Janovas
Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña
HuescaAragón
Toponym derived from the Latin anthroponym Ianuarius ('January') with locative plural suffix, designating 'property of Januarius'.
Sobrarbe hamlet expropriated in 1965 for the construction of the Jánovas reservoir (project abandoned in 2001). The conflict of the forced eviction of the inhabitants (1966-1984) is one of the most controversial cases in Spanish hydraulic history.
Evolution of the name
- villa Ianuarii Latin 3rd–5th centuries
- Janovas medieval Aragonese from the 12th century
Glossary
- Anthroponym
- A personal name, often used as the base of toponyms (Lucronius → Logroño, Sigerici → Castrojeriz, Sacavus → Sacavém).
- Jánovas Reservoir
- Aragonese hydraulic project on the Ara river (Sobrarbe), initiated in 1951 with the expropriation of three villages (Jánovas, Lacort, Lavelilla) and definitively abandoned in 2001. The forced eviction conflict (1966-1984) and subsequent neighbourhood struggle for the recovery of the territory (1984-present) made it a symbol of the contradictions of the Francoist and democratic Spanish hydraulic policy.
- Locative suffix
- A Castilian ending marking "place of" or "workshop where X is worked": -ería (panadería, herrería), -ero/-era (barquera, Itero "place of the road"). From the Latin -arium.
- Repopulation
- A medieval process by which the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian peninsula resettled territories reconquered from al-Andalus. Generates a whole layer of repopulation toponyms: Bercianos (those from El Bierzo), Navarrete (little Navarre), Castellanos, Gallegos.
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Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña