It is not until the seventeen century that a self definition of basques

THE ORIGINS OF BASQUE NATIONALISM:
ABSTRACT:
It is not until the seventeen century that a self definition of basques appears
This essay gives account of the invention of a collective ethnic identity
within the Spanish Empire. The vizcaino identity, that becomes the cultural
framework from which the Basque nationalism emerges as an ideology in
the last decades of the nineteen century.
The main aim of this essay is just to reaffirm two hypotheses. The first one
is that the very concept of the nation, focus on the Basque case, as it is
currently acknowledged, it is a modern ideological construct, an Imagined
Community as Benedict Anderson says. The second one, is that it is
nationalism which precedes the nation as E. J. Hobsbawm asserts and not
the other way around.
Key words: Tubal, mayorazgo, fueros, vizcaíno, ETA (Euskadi ta
Askatasuna).
“I consider, truly, that everything around the so called national character
is an a mythic activity, that is to say, that those who talk about they do so in
an accordance to a previously elaborated tradition, with no basis in
scientific facts. This tradition tends to explain something in a popular way,
and in fact changes more than it is said or believed”.
Julio Caro Baroja.
“It is not that the Basques had been racist, but that the very concept of
Basques is a result of racism, a social creation, and ethnic invention of
foral racism”
Juan Aranzadi.
1
INTRODUCTION:
It is not until the seventeen century that a self definition of Basques
appears. This essay gives account of the invention of a collective ethnic
identity within the Spanish Empire. The Vizcaino identity, that becomes the
cultural code from which the Basque nationalism emerges as an ideology in
the last years of the nineteen century.
The appearance of ethnic identities linked to the Ancient Regime were
widespread phenomenons in the European Renaissance. The obsession for
the origins was common ground in the European humanism. It is not as
Ortega y Gusset suggests in España Invertebrada a unique Spanish
phenomenon, when goticismo or iberocantabrismo ideologies are
considered as the very beginning of a long term Spanish Imperial
decadence.
On the contrary, Maragall affirms that from the studies of vernacular
languages linked to an invention of prehistoric origins of different people
comes the creation of new collective identities all over Europe:
“El Nuevo sentimiento patriótico desarrollado en las sociedades del
occidente europeo durante el siglo XVI lleva a que los hombres cultos de
estos pueblos traten de trasplantar el papel que correspondería a la
Antigüedad grecolatina, dentro del humanismo italianizante, a su propia
antigüedad, y se manifiesta en una doble secuencia: primero, gusto por los
productos primitivos de la historia de cada pueblo, viendo en ellos, no los
datos de un estado de barbarie, sino la primitiva imagen del grupo a que se
pertenece, esto es, una imagen de lo que a cada comunidad le es propio, y
por tanto, algo en lo que coparticipa con cada uno de sus individuos;
segundo, un interés por lo antiguo de cada país, es decir por su historia, de
cuyo conocimiento, lo más depurado y extenso posible, depende el
conocimiento de su estado presente y su honor y gloria entre los pueblos
actuales1”.
The specific case among the new ethnic identities in Spain is their political
function reinforcing the legitimization of Charles V monarchy, when
lacking of an strong state apparatus. In spite of their historicist differences,
all of them could be understood under the Hernandez de Acuña poetic
metaphor: “A King, an Empire, an sword” . If Iberocantabrismo is the
overall framework in which Basque solariega ideology is conceived, it is
also a solution to the profound political and social crisis experienced by the
Basque Country during the late middle ages, legitimizing both the
2
privileges of a new elites and the virtues of a new monarchy that from
being castellana now turns in to Imperial.
Along the last centuries of the middle ages in the Basque Country, being a
social character was determined by being member of the numerous
lineages fighting for achieving power in the three local political entities
(provincias) that brought to life between twelve and fourteen centuries
respectively, changing constantly alliances in favour of The Kingdom of
Navarra or the Crown of Castilla2.
The lineage imaginary determined identity affinities along genealogical
parenteral lines (real or imagined) and the political loyalty to the lineage
ancestor, “Pariente Mayor or ahaide nagusia”, who apparently was to be
the first inhabitant of an ancestral nobility house, without any type of
territorial implication. This way, The lineages of Loyola (from which the
Jesuits founder San Ignacio de Loyola comes), Alzate, Butrón, Mendoza
were neither vizcainos nor guipuzcoanos or navarros. As Carlos Martinez
Gorriaran says: “Those definitions did not have any social value, but
belonging to that nobility lineages o “ bandos3”
Then, the social and political context was defined by a large amount of
warlike lineages submitted to the vassal authority of the main lineage . In
The fifteen century those warlike feudal lineages were divided in two main
blocks, Oñacinos and Gamboinos, competing for political power. At the
same time, there is an increasing antagonism between the rural areas, fully
controlled by the lineages, and the villas or towns, attempting to get rid of
the influence of those lineages.
The Basque villas, organized themselves in “Hermandades”(fraternities) ,
and required the protection of the Castilian Crown under the privileges to
be known as “fueros or escudo foral” to fight against the lineages. The
lineages were finally defeated by Henry IV in the second half of the fifteen
century. Then, a new consensus gentium was needed in The Basque
Country for the inclusion of the previously defeated old nobility in a new
status quo dominated by the Castilian monarchy.
The Basque warlike nobility will find a new modus vivendi, in the
oligarchic control of the forales (autonomous) institutions, which brings
final political cohesion to the lordship of Vizcaya, and the provincias
(Provinces) of Alava and Guipuzcoa, the inherited tenancy of the nobiliar
property (casa or etxe) to be known as mayorazgo, and having a notorious
presence in the Charles V Imperial administration both as escrivanos
(clerks) or as American conquerors (conquistadores de Indias).
3
In this historical, political and social context arises the Basque “solariega”
ideology. An ethnic Imagined Community, defining a new Basque ethos4.
THE BASQUE SOLARIEGA IDEOLOGY:
DOMINATION POLITICAL CULTURE?
¿AN
ETHNIC
The foundational myths of the Basque solariega ideology were the
followings:
1. - The Basques descend from the lineage of Tubal, patriarch of the
babelic breaking up, who brought to the western zone of the Peninsula the
first settlers of España; this statement is taken as a proof of the primitive
nobility of all Basques.
2. - The tubalic language (vascuence or euskera) is considered as the first
Spanish language, and contains within the basis of a evangelic and a
roman catholic tridentine revelation; that brings to the idea that the Basque
people (as an non historical entity) are a God chosen people with purity of
blood (limpieza de sangre), that is to say with no mixture with jews,
moors, converted or “gente de mala raza”.
3. - The idea of a primitive political independence of the Basques aging
from the Roman times, so that their local institutions are not seen as a
product of a the King´s privileged concession but a mere sovereign
agreement.
4. - All the Basques are noble in origin and with purity of blood.
As any other Ideology, Tubalism, consist of what Jon Juaristi defines as a
circular semiotic structure: Tubal, España primitiva, Vizcaino, vascuence,
Each term becomes a metonymy, each other significant and meaning,
conceiving a narrative identity where the Basques appear at the top of the
racist caste system of the Spanish Empire. If the Basques, never conquered
Spanish, which means never mixed with other people since the
protohistoric babelic dispersion took place, it was logic to think that they
had nothing to do with the Sem (Arabic or Hebraic heritage), and if the
Basque language it is a kind of a tridentine Ark of Covenant (inspired in the
toponymic conception of the tubalism, as jaungoikoa (Lord of Heaven), the
conclusion is clear, within an ideology that aspires to an eternal endurance.
We, the Basques, are old Christians, nobles and with purity of blood5.
4
Although the reinvention of this organic vision of Basque people, and part
of the tubalic historicist myth, will be the basis of the Basque nationalist
ideology in Sabino Arana (founder of The Basque Nationalist Party in
1895), or even the revolutionary nationalism of ETA (Euskadi ta
Askatasuna), in the late sixties of the last century, the Basque solariega
ideology differs from the modern nationalist ideology6.
The basis of Basque solariega identity was the nobiliar house (etxe) with
purity of blood, so that to the question of ¿Who are you? at that time, any
Basque would answer “I belong to that or this house”. Being a Basque
social archetype implied belonging to a determined nobility house, and in
the opposite a sasikume (brought up in bushes) implied both suspicious of
bastardy or lacking purity of blood.
The Basque language shows clearly the traditionalist mentality change
among the Basques, which is also the landmark that goes from the middle
Ages to the modern era in The Basque Country. The term Ahaide nagusia
(chief of the lineage according to parentesque lines) is replaced by Etxeko
Jaun (Lord of the nobility house); senitartekoak (people belonging to the
same parentesque lineage) is also replaced by gure etxekoak (people who
belong to the same nobility house). In fact, The Basques of the sixteen and
seventeen century used to take their surname considering the nobility
house they belong to7.
This identity did not have any institutional reflect until the definite writing
of The Fueros Provinciales (type of local autonomy) in the sixteen
century, when mayorazgo and the hereditary transference of the nobiliar
property to the first-born is finally institutionalized. This condemns the
second-born (nobleza segundona) to join the Imperial army or the
administration, which is in the origin of the Vizcaino’s social class, term
used generally to define those basques that overwhelmingly occupied the
vast majority of clerk positions in the Imperial administration of Charles V
and Philippe II.
The solariega ideology responded then to a clear political function. To
create a class and a privileged ethnic barrier, inside and outside the Ancient
Regime Basque society8. The universal and primitive nobility (hidalguía
universal) allowed the second born nobility Vizcaino’s not having any
competence in having access to public servant positions in the Imperial
administration, formerly massively occupied by converted, and jews since
the times of the Catholics kings, Isabel and Fernando. At the same time it
legitimized the privileged situation of great part of the Basque nobility,
5
who rented the mayorazgo (its nobility possession) to the vast majority of
the Basque peasants, and also the increasing oligarchic control of the local
institutions (instituciones forales, such as Diputaciones).
The prohibition of residence to converted and jews is probably before
1482, The Vizcaya´s Fuero Nuevo of 1526 institutionalized the racist
Basque cast system when declaring all the inhabitants of the Señorio as
hidalgos, and when the residence to jews and converted people was
prohibited in accordance with the Spanish monarchy prerogative. Then the
Basque ethnic identity was finally institutionalized and sanctioned.
As Jon Juaristi says: “ La clase escriba vizcaína surgió de la pacificación
y desestructuración de la sociedad banderiza, que había dominado en la
región cantábrica durante la baja edad media. A finales del siglo XV, una
nutrida fracción de la élite vizcaína se preparaba para lanzarse al copo de
despachos y contadurías. En esta empresa iba a enfrentarse con la clase
escriba ya instalada en la administración palaciega, una clase compuesta
mayormente por judeo conversos.
De la salida de los judíos sólo se derivaban ventajas para los cristianos
vascos, en general los vizcaínos obtenían antes que cualquier otra
comunidad una posición de superioridad castiza sobre las masas de judíos,
moriscos y conversos en momentos de profundas transformaciones de la
economía tradicional. Con tal finalidad, se creo una teoría particularista
acorde con la ideología nobiliaria y cristiano vieja; un casticismo extremo
que permitiera a los vizcaínos quedar exentos de probanzas de hidalguía y
de limpieza de sangre, justamente cuando tales pruebas comenzaban a ser
percibidas como requisitos inexcusables para el acceso a los oficios
públicos…no ya solamente a los cargo habientes, conversos, sino también
a los hidalgos montañeses y asturianos. Contra estos y aquellos levantaron
los vizcaínos el mito de Tubal9”.
In this way, the privileged status cease to be such, better to say, it becomes
natural law sanctioned by The Imperial Spanish monarchy, natural law for
a community that tends to observe itself as the very essence of the Hispanic
Imperial virtues. To the mid sixteen century Vizcaino, cristiano viejo and
hidalgo were synonymous to the Spanish society mind, even among the
Jesuits, in life of Saint Ignatius the term Vizcaino was used in opposition to
jende verriac (jews or converted).
The main proof of the political utility of this cultural imaginery, lies in the
fact that the apologists of this Basque identity, Andrés de la Poza, Isasti,
Garibay or Lope de Salazar, in spite of praising the tubalic virtues of
6
euskera (Basque Language), they never wrote their Corografías or
Compedios Históricos (Historical essays) in Basque Language, which was
of common use among the 80% of Basque peasantry (the vast majority of
the country). In fact, the Basque nobility elites early prohibited the use of
the Basque language in local institutions (instituciones forales) requiring
the knowledge of writing in castellano (spanish language) for having
access to public servant positions, in a context of a society massively
illiterate and strongly linked to euskaldun ( Basque language) oral cultural
tradition.
In spite of the myth of the universal Basque nobility house (as all Basques
were supposed to belong to the nobility), the fact is that the majority of the
Basques were forced to emigration or poverty due to the abusive charges or
the payment of the mayorazgo´s rent (Basque nobiliar land property).
Along the seventeen and eighteen century there were numerous peasants
rebellions called matxinadas, which is a proof of the precarious situation of
the Basque peasantry (even of a sharing an common ethos with the Basque
nobility) within the Basque Ancient Regime structures10.
How could be explained this paradox? It may be argued that the Solariega
Ideology was much more than a mere narcissistic self definition of the
Basque nobiliar elites, to be better defined as an invented ethnic domination
political culture inside the Ancient Regime Basque society.
7
THE INVENTION OF THE BASQUE TRADITION: (FROM
TUBALISM TO THE PRENATIONALISTIC IDEOLOGY OF
LARRAMENDI):
The tubalic myth and the idea of an original independence of the Basques
is a deeply rooted cultural belief among the vascongadas elites of the
seventeen century. It is largely exposed in the Spanish literature of the
period in a very sarcastic way. An example of this, is Guzman de
Alfarache´s (1604) lacayo Vizcaino chapter. The faked servant, as an
archetype of Vizcaya´s nobility lordship, explains the main features of his
homeland Vizcaya. According to the servant Vizcainos spoke a language
which origins are in Tubal, descendant of Noe, the first settler of Spain,
bringing an special way of dressing that survived among the Basques.
Furthermore, the Vizcainos never had been conquested or mixed with
foreign people, so that they remained in an original and ancient nobility.
This indomitable spirit is due to their natural trend for heroic acts from the
old times of belonging to the cantabrian people famous for being
unconquested by the Romans, then all Vizcainos are hijosdalgos (noble).
After the visigotic defeat, only Vizcaya remained free, sovereign and
without Lord. This last event did not prevent Vizcainos from defending
their freedom against Alfonso III in Padura, when they chose their first
Lord Jaun Zuria (The White Lord) after the battle of Arrigorriaga (red
stones site) “que por ser su sangre vertida pasó a ser Arrizonaga (piedras
rojas). Allí mismo eligieron a Don Zuria (El Señor Blanco) nieto del rey de
Escocia11”.
This is exactly the same argument exposed by the Vizcaino Baltasar
Echave from México in 1607 (Then Nueva España). In his Discursos de la
antigüedad de la lengua cantabro vascongada (Speeches about the
antiquity of the cantabro vascongada language), he says: “No ay linaje en
Gracia Dei/ De sangre más generosa/pues es por lengua y Ley/Cristiana
Vieja ranciosa/ y hidalga más que el Rey/que en antiguo pergamino/vi
escrito en Vascuence fino (si yo por testigo valgo)/que no será el Rey
hidalgo/si no fuese vizcaíno12”
Apart from this, the remains of the traditional lineage imaginary could also
be found in modern times. Its abandonment was a long term process, and
sometimes the modern Tubalistic myth appears mixed with the old political
loyalty to the lineage parentesque. This is how Julio Caro Baroja (Basque
anthropologist) explains Lope de Aguirre´s madness in search of El
Dorado and his denial to recognize Philip II´s authority over the new
8
conquested territories in Las Indias (America) in favour of those belonging
to his own nobility parentesque (marañones).
Even the vizcaino Andrés de la Poza, the first philologist and military man
that summarizes the myth of Tubal in his De la Antigua Lengua,
Poblaciones y Comarcas de las Españas (About the ancient language,
inhabitants and countries of Spain) (1587) describes the first patriarchs of
the babelic dispersion as being the chiefs of the middle ages basques
lineages, that is, ahaide nagusiak or parientes mayores: “Setenta y dos
fueron antiguamente las lenguas que avian de occupar el orbe de la
Tierra…La causa de este número de lenguas, según la Secreta Teología,
fue por el castigo de otros tantos parientes mayores que consintieron en la
temeraria torre de Babel13”.
It is precisely in De la Antigua Lengua where, for the first time, the
originary nobility of all Basque inhabitants and the old christian character
of all vascongados, out of the basis of the tubalic myth of the babelic
dispersion appears. The Basque people (as and ahistoric entity) are
indomitable people from the roman times, which would explain their lack
of mixture with gentes de mala raza (inferior races), jews, protestants and
moors, and are as a result cristianos viejos (old christians). The vascuence
or euskera (Basque language) brings the essences of a primitive
monotheism ant the revealed catholic truth. Then, The Basque people are
racially pure, noble in origin, and God chosen people for the Catholic and
the Imperial Salvation.
This new Imagined Community is the very essence of all the virtues of the
new born Spanish Empire. As de la Poza argues: “Y que la Antigua lengua
española fuese, la nuestra de Bizcaya, se comprueba con la autoridad de
Pomponio Mela, presuponiendo lo primero que en tiempos de los
Emperadores romanos ya avian entrado gran diversidad de naciones
diferentes, que con su frecuencia y muchedumbre avian metido su lengua y
sus ritos, y ceremonias, por todo el reyno hasta la Provincia de Cantabria
exclusive, porque a esta nunca penetraron, ni la sojuzgaron griegos, ni
cartagineses”.
“A Dios omnipotente llama el vascongado jeaun, en una Syllaba,
sincodamente pronunciando todas las vocales como si no hicieran más de
una syllaba, el cual vocablo significa en Vascuence, tu mismo bueno,
sentencia por cierto la más alta y breve que a Dios trino y uno para
denotarle, que lo es, podría atribuirse igualmente compete, sin otra
dicción, y el suplemento compete, sin otra dicción, y el suplemento muestra
más claro y elegante la sanctísima Trinidad14”
9
This Basque linguistic essentialism is directly related to another foralista
essentialism (Basque local institution) which legitimacy is justified in
historicist terms which, centuries later, will be one of the basis of the
Basque nationalist ideology in Sabino Arana. Basically, this historicist
perception considers the local Basque institutions, the result of the ancient
customs and traditions of an a historic ethnic community, sovereign, old
Christian, noble, indomitable, politically independent, racially pure, and
only subject to the Castilian monarchy by a sovereign pact (or pase foral).
This way, the legitimacy of the locals institutions, Juntas y Diputaciones,
does not lie in the King´s brought privilege or prerogative (a well
documented Historical fact from the middle ages , not only in The Basque
Country but in many other areas of Spain) it becomes part now of an
ahistoric ethos of a community that defines itself as the first settlers of
Spain and a God chosen people.
This argument was conveniently called into question by the Spanish
enlightenment and the Borbonic political centralization process in the
eighteen century, but the truth is this was the case of a commonly accepted
myth, not only among the vast majority of The Basque society and the rest
of Spain of that time, but among the most cultured elites of the Spanish
society.
The canon Juan Antonio Llorente summarizes the main criterias of this
essentialist fuerismo at the prelude of his Noticias Históricas de las
provincias vascongadas (Historical news of provincias vascongadas)
published in 1806: “Dicen que Alava, Guipuzcoa y Vizcaya fueron
Repúblicas libres, soberanas e independientes, hasta que por su voluntad
entregaron su soberanía, independencia y libertad a los reyes de Castilla,
bajo los pactos y condiciones de que se les conservaría sus execciones,
leyes y franquezas, conforme suponen que las tenían desde los siglos
antiguos, y que este es el origen de los fueros que ahora gozan, cuya
opinión ha prevalecido tanto que los representantes de su gobierno
municipal no dudaron en exponer al trono aquel hecho como fundamento
indubitable de sus solicitudes15”.
In the case of Vizcaya the myth appears for the first time in the fifteen
century, by a man who previously had been involved in the fightings
between lineages or guerras banderizas (wars between middle age
lineages), Lope García de Salazar, who in his book, Las bienandacas e
fortunas, underlines that Vizcaya had always remained politically
independent before choosing its first Lord Jaun Zuria (The White Lord)
after the defeat of Alfonso III of León in the battle of Arrigorriaga ( red
10
stones). In Guipuzcoa is Esteban de Garibay who synthesizes the myth
when Compendio Historial is first published in Amberes in 157116.
Between 1625 and 1626, quoting Garibay, Lope de Isasti showed the same
ideas explained just as an Historical fact or unquestioned truth, in his
Compedio Historial de Guipuzcoa (History of Guipuzcoa) points out:
“Como nunca esta provincia ha sido conquistada por nadie, no ha
consentido señor particular, ni jamás persona alguna ha tenido sobre ella
propiedad: sino que se ha encomendado y adherido siempre a quien más a
cuento le ha estado para su conservación por el tiempo que le ha
parecido17”.
This way, the route from an original independence to natural law, that is to
say, Independence as an ever standing right or possibility is finally settled
down. In the case of the Jesuit father Larramendi that would be an open
chance (political Independence fron Spain) if the Spanish monarchy left the
Tridentine ideology (God law) ant he myth of pactismo foral (foral pact
bettwen the Crown and The Basque Country). For the vizcaytarra
nationalism of Sabino Arana, this will be an urgent necessity, as a way of
returning to a traditional paradise or Walhalla of a castiza (racially pure)
community (linked to the old values of foral racism), who increasingly
perceives its identifying marks threatened by the foral suppression of 1876,
and the so called invasion maketa (immigrants from the rest of Spain) with
the emerging industrialization process of Vizcaya at the end of the nineteen
century.
At the beginning of the eighteen century, The Basque Country is the only
territory of Spain retaining ist local institutions (Instituciones forales) after
the suppression foral (the suppression of local institutions) ordered by
Borbonic dynasty through Decretos de Nueva Planta for Mallorca,
Valencia and Cataluña (1717). That was due to the support that the Basque
nobility provided to Philip V line of succession during the Guerra de
Sucesión (War of Succession), Even though, the politics of administrative
centralization of the borbonic enlightened despotism affected also Basque
forales institutions along the nineteen century.
However, to this stage, the social and economic crisis of the Basque
Ancient Regime was notorious and runs parallel to the declining Spanish
Empire. To the falling and decadence of the traditional ironworks and
shipyards, we could also add the emerging serious antagonism between the
pre-eminent oligarchic nobility or jauntxos , the Basque peasantry and the
emerging commercial middle class settled in the towns (Bilbao or San
Sebastián) or villas.
11
It was at the end of the eighteen century, when the ideological and social
split up process began in The Basque Country. Between the mainly liberal
villas and the traditionalist rural areas (Strongly attached to the values of
foralismo), which finally lead to two basques civil wars known as guerras
carlistas (carlistas wars), between liberales and carlistas that fought for
gaining the political power in the nineteen century until the final defeat of
the basque traditionalism with the foral suppression ordered by Canovas
del Castillo in 1876.
This way, the perpetuation of the privileged structure of the foralismo
along the eighteen century allows that the political and social pre-eminence
of the old Basque nobility would be greater than ever; who power is based
in the monopolistic control over the rural property and the oligarchic
control of the public positions in Juntas and Diputaciones (local forales
institutions). However, at the same time, they felt that their privileges are
more threatened than ever, due to several factors.
First of all, by the increasing power of the commercial bourgeoisie that
demands the introduction of capitalist transformations in rural areas,
mayorazgo suppression and the borders to be moved to the Basque coast.
Secondly, by the perennial centralist threat of suppression foral and the
timid development of the enlightened values within the Basque society
reflected by the creation of The Real Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos Del
País (founded in 176518). Thirdly, by the deep social and economic crisis
evident in an increasing poverty and precarious social situation of the
Basque peasantry, uncapable of facing the tax burden and inclined to social
revolts called matxinadas19.
The growing social and political unrest is summarized by the Basque
Historian Fernando García de Cortazar: “A pesar de que durante este siglo
el antagonismo de mayor entidad social es todavía el que enfrenta a
jauntxos y campesinos, una nueva clase emergente desde el periodo
medieval, se perfila como enemiga secundaria de la nobleza terrateniente y
acaparadora de rentas. Los burgueses urbanos, dedicados al comercio o a
la inversión capitalista en el campo y la industria, se presentan como
serios rivales de la hegemonía social de la nobleza… La conclusión acerca
de los acontecimientos de 1718 (revueltas campesinas) deben tener en
cuenta no sólo el recudrecimiento de los conflictos sociales entre jauntxos
y burgueses por la hegemonía en el seno del Antiguo Régimen, sino la
confrontación más general entre campesinos y nobleza20”
12
To the Basque Ancient Regime crisis, a great deal of the Basque nobility
responds with a defense of the myths and values of the old solariega
ideology. In reality, Coreografía de Guipuzcoa (1754), written by the Jesuit
Manuel Larramendi, it could be consider as the typical reaction of a
conservative elite to the changes that were to come in the Spain of the
eighteen century. The book is a metaphor of and idyllic romantic painting
of the social scenery of Guipuzcoa, represented as an organic scene on the
verge of extinction, and the populist glorifying of a wide range of nobility
values that began to be called in to question.
For example, to the break out of social antagonism in the Basque rural
areas, Larramendi responds with the tale of a mystic rural arcadia to the
point of identifying the usages and customs of the Basque peasantry with
the herderian Volkgeist prenotion of the Basque national character(Idea
developed later on by William Von Humboldt in the nineteen century),
which was a mere narcissistic cast of the pre-eminence, and of the need
of its maintenance, of solariega nobility elite, to what Larramendi
belonged, just as “Dios fundó el mayorazgo para su pueblo escogido”
(God founded mayorazgo for its chosen people).
Literally speaking: “Pues como Dios fundó para su pueblo escogido
mayorazgo de la tierra más rica y estimable que había en el mundo, así
fundó de Guipúzcoa otro mayorazguito en que después de los primeros
pobladores, que fueron los primeros mayorazgos, fuesen sucediendo sus
descendientes con las condiciones unidas a este vínculo21”.
This way, the pre-eminence of the God chosen people, noble in origin and
old christian it is largely conceived within the framework o an organic
scenery where the social antagonism does not exist: “Todos los
guipuzcoanos, ellos y ellas, son muy inclinados a andar bien vestidos y no
aparecer en las calles, plazas e iglesias ni entre gentes, sino muy limpios y
decentes. Nunca se ve en Guipúzcoa tanto capipardo, braguirroto,
cazcarriento, arlote, desgreñado, mugriento, desparrajado, asqueroso y
sucio como se encuentra en los pueblos de Castilla y otros reinos” or just
about the rural game of pelota: “Este ejercicio hace ligeros. ágiles, prontos
y de grande aguante, y como es en Guipúzcoa tan común este ejercicio y la
afición que se le tiene, está llena la provincia de mozos ágiles, vivos y
prontos, que con dificultad se rinden al trabajo22”
The reactionary aspects of Larramendi`s cosmology are also reaffirmed
by an extreme providencialism and a reiterative populist racism, strongly
related to that of Sabino Arana´s a century later, to the extreme of
defending the public execution or the expulsion of the enemies of foralista
13
system. The Basque nobility house stands in defending its purity of blood
and its original nobility, but the amount of violence implied in
Larramendi´s message expresses clearly the fears of a social class that felt
their privileges to be threatened.
In this sense, according to Larramendi the quality of basque nobility is
superior to that conceded by the Kings: “Todo guipuzcoano que viene de
alguno de los solares de Guipuzcoa siempre ha sido noble, a menos que
por sus infamias sea degradado de ella. Esta nobleza de sangre les viene
por herencia y suben con ella con la mayor limpieza del mundo hasta los
primeros pobladores de España..No son admitidos para vecinos ni
moradores, ni para residencia permanente, ni judíos, ni moros, ni los que
tienen alguna raza de ellos, ni mulatos, ni negros”.
In accordance to this, he defends the execution and expulsion of those who
are enemies of God and the Basque forality, in the hands of the Holy
Inquisition: “Ah, impíos por algo venís emasacarados!!! Apuesto que esa
mascara encubre algunos materialistas con aquellas monstruosidades que
profanan la razón que blasfeman contra la Providencia y se ríen de la
religión revelada. Vayan noramala de aquí, vayan fuera de España y
además acá en España, al Santo Tribunal de la Inquisición, y seré el
primero que pegue fuego a la hoguera que los queme y haga cenizas, que
se echen al agua para que no quede memoria de ellos sobre la faz de la
tierra23”.
To the violent and extremist defence of the foralista system, Larramendi
adds two new ideological aspects: First of all, the defence of an essentialist
foralism is linked now to the provincial (province), as an political object
bound with our ancestors which cast the imagined vascongada nation (not
exclusively the province of Guipuzcoa) to the future. Secondly, if the
Spanish monarchy would refuse to accept the natural and divine mandate of
the myth of foral pactism the vascongada nation, in virtue to its original
independence, would have the right to a secession from Spain.
“Guipuzcoa es un país libre y tiene derecho incontestable a ser libre, del
mismo modo que lo ha sido 500 años ha, desde que se unió a Castilla24”
The first notion it is almost Roussonian, and certainly we could talk about
a prenational Larramendi. Though in Larramendi, seccession is just an
open possibility, the renewal of Larramendi´s Solariega ideology will be
the core of the historicist Sabino Arana ´s narrative, in Vizcaya por su
Independencia (1893), for justifying the Independence of Euzkadi from a
maketa (with moor, and jew blood mixture), impía y liberal Spain.
14
In this sense, and following Larramendi´s point of view, it is possible to
understand Basque nationalism as a communal grievance reaction for the
fact of being this community obliged to be conceived as the very essence of
the Spanish Empire virtuosity, according to the tubalic myth, while losing,
at the same time, all the privileges involved by that function in the Ancient
Regime:
In fact, the grievance, was already present in Larramendi: “¿Que razón hay
para que la nación vascongada, la primitiva pobladora de España…que
razón hay, vuelvo a decir, para que esta nación privilegiada, y del más
noble origen, no sea nación aparte, nación de para sí, nación exenta e
independiente de las demás? Las provincias de Labort, Zuberoa y Baja
Navarra (salvo siempre su fidelidad) lloran sepultadas, recientemente sus
libertades, derechos y posesión antiquísima, a violencias injustas de poder.
El Señorío de Vizcaya gime también bajo el yugo que le van poniendo
como a nosotros. Solicitemos a unos y a otros, y nos llamaremos las
Provincias Unidas del Pirineo…y haremos una República toda de
Bascongados, y en su origen primitivos españoles25.”
CONCLUSION:
The inversion of the system of values and beliefs of the basque solariega
ideology constitutes the basis of the Basque nationalist ideology as
understood by Sabino Arana Goiri and his followers when the Basque
Nationalist Party (PNV) was founded in the 31 of July of 1895. This
mentioned inversion is a long term process. It begins with the Jesuit
Larramendi and it finds continuity in the foralista romantic literature of the
nineteen century of Mogel (Peru Abarka, for instance), Agustin Chaho o
Antonio Trueba. The only ideological innovation of Sabino Arana, to this
respect, is the total inversion of solariega ideology beliefs, based on the
idea of and occupied and colonized nation, the imaginary war against
Spain and the invention of a political project Euzkadi (The place for
basques) in where the new born community that rejects Spain would find
political accommodation.
IÑAKI VAZQUEZ LARREA, Political Anthropology Professor in UCAM
(Universidad Católica de Murcia), Spain.
15
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ANDERSON, B. (1997). Comunidades Imaginadas (Reflexiones sobre el
origen y la difusión del nacionalismo), FCE, México.
ARANZADI, J. (2000), Milenarismo Vasco (Edad de Oro, etnia y
nativismo), Taurus, Madrid.
BAROJA, J.C. (1972). Los Vascos y la Historia a través de Garibay (un
ensayo de biografía antropológica), Istmo, Madrid.
-(2000). Los vascos, Istmo, Madrid.
-(2004). El mito del carácter nacional, Caro Regio, Madrid.
-(2006). El Señor Inquisidor y otras vidas por oficio, Alianza Editorial,
Madrid.
ELORZA, A. (2001), Génesis, definición y desarrollo del nacionalismo
vasco, Crítica, Barcelona.
GARCÍA DE CORTAZAR, F. (1994). Historia del País Vasco. De los
orígenes hasta nuestros días, Txertoa, San Sebastián.
HOBSBAWM, E.J. (1990), Naciones y Nacionalismo desde 1780, Crítica,
Barcelona.
JUARISTI, J. (1992), Vestigios de Babel (Para una arqueología de los
nacionalismos españoles), Siglo XXI, Madrid.
MARTÍNEZ GORRIARAN, C. (1993). Casa, Provincia, Rey (Para una
Historia de la Cultura del Poder en el País Vasco), Alberdania, Zarautz.
MARAVALL, J.A. (1986). Antiguos y Modernos. Visión de la Historia e
Idea de Progreso hasta el Renacimiento, Alianza Editorial, Madrid.
16
The new patriotic feeling developed in western europe societies during the
sixteen century lead to the cultured men of this countries trying to bring the
reality of the Ancient classical Greek period , within the framework of an
italian influenced humanism, to its own Antiquity, and it takes place in a
double sequence. First of all, an increasing fashion for the primitive
products of the History of each country, not seen any longer as the proof of
a barbaric status, but as the original and the primitive image of the group
to where ones belongs to, so that, it is something you share with the rest of
individuals. Secondly, an interest for the ancient characters of each
country, for its History, as extense and accurate as possible, as on this
depends its present glory among the rest of countries around”. In J. A.
Maravall (1986), Antiguos y Modernos (Visión de la Historia e Idea de
Progreso hasta el Renacimiento), Alianza Editorial, Madrid, p. 234.
2
The political situation of the Basque Country is described by Julio Caro
Baroja as follows: “La segunda mitad de la Edad Media se caracterizará
en gran parte, por una lucha continua entre las villas y ciudades, fundadas
y protegidas por reyes y señores con atribuciones soberanas, y las aldeas
dominadas por los antiguos señores o jauntxos, que también eran enemigos
entre si con gran frecuencia. Durante todo el siglo XIV y gran parte del XV
se repitió en el País Vasco el fenómeno de las luchas de familia o linajes
que se registra en otras partes de Europa. De la plaga no se vieron libres
las mismas villas de realengo”
(The main feature of the second half of the middle ages will be
characterized by a continuous fighting between towns, founded and
protected by Kings and lords with sovereign powers, and rural villages
controlled by the ancient chiefs of parental lineages, that they also were
enemies. Along the fourteen and fifteen centuries the fightings among
families and lineages, common all over Europe, it was a widespread
phenomenon in the Basque Country. The King’s protected towns were also
often assaulted by lineages chiefs). Julio Caro Baroja, (2000), Los Vascos.
Istmo, Madrid, p. 83.
3
Carlos Martínez Gorriaran, (1993), Casa, Provincia, Rey (Para una
Historia de la Cultura del Poder en el País Vasco), Alberdania, Zarautz, p.
46.
4
Benedict Anderson (1997), Comunidades Imaginadas (Reflexiones sobre
el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo), FCE, México.
5
Jon Juaristi (1992), Vestigios de Babel (Para una arqueología de los
nacionalismos españoles), FCE, México.
6
ETA, which means The Basque country and freedom.
7
Carlos Martínez Gloriaran (1993), Casa, Provincia, Rey (Para una
Historia de la Cultura del Poder en el País Vasco), Alberdania, Zarautz, p.
48.
1
17
The basque anthropologist Juan Aranzadi compares the basque solariego
system with the cast system in India. Juan Aranzadi (2000), Milenarismo
Vasco (Edad de Oro etnia y nativismo), Taurus, Madrid.
9
Jon Juaristi, Vestigios de Babel (Para una arqueología de los
nacionalismos españoles), Siglo XXI, Madrid, p. 14.
“The vizcaina social class emerges out of the pacification and
destabilization of the middle ages banderiza society that had prevailed in
the cantabric region during the middle ages. At the end of the fifteen
century, a great amount of the vizcaína elite was preparing for getting
despachos and contadurías in the Imperial administration. In this attempt
they had to compete with the escriba social class already set up in the
Imperial Administration, a class largely formed by converted jews.
8
From the expelling of the jews the basque christians took many
advantages. In general terms the vizcaínos obtained, long before any other
community, a castiza superiority position over the mass of jews, moors and
converted when the traditional economy was experiencing a deep
transformation process . With this aim and ethnic particularistic ideology
was created in accordance with the old Christian and nobiliar ideology; an
extremist casticismo that allowed vizcainos no need to proof nobility status
or purity of blood, precisely when those began to be increasingly perceived
as necessary requirements for accessing to public positions…not just
against cargo habientes , converted, but also against asturians hidalgos.
Against all of them vizcainos built up the myth of Tubal”.
10
About the matxinadas as the typical peasantry rebellions within the
Ancient Regime in 1631 and 1718, see, Fernando Garcia de Cortina (1994),
Historia del País Vasco (de los orígenes a nuestros días), Txertoa, San
Sebastián.
11
Antonio Elorza, (2001), un pueblo escogido (Génesis, definición y
desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco), Crítica, Barcelona, p. 5.
“That for the blood shedding became Arrizonaga (red stones. There they
chose Don Zuria (The White Lord) grandson of the King of Scotland”
12
Jon Juaristi, (1992), Vestigios de Babel (Para una arqueología de los
nacionalismos españoles), Siglo XXI, Madrid, p. 86.
“This is the most precious lineage for the King/ The one with most
generous blood/ That for his language and law /old Christian and
noble/that in ancient writings I read in basque language/ that if he was not
vizcaino the King won´t be king”.
13
Ibídem, p. 82.
“Seventy two were in ancient times the number of languages in the World.
The cause of the number of this languages, according to the secret
18
Theology, was the punishment to the same number of parientes mayores
gathered in that fearful babelic Tower”.
14
Ibídem, p. 84-85.
“And that the ancient Spanish language was our, The language of Vizcaya,
is confirmed by the authority of Pomponio Mela, arguing that in the times
of Roman emperors it had already entered many different nations, that for
their quantity they had brought their languages, rites, and ceremonies, all
over the Kingdom to the province of Cantabria, because this one remained
unconquested, by the Romans, Greeks, or Carthaginians. To omnipotent
God name the Basques God, in a single syllable, which means you are the
goodness, and shows clearly, gracefully and at once the Tridentine
sanctity”.
Antonio Elorza, (2001), Un pueblo escogido (Génesis, definición y
desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco), Crítica, Barcelona, p. 3.
“They say that Alava, Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya were free Republics,
sovereigns, independent until they voluntarily delivered they sovereignty to
the Kings of Castilla, under the pacts and conditions were their customs,
laws and franquezas would remain as they were since the ancient centuries
, and it is said that this is the very origin of the fueros that had prevailed so
much that their local government representatives did not hesitate in
exposing this fact as the unquestionable basis for their demands to the
King”.
16
Julio Caro Baroja, (1972), Los vascos y la Historia a través de Garibay
(ensayo de biografía antropológica), Istmo, Madrid.
17
Antonio Elorza, (2001), Un pueblo escogido (Génesis, definición y
desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco), Crítica, Barcelona, p.4.
“ This province has always remained unconquested, it has never accepted
any imposed king or Lord but it always has chosen it freely and for the
benefit of the province”
18
The weakness of the enlightenment in the Basque Country in the eighteen
century is proved by the own elitism of the Real Sociedad Bascongada de
Amigos del País. In fact, the vast majority of its members, such as the Earl
of Peñaflorida, belonged to the basque nobility elite. In any case, The
Sociedad Bascongada never demanded the application of the
enlightenment principles for the political and social transformation of The
Basque Country, limiting its activity to the collection of useful theories for
foreseeable economic reforms, without calling in question the basis of
Solariega ideology and the privileged foralist structure The Basque
Country. Carlos Martinez Gorriaran (1993) Casa, Provincia, Rey (Para
una Historia de la Cultura del Poder en el País Vasco), Alberdania,
Zarautz. According to Fernando García de Cortazar, “Los planes de los
15
19
ilustrados en estas condiciones no dejaron de ser muestras voluntaristas y
destellos de un enfoque científico de la actividad económica” (The plans of
the basque enlightened elites were a mere scientific studies for a foreseable
economic activity and reforms) . Fernando García de Cortazar (1994),
Historia del País Vasco, Editorial Txertoa, San Sebastián, p. 85.
19
The matxines were in fact peasants, who were called like this because of
their complementary professional activity in the field of ironworks and
whose patron saint was Saint Martin, or Matxin in basque Language. They
were the majority of population in Señorio de Vizcaya at the end of the
eighteen century, and their social status was declining and they were
increasingly condenmed to misery. They were dependant on random
harvests, scarce and rare complementary incomes while suffering the
direct fiscal charges or the indirect charges over the consumption, their
discontent was significant in understanding the social protests or
matxinadas.
20
Fernando García de Cortazar (1994), Historia del País Vasco, Editorial
Txertoa, San Sebastián, p. 90.
“In spite of the main social antagonism in this century being the one
between jauntxos (nobility elites) and peasants, a social class emerging
from middle ages is now a secondary enemy of the oligarchic nobility. The
urban middle class, focus on commercial activity or capitalist inversion in
the basque rural landscape and factories, later on to be serious
competitors of the nobility social hegemony.
The explanation of the events of 1718 have to take into account (peasants
revolts) not only the framework of an increasing antagonism between
peasants and nobility elites, but also the one between nobles and the
emerging bourgeois for the hegemony in the basque Ancient Regime”.
Antonio Elorza (2001), Un pueblo escogido (Génesis, definición y
desarrollo del nacionalismo vasco), Crítica, Barcelona, p. 13.
“ As God founded the mayorazgo for its chosen people, for this being its
most estimated and precious land, in the same way founded in Guipúzcoa
another mayorazgo inherited generation after generation by the conditions
set up to this first settlers”
22
Ibidem, p. 16.
“All guipuzcoanos are inclined to be clean, well dressed and good looking.
You would never see the kind of filthy, nasty and ragged people that is easy
to find in Castillo or other kingdoms of Spain.
“This game strengthens our young people, it keeps them alive, agile and
ready for hard work, and our province is full of this kind of people”.
21
20
Ibidem, p. 17.
“All people from Guipuzcoa have been noble. This nobility of blood is
inherited for being the first settlers of Spain. In Guipuzcoa there can not be
a permanent location either for jews, moors or blacks. “All impious
(heretic or lacking purity of blood), make laugh of the Providence and the
truly catholic religion. Go away from this land!!!, and Spain, or shall be
brought to the holy Inquisition. May burn in order that their memory would
be lost for ever”.
24
Ibidem, p. 19.
“Guipuzcoa is a free country and has the undeniable right to be so, in the
same way as it has been in the last 500 years, since he joined Castilla”.
25
Ibidem, p. 27.
“Is there any reason for the Basque nation, the primitive settlers of Spain,
to prevent it from becoming and independent nation?. The provinces of
Labort, Zuberoa and Baja Navarra with their liberties and rights recently
thrown away. The Lordship of Viscera cries under the yoke imposed . Lets
unite, and we will be called the United Provinces of the Pyrenee… and we
will get a Republic of basques, in their primitive origins Spanish”.
23
21