Cameron Watson Mo d e r n Ba Eighteenths qu Centurye Hi s t too ther Presenty Center for Basque Studies á University of Nevada, Reno Modern Basque History Cameron Watson received a B.A. Honors Degree in His- tory from the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, in 1988; an M.A. in History from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1992; and a Ph.D. in Basque Studies (History) from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1996. He was Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Reno, from 1996 to 1999 and currently teaches at Mondragon Unibertsitatea in Euskal Herria and for the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) Program at the University of the Basque Country. He is an Adjunct Professor of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has published “Ethnic Conflict and the League of Nations: The Case of Transylvania, 1918–1940,” Hun- garian Studies 9, nos. 1–2 (1994), 173–80; “Folklore and Basque Nationalism: Language, Myth, Reality,” Nations and Nationalism 2, no. 1 (1996), 17–34; “Imagining ETA,” in William A. Douglass, Carmelo Urza, Linda White, and Joseba Zulaika, eds., Basque Politics and Nationalism on the Eve of the Millennium (Reno: Basque Studies Program, 1999), 94Ð114; and (with Pauliina Raento) “Gernika, Guernica, Guernica? Con- tested Meanings of a Basque Place,” Political Geography 19 (2000), 707Ð36. His research interests include Basque and Iberian culture and history, Celtic identity and nationalism, modern European history and the impact of modernity on European society, nationalism and the construction of cultural identity, and ethnic conflict and political vio- lence. Cameron Watson Modern Basque History Eighteenth Century to the Present Basque Textbooks Series Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno This book was published with generous financial support from the Basque Government. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Watson, Cameron, 1967Ð Modern Basque history: eighteenth century to the present / Cameron Watson. p. cm. -- (Basque textbooks series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-877802-16-6 (paperback) ISBN 1-877802-17-4 (hardcover) ISBN 1-877802-18-2 (compact disk) 1. País Vasco (Spain)–History. I. Title. II. Series. DP302.B53W38 2003 946'.6--dc21 2003000148 Published by the Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno / 322 Reno, Nevada 89557-0012 Copyright ©2003 Center for Basque Studies All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Contents Introduction . 7 1 á Old Regime Basque culture . 20 2 á Old Regime Basque society . 35 3 á The French Revolution (I) . 46 4 á The French Revolution (II) . 63 5 á Iparralde, 1815Ð70 . 78 6 á Hegoalde, 1814Ð39 . 93 7 á Hegoalde, 1840Ð76 . 104 8 á Industry . 117 9 á Tourism . 128 10 á Migration and urbanization . 140 11 · Spain’s first transition . 155 12 á The invention of Basque nationalism . 170 13 · Fin-de-siècle Hegoalde . 189 14 á Iparralde, 1870Ð1914 . 204 15 á Iparralde, 1914Ð45 . 222 16 á Modern Basque culture and society (I) . 238 17 á Modern Basque culture and society (II) . 254 18 á The Spanish Second Republic . 267 19 “Death to intelligence!” . 282 20 “Spain: one, great, and free” . 302 21 á Political violence . 320 22 · Spain’s second transition, 1975–82 . 336 23 · Spain’s second transition, 1982–2002 . 352 24 á Iparralde, 1945Ð81 . 376 25 á Iparralde, 1981Ð2002 . 395 26 á The dawn of the new millennium . 413 Basque identity today . 434 Spelling and usage . 445 Notes . 447 Picture credits . 470 Index . 472 Colophon . 519 Introduction odernity—that indefinable ideology associated M with the rational organizing principle of nation- states and the rise of the democratic, technological West—bequeathed European history a legacy of thinking that the historical “meaning of civilization” was intimately connected to the fortunes of the great powers, from ancient Greece to the British Empire. Yet beneath the surface of this idea lies another story—at the same time just as interesting and often even more dramatic than its traditionally more esteemed parallel. This is what has come to be known as a “local” story, part of a burgeoning trend of other histories that seek to strengthen that most human of desires—the desire to belong to a collective past predating the cultural homog- enization implied by globalization. Today, amid this blurring of international cultural, economic, and polit- ical boundaries, people are increasingly turning to local culture as a means of defining their group identity. I would advocate that the fortunes of the Basque Country (or Euskal Herria as it is termed in Basque), an ancient, small country tucked away in a corner of western Europe, offer historians just as much insight into the meaning of modern European history as the more widely known events of the large European states. Modern Basque history is replete with all the drama of the modern period, beginning with the French Revolu- tion and its effects on Basque society and traversing the industrial and urban changes of the nineteenth century through to the twentieth-century phenomena of war and totalitarianism. I would similarly argue that the Basque historical experience—especially the seemingly illogical survival of the Basque language and its associated cul- tural forms—offers those of us from historically more Late nineteenth-century couple from Gipuzkoa. The rural Basque figure was appropriated by Basque nation- alists as a timeless symbol of the Basque essence. By permission of Editorial Iparaguirre, S.A. archives. Introduction á 9 —— — — — — powerful cultural backgrounds an important lesson in comprehending the tenacity of smaller cultures within our globalizing world. In the following chapters, I will attempt to tell the story of the modern Basque Country while at the same time raising more general questions about the nature of history itself and the meaning of Europe, as well as issues such as how and why historical change takes place and the myriad ways in which culture drives his- tory. hat, then, of history? A sense of the past is cen- W tral to what it means to be human. We define our- selves, in many ways, through our relationship with the past. History, memory, and individual or group aware- ness of the past thus shape and sometimes even deter- mine the present. The central problem for historians, however, as the noted historian Eric Hobsbawm observes, is to analyze this sense of the past in society and to trace its changes and transformations.1 But do history and memory alone guarantee that what we think happened in the past did in fact take place? The past is, in real terms, gone, and at best history can only re- create what it thinks took place. We cannot verify it through experiment, nor can we physically visit it.2 Thus we are left with the difficult task of attempting to re-create something that we can never truly be sure took place. Lest we think that a historical exploration of the sort we are about to embark on is doomed to a sense of uncertainty, let us affirm the benefits of an investigation of this type: In an account of critical historical investiga- tion remarkable for its clarity and contemporary rele- vance, the fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn observed that history ultimately involves an attempt to get at the truth, the subtle explanation of the causes and origins of things, and a profound understanding of the how and why of things.3 The following assumptions underlie the theoretical structure of the study of Basque history undertaken here: 1. We should think and talk about the particular events, objects, and texts we examine within the temporal context of change. That is, we should always be aware of the time frame of our subject matter and what (if indeed anything) changes within this time frame. 2. We should analyze our subject matter within a broad context. Whereas a literary analyst might let a text stand alone in terms of their investigation, for example, the historian must relate the text to other objects around it at that same point in time. Ulti- mately the subject of the text should fit into the overall object of understanding linear time through the rubric of change.4 It is also vital to clarify at least working definitions (how- ever subject to change they might be) of the key terms and concepts of this historical account. If any two words stand out immediately in an exploration of modern Basque history, they are nation and state. Throughout the time period studied here, Euskal Herria has been, according to many perspectives, a nation without a state (with state authority residing in France and Spain). nthony Smith defines a nation, or at least the ideal A aspired to by many nationalists, as a “named com- munity of history and culture, possessing a unified terri- tory, economy, mass education system and common legal rights.”5 As this definition applies to an ideal, he continues, many nations may lack one or more of these characteristics, but as the nation can never be a once- and-for-all, all-or-nothing concept, this should not Introduction á 11 —— — — — — obstruct what effectively constitutes a national basis. Smith then makes a statement of particular relevance to the present work: “historical nations are ongoing processes.”6 This idea tells us much about the nature of history, measured in many ways as the process of change through time. The second major point to Smith’s conception of the nation is that it cannot exist ex nihilo—it cannot appear as if by magic without at least some favorable elements in its social environment that encourage the ongoing process. Most significant among these is the existence of an ethnic community—a social group that historically has shared certain cultural attributes.