History

• At the request from Dr. Antonio Fontán, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences School at the University of Navarra, the County Council of Navarra requests (asks for) the Chancellor of the University of Navarra the creation of a Chair in Basque Culture and Language Studies on the 6th of October of 1962.
• On the 16th of November of 1963 a decree of the big Chancellor, in which the Chair was created, was published.
• Mr. Ismael Sánchez Bella, who was the Chancellor of the University of Navarra at that time, made a proposition to the County Council on the 5th of February of 1964:
  • The appointment of José Miguel de Barandiaran as the Chair’s Director;
  • The activities’ programme for that year, which included a course dictated by Koldo Mitxelena;
  • Aprovement of 150.000 pts of annual item in the County’s budget.
  • The edition of a volume of researches assumed by County Council called: “ Chair in Basque Culture and Language studies Works”.
• On the 27th of February of 1964 County Council of Navarra approved the proposal.
• In the academic year 1993-94 the Humanities and Social Sciences School, revitalised the Chair with the creation of a Diploma in Basque Studies taking advantages of the possibility of creating Own Degrees provided by the spanish Universities´ New Curricula. From the very beginning, teaching had a double aspect: the first one is Language and the second one is Culture (Ethnology and Ethnography).
  
• Basque Language
  • Between 1964 and 1970 the lecturer Ana Echaide took charge of teaching Basque Language and after an absence of 5 years, came back to be in charge of Basque Language and Basque linguistics, planning cycles and homages: to Jose Miguel de Barandiaran (1977), to Julio Caro Baroja (year 1995-96), and to many others.
  • From 1970 professor José Basterrechea Oskillaso (until 1983-84) and lecturer Pilar Gorostiaga, replaced her to divide the students in two groups. In 1977 they were 200.
  • Doctor Ana Echaide, guided by the distinguished philologist, Koldo Mitxelena, started survey to recover dialectical forms of Basque in Navarra before his extinction. It was an urgent and pioneer work.
• Basque Culture
  • On the 21st of February of 1964, Barandiaran started teaching in the Chair with a subject called: “Basque Ethnology Monographic Course”, which went on for 18 years, until 1978-79. In this chair field, he founded the Group Etniker with the purpose of making real Dean Antonio Fontán´s proposal of turning the chair into a researching nucleus and not just a teaching grandstand.
  • At the beginning, those works were published at a recently created magazine called “Cuadernos de Etnología y Etnografía Navarra (CEEN)” (Ethnology and Etnography of Navarra) by the Prince of Viana Institution, directed by Julio Caro Baroja. In 1990 started the publication of Ethnographic Atlas of Vasconia, which uses group Etniker’s methodology. Nowadays, the Group Etniker has its headquarters in the Chair of Basque Language and Culture that saw it grow.