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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I will analyse certain episodes of territorial, political, cultural and religious changes in the Basque lands during the 1789-1814 period. This specific example aims to recall similar situations in other “alpine” spaces and chronologies.

Paper long abstract:

During the Early Modern Age, the Basque Pyrenees were a stable border between the Spanish and French empires. However, as was the case elsewhere in Europe, the transition from the 18th to the 19th century was rather fertile in political and cultural changes.

Spanish Basque lands were occupied by French armies in 1794-1795 and in 1807-1813. This prompted the Spanish Crown to reshape the border and Napoleonic France to occupy the Eastern part of Spain, among other responses to the new territorial challenge. In parallel, various projects aimed at integrating the Basque lands into the French orbit were devised, showing new political imaginaries. In 1795, the creation of a Basque “sister republic” was considered, followed in 1808 by plans to found a Trans-Pyrenean buffer state.

Alongside boundary changes, this period witnessed clashes between religiosities and identities. For instance, the civic rituals of French revolutionary soldiers clashed with the traditional Catholicism of the Basque people on both sides of the border, while the alteration of the Basque identity introduced by the polity project of the state of “New Phoenicia” — according to which Basques descended from the ancient Phoenicians — transgressed the anti-Semitism that prevailed among Basque people of that time.