ABSTRACT
Terrorism in the Basque Country has always been intertwined with an identity narrative forged in the public space and the academy. Some politicians, journalists, intellectuals, historians and social scientists manufactured a ‘historical epic’ of the political violence using romantic and historicist arguments through storylines such as the ‘Basque Problem’, the ‘Basque Question’ or the ‘Basque conflict’. This master narrative was constructed within a framework of opposition to the Franco Dictatorship and became a shared identity narrative that overshadowed the Basque Autonomous Statute and articulated the post-1979 hegemonic discourse of territorial identity in the public sphere, thereby converting the Basque autonomous community into a national totality. We consider this narrative as an effective ‘ideograph’ able to make use of various tropes to link Basque identity with sub-state nationalism, anti-centralism and violence against the state. This narrative defines the debate on national identity and the historical memory of political violence after the end of terrorism.
