Xabier Irujo will be presenting “Gernika: Genealogy of a Lie” on February 16 at 6pm at the Basque Museum, in collaboration with Boise State Basque Studies. For those of you unable to attend, the presentation will be livestreamed via Facebook Live.
Historiography has been crucial in elucidating the truth of what happened in Gernika on April 26, 1937. Falsehoods are common in historical narratives, but historians—since the seventeenth century—have been laying the methodological foundations to detect and confront them in order to build a story based on evidence instead of simple conjectures. Irujo’s research follows the long tradition of uncovering the truth started by Noel Monks, George Steer, and Christopher Watson on the day Gernika was bombed.
This lecture constitutes a practical and substantive contribution to discerning the difference between history based on partial and limited evidence that provide only a restricted and selective view of the facts, and that of a history that serves the truth, justice, and the memory of victims. A story that helps avoid future suffering, a story that avoids wars. Lies endure, but truth comes to light.
