|
|
||
|
|
Basque Studies Program Newsletter · Issue 33, 1986 The Society of Basque Studies (1918-1985) The Principal Cultural Entity in the Basque Country by José Luis de la Granja Professor of History, University of the Basque Country Translated by Linda White The Society of Basque Studies in its First Epoch (1918-36) In the summer of 1918 the first Conference of Basque Studies, under the auspices of the Deputations of Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Alava and Navarra, was celebrated in Oñate (Guipúzcoa). Two institutions, both fundamental to Basque culture in the 20th century, sprang from that conference; the Society for Basque Studies (Eusko-Ikaskuntza) and the Academy of the Basque Language (Euskaltzaindia). The latter chose as its goal the conservation and unification of euskera (the Basque language), and the former dedicated itself to alleviate the lack, until recent years, of a public university in the Basque Country. With the economic support of the four above-mentioned Deputations, the Society of Basque Studies began functioning at the end of 1918 with its headquarters in the Deputation of Guipúzcoa in San Sebastián, adopting the slogan Asmoz ta Jakitez (Through thought and knowledge) and the emblem of an oak tree. From its inception until the Spanish Civil War (1936), the Society’s honorary president was the great Navarrese writer Arturo Campión, its actual president was Julián Elorza and its secretary general was Angel Apraiz. In the first 18 years of its existence, Eusko-Ikaskuntza gathered to its bosom the principal characters in Basque culture from the first half of the 20th century: thus, aside from those already named, we can mention Julio de Urquijo, Gregorio Mújica, Fausto Arocena, Pierre Broussain, Georges Lacombe, Resurrección Ma. De Azkue, Luis de Eleizalde, Eduardo Landeta, Carmelo and Bonifacio de Echegaray, Telelsforo Aranzadi, Enrique Eguren, José Miguel de Barandiarán, Manuel Lecuona, el Padre Donostia, Juan Zaragüeta, Severo Altube, Justo Gárate, Angel Irigaray, José Ariztimuno, José María Aguirre (the poet “Lizardi”), etc. In 1935 the Society had nearly four thousand members – individuals (including about 1,000 students), as well as associations and institutions in the role of sustaining members. The Society’s activity during those years was important and very intensive. It took over publication of the Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos (the most prestigious of Basque cultural journals founded in 1907 and edited by Julio de Urquijo) and of Barandiarán’s Anuario de Eusko Folklore. Furthermore, the Society published an internal quarterly bulletin, bi-annual minutes and the proceedings of the Conferences of Basque Studies. Eusko-Ikaskuntza developed its efforts by means of different working sections: Language, History, Race, Social Sciences, Law, Art, Literature, etc. The Society formed delegations both in the Basque capitals and outside of the Basque Country (in Madrid, Barcelona, America, etc.) and empowered various cultural entities such as the Basque Federation of Popular Action, the Baraibar group from Vitoria and the Assembly of Basque Culture in Madrid. It also founded an important Basque Library in San Sebastián. In all of its activities the Society of Basque Studies paid special attention to the defense of euskera, to the development of education and to the creation of the Basque University. The latter, and instituting bilingualism in the schools were two if its constant goals before the Civil War. These and other subjects were analyzed in the important Conferences of Basque Studies, the Society’s social activity with the greatest public impact. There were six conferences in this historical stage: besides the first one held in Oñate (1918), the second was held in Pamplona (1920) and dealt with education and socio-economic questions; the third was held in Guernica (1922) and dealt with language, education and the Basque University; the fourth (1926) was in Vitoria and covered professional orientation/education; the fifth (1930) was held in Vergara and dealt with Basque popular art; and the sixth conference (1934) was held in Bilbao on the subject of medicine and natural sciences. In the summer of 1936 the seventh conference, dedicated to historical studies, was going to be held in Estella, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War prevented it. Furthermore, Eusko-Ikaskuntza organized municipal assemblies, assemblies on the fishing economy, a week dedicated to farming and animal husbandry, courses on methodology and higher education, summer courses, classes in euskera, public lectures, expositions and tributes. As the historian Idoia Estornés has written, the Society of Basque Studies was not an apolitical entity but rather suprapartisan. Political pluralism was evident in its ranks, where one could find monarchists, Carlists, independent Catholics, nationalists, republicans and an occasional socialist, although in the 1930s there was an increase in the influence and importance of the nationalists (Basterrechea, Leizola and Irujo, deputies of the Basque Nationalist Party, were members of the board of directors). Eusko-Ikaskuntza could not be apolitical, since its primary objective was to restore the personality of the Basque Country by means of cultural intensification. In order to achieve this it was imperative that a certain amount of political autonomy be attained within the Spanish State. This was one of the Society’s most heartfelt concerns during its first stage. In fact, the Society of Basque Studies was born thanks to the political union of the popularity of Basque nationalism and the autonomist enthusiasm that existed in the Spanish State during the last years of the First World War, coinciding with the rise of new states in central and eastern Europe as a result of the application of the “nationalities” principle promoted by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States. In 1919 a report outlined a plan for a Statute of Autonomy for Euskadi, but it was never discussed by the Spanish Parliament and thus was never approved. Eusko-Ikaskuntza planned to hold a Conference on Autonomy in 1924, for which the program and agenda were published, but the advent of General Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship (September, 1923) made it impossible. At the end of that dictatorship, in 1930, the idea was floated again and the society formed a commission in charge of studying it. In May of 1931, one month after the installation of the Second Spanish Republic, a movement of Basque mayors, led by the Nationalist José Antonio Aguirre (future first president of the Basque Government), petitioned the Society of Basque Studies to write a plan for the Autonomy Statute. The Society did so quickly and the resulting text (entitled “General Statute of the Basque State”), although it had no legal power because it was unconstitutional, served as a basis for later plans for autonomy, especially the famous polemical “Statute of Estella,” approved in the Navarrese city of that name on June 14, 1931 by Carlists and nationalists. With that, the Eusko-Ikaskuntza acted as a liaison between the old Basque formalism and the modern autonomism. This outstanding autonomist work by the Society of Basque Studies was the reason for its exile from the Basque Country from the time of the Civil War throughout the dictatorship of General Franco (1936-75). While in exile, some of its members held two other Conferences on Basque Studies: the seventh (1948) in Biarritz on ethnography, linguistics and art; and the eighth (1954) in Bayonne on various aspects of Basque culture. The Current Society of Basque Studies (1978-85) After Franco’s death and with the return of democracy to Spain, Eusko-Ikaskuntza re-appeared in 1978 thanks to the efforts of former members and young researchers, headed by the great prehistorian and ethnographer José Miguel de Barandiarán, a true patriarch of Basque culture. He became president of the Society at that time and remains so today, while the post of secretary general is held by Edorta Kortadi who succeeded the late Agustin Zumalabe. In the past few years the Society of Basque Studies has regained the intellectual prestige it had acquired in its prewar stage and has fostered an enormous amount of cultural initiative, facilitated by the existence of Basque autonomic institutions since the approval of the Statute of Guernica in 1979. Once again it has the economic support of the four Basque Deputations, as well as that of the autonomous Basque Government. In 1985 the number of individual institutional members surpassed 2,250. Its current organization and operation is reminiscent of that which existed in 1936. In charge of the direction of the Society are the Permanent Council and the Executive Committee. The Permanent Council is made up of the officer of the organization, the presidents of the Sections and the representatives from the Deputations, universities and various cultural associations of the Basque Country. The Permanent Council meets every three months. The Executive Committee is a permanent body composed of the president, the vice presidents, the secretary, the vice secretary, the treasurer and the vice treasurer. Every two years the General Meetings of the Society are held, during which the assembled members elect officers. The central headquarters of the Society is located in San Sebastián with offices in Bilbao, Vitoria and Pamplona as well. The work of Eusko-Ikaskuntza is carried out by fifteen Sections: Anthropology and Ethnography; Plastic and Monument Arts; Physical-Chemical Sciences and Mathematics; Medical Science; Natural Sciences; Social and Economic Sciences; Cinematography; Law; Education; Folklore; History and Geography; Language and Literature; Communications Media; Music; and Prehistory and Archeology. Each one of these sections publishes its corresponding Section Notebooks which reflect the research of the members in these fields of knowledge. In 1983 Eusko-Ikaskuntza resumed publication of the Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos (under the direction of the writer and scholar Julio Caro Baroja) and of the Anuario de Eusko Folklore. It also publishes numerous books and pamphlets on subjects related to the Basque Country, as well as the Society’s quarterly Bulletin and its bi-annual Minutes. Support for scientific research has led the Society to establish scholarships in the names of José Miguel de Barandiarán (for archeology and ethnology), Angel de Apraiz (for human sciences) and Agustin Zumalabe (for economics and natural sciences), which are granted annually. The Society has paid homage to eminent personalities in Basque culture such as Barandiarán, Irujo, Campión and Irigaray, and it has created the Manuel de Lecuona prize which is awarded to those who have distinguished themselves by their overall work in favor of Basque culture. The prize has been awarded to Lecuona himself (in 1985). Among the multiple activities of the Society of Basque Studies are the organization of lectures and workshops devoted to current subjects and specialized short courses on archives, librarianship, paleography, social science methodology, etc. In the field of history, conferences have been held on the fuero of San Sebastián and medieval Vizcaya, ancient documentary sources have been published, the Inventory of Archives of the Basque Country has been established, the Archive and Library of Manuel de Irujo in Pamplona has been catalogued, and a Center for the Documentation of the Contemporary History of the Basque Country has been created in Fuenterrabia (Guipúzcoa). This Center brings together many documents and publications of the Franco years and the post-Franco era, and for this reason will be of great usefulness to future historians. Resuming its tradition of conferences, in October 1983, Eusko-Ikaskuntza held the ninth Conference of Basque Studies in Bilbao, dedicated to the study of “Recent Antecedents of Modern Basque Society, 18th and 19th Centuries,” at which 15 major addresses and 48 communiqués were presented. Some two hundred professors and researchers from the Basque Country, Spain, France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States attended the conference. They examined the political, social and economic history of the Basque provinces from 1700 to 1876 (the year of the final abolition of the Basque fueros by the Spanish monarchy), as well as the situation of the church and education, Basque language and literature, medicine and the arts during the 18th and 19th centuries. Currently, Eusko-Ikaskuntza is preparing its tenth Conference which will take place early in 1987 and will deal with Basque archives, libraries and museums. Bibliography Idoia Estornés Zubizarreta: La Sociedad de Estudios Vascos. Aportación de Eusko-Ikaskuntza a la Cultura Vasca (1918-1936). Sociedad de Estudios Vascos, San Sebastián, 1983. Noveno Congreso de Estudios Vascos. Antecedentes próximos de la Sociedad Vasca actual. Siglos XVIII y XIX. Eusko-Ikaskuntza, San Sebastián, 1984). |
|
|
|
|
