Bertsolari txapelketen distortsioak: lehia arautua komunikazioaren kaltetan

Abstract

There is a broad consensus on the categorization of bertsolaritza (improvised spoken verse-making) since the 90s: the verse (bertsoa) is above all a communicative act. The verse-maker wants to communicate with her environment, both with her verse-partner and with the listeners, and, at the same time, she is affected by the reaction in that environment. The verse is ephemeral: the act of the bertso takes place at a specific moment in a specific place. Once this communicative act has been carried out, it disappears forever. Bertsolari competitions are a fairly new phenomenon, at least in their current format. The antecedent of current National Championships was the Battle of Bertsos in 1935, organized by agents outside the verse-making world and driven by outside interests –prewar cultural elites used verse-making to promote Basque language and Basque national “spirit”. Verse-making competitions have stabilized since the 80s, and are currently the most significant events in the verse-making universe, both for their level of visibility and their symbolic level. But when regulated disputes come into play, some distortions arise in the communicative dimension essential to verse-making.