The Etxepare Basque Institute opens a new Basque Language and Culture readership at the University of Havana, Cuba

As a result of the collaboration agreement signed in 2015 between the Etxepare Basque Institute and the University of  Havana, in November 2016 this university will open a new of  Basque Language and Culture readership. The Basque writer Joseba Sarrionandia will be the reader, so he will be responsible for the academic content and for teaching classes, as well as for organizing other activities.

The program will open on November 22 with the beginning of the course "History of the Basque language", which will review the lexical-grammatical and social history of the Basque language from the Neolithic period to the present.

The start of the academic program has also planned several parallel activities: on December 5 Asier Altuna will present his film "Amama", and after the screening he will have the opportunity to discuss with the audience the transformation of the traditional Basque farmhouse. And on December 15 the professor of the UPV / EHU Mari Jose Olaziregi, who until November has served as Director for the Promotion and Dissemination of  the Basque Language of the Etxepare Institute, will give the conference "A journey through Basque culture and literature".

As a result of the collaboration agreement signed in 2015 between the Etxepare Basque Institute and the University of  Havana, in November 2016 this university will open a new of  Basque Language and Culture readership. The Basque writer Joseba Sarrionandia will be the reader, so he will be responsible for the academic content and for teaching classes, as well as for organizing other activities.

The program will open on November 22 with the beginning of the course "History of the Basque language", which will review the lexical-grammatical and social history of the Basque language from the Neolithic period to the present.

The start of the academic program has also planned several parallel activities: on December 5 Asier Altuna will present his film "Amama", and after the screening he will have the opportunity to discuss with the audience the transformation of the traditional Basque farmhouse. And on December 15 the professor of the UPV / EHU Mari Jose Olaziregi, who until November has served as Director for the Promotion and Dissemination of  the Basque Language of the Etxepare Institute, will give the conference "A journey through Basque culture and literature".

Other activities planned for this fall include conferences about  the years that Blas de Otero spent in Havana, or about José Antonio Aguirre and the Basque exile in Cuba.

Beyond the academic offer, the readership will make new resources available to the Basque community in Cuba and to anyone who wishes to study and research on Basque culture. One of the specific initiatives they want to undertake is the Basque Library:  the collection will be based at the university and will get started with the 2,000 books collected by the Basque community in Cuba. The readership will also organize a Cine-Forum of  Basque cinema, to be held every two weeks in the cinema hall of the university. Another proposal is to create a new magazine focused on Basque culture and the analysis of cultural relations between the Basque Country and Cuba (place names, testimonies of centuries of  Basque emigration in Cuba ...) Regarding publishing, the readership wishes to create a Basque book collection.

In addition to this, the new readership will provide a stable headquarters for the organization of academic and cultural activities, which will also give more visibility to these events. And it will foster collaboration with the Basque associations in Cuba and the Asociación Vasconavarra de Beneficiencia, created in 1877.