules creating a standard Basque language called “Euskara Batua” which could be used in formal communications. Thanks to “Euskara Batua” people from different parts of The Basque Country could communicate without difficulties, and the language has experienced a new period of expansion since then.

MOBILITY TO ROMANIA Cristian: Romania has had 3 unifications throughout history. The first one was in 1599 when a king called Mihai unified three counties: Moldavia, Wallachia and part of Transylvania, (what more or less is nowadays Romania) to fight against the Turkish. This union was only a year standing. The second union was in 1859 due to a person called Ion Cuza which at that time was the president. In this case, the unified territories were only Moldavia and Wallachia. That is why it is called the small union. Before this union, Moldavia had got a territory called Bessarabia, which was part of the Ottoman Empire when it was ruling Moldavia. The kingdom of Romania was conformed in this unification. In December of 1918, after the dissolution of the Austro Hungarian Empire, Transylvania and other territories joined The Romanian Kingdom. This union was in the Rumanian city of Alba Iulia. During the First World War and the Second World War Romania had been winning and losing territory because of the conflicts with the Russians and the Hungarians. The south part of the Rumanian coast was taken by the Hungarians and the north part of Romania was taken by the Russians.

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PORTUGAL	Local press	Local TV1	Local TV2	Newspaper
GERMANY	Local press
BASQUE COUNTRY	Local press
ROMANIA	Local press
POLAND	Local press

MOBILITY TO POLAND. 1st Photograph: “Shipyard” Taken by Agustín Díez Guinea represents the political and labour conflict in Poland and in the Basque Country in the 70s and in the 80s. When the oil crisis erupted in 1973, European areas where the main source of wealth was heavy manufacturing production, such as Basque Country and Poland, were hit dramatically. Although the reaction of both governments was completely different, in both countries, people took to the streets in big numbers to complain about their situation. The movement originated in the shipbuilding industry gained support from other sectors The Polish government decided to face the scarcity of basic necessities provoked by the crisis by raising food prices (butter by 33%, meat by 70%, and sugar by 100%) while wages stagnated. As a result, the living conditions of the already impoverished citizens became unbearable. This situation led to the formation of underground networks to fight against the implemented measures. Labour unions were an important part of the network. The rise of a combative spirit throughout the country propelled the transformation of the strikes over food prices into solidarity strikes on other issues, such as the strike in sympathy for Anna Walentynowicz, fired from the Gdańsk Shipyard five months before she was due to retire. Meanwhile, the economic crisis initiated in 1973 was also affecting the economic pillars of the Basque Country: the iron and steel industry, the manufacturing industry and shipyards. Thus, the unemployment increased from a marginal rate in 1974 to 11% of the active population in 1979. One of the main characteristics of the 80’s was the industrial restructuring. The emblematic shipyard “Euskalduna” was closed down, while other shipyards, blast furnaces (closed in the 90s) and many manufacturing enterprises where firing workers. The unemployment in 1985 was close to 20% of the active population. The atmosphere was unbearable with trade unions calling for strikes, protests and demonstrations and clashes between police and marchers.

MOBILITY TO POLAND 2nd Photograph: “Workforce” Taken by Agustín Diéz Guinea represents the workers who were the most vulnerable part during the period of crisis. Fortunately, when the situation turned unbearable, they are able to organise themselves within trade unions and force the owners of the factories to negotiate. In Poland, the atmosphere created by the deterioration of the living conditions helped the emergence of the trade union Solidarność (Solidarity) in 1980, which rapidly won the majority of the union affiliation. The first years of the trade union were very hard: it went through an outlawed period: its members went to prison, and protestors were injured by the police in the demonstrations. There were also some cases of abduction and murder. Nevertheless, due to the workers’ resistance and the international media, Solidarność gained enough influence all over the world to force the government to negotiate and to call for elections in 1989. Thus, Tadeusz Mazowiecki was approved as Poland's first non-communist Prime Minister in 1989 and Solidarity Electoral Action (a political arm of the trade union) won the parliamentary election in 1997. Since then, Solidarność has been losing influence in Polish politics. In the Basque Country the big numbers of people taking the streets and fighting against the police forced the government to negotiate with trade unions. In the end, the workers affected by the industrial restructuring got early retirement and the labour conflict was reduced.

MOBILITY TO POLAND Third Photograph: “Vulnerability” Taken by Emma Baños Todd represents the disadvantaged groups of people in our current society. After reflecting on the matters in the 70s and 80s in both countries, we have concluded that in both cases the working class was a vulnerable group who suffered in a more callous way the deterioration of the economic conditions. Fortunately, they managed to gather enough strength and support to force the government to negotiate better conditions for them. For a long time, strikes and demonstrations have become one of the best options to express our views and demand our rights. That is why high numbers of people that believe in the same idea concentrate in big cities just to claim their rights or protest against social and political injustice. We have been looking throughout the Basque Country for current disadvantaged groups who are able to organize themselves to protest against their vulnerable situation and we found that the most representatives these days are retired and women.

MOBILITY TO POLAND Fourth Photograph: “Retired” Taken by Emma Baños Todd represents our senior citizens. Retired people are claiming worthy pensions because they aren’t getting the money that they deserve. After spending most of their live working, many elderly make ends meet with serious difficulties because of their low retirement pension. They have been able to organize themselves. Pensioners wear red scarves and can easily be identified every Monday at 12 noon when they gather in front of the Town Hall in Bilbao to complain about their pensions and to publically demand increases in their state income. At these protests, people shout slogans and blow whistles to get attention.

MOBILITY TO POLAND Fifth Photograph “Feminism” Taken by Olatz Ereño Arrizabalaga represents the gaps between men and women in our society. Although the law makes men and women equal, there are still some gaps, such as gender pay gap or dream gap, which can create unfair situations. In order to fight against injustice, the feminists’ call for demonstrations is becoming common in our cities. The biggest feminist demonstration coincided with the International Day of Women, March 8th. In response to discrimination to women in some jobs and to the physical abuse and sexual harassment suffered by some women, 50,000 men, women and children took to the streets of Bilbao. They also chose to wear purple, which symbolizes feminism and equality. As the crowds marched through the streets, they carried banners and shouted slogans in an overall good atmosphere. They stand up for equality between men and women, and thanks to these types of strikes, a lot of women that don't have their own voice, shout to the world what they need.