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The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Basque University by “Colectivo Jesús de Sarria” (José Manuel Castells Arteche, Gurutz Jauregui Bereziartu, Juan Igartua Salaverria, Gregorio Monreal Zía) On the day of November 18, 1936, the Official Bulletin of the Autonomous Basque Government published a decree creating the Basque University. Those of us who will have great difficulty in surviving until the centennial celebration of this act (which may in any event not require the presence of actual persons), and who fear that we may even lack vitality on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary, wish to take the present opportunity to commemorate a date that had much to do with the origin of the institution to which we pertain. The 1936 Decree is worth noting, even if it may not be regarded as the efficacious founding charter of the actual Public University of the Basque Country. It is particularly surprising that a Basque government totally engrossed in a defensive war that was doomed to failure would give absolute priority to the creation of the Basque University. In those autumn days of 1936 the south and east winds carried the sounds of artillery fire from the Durango front to the very windows of the presidential suite in Bilbao’s Hotel Carlton. The explanation for such an unlikely initiative is to be found in the ideals that motivated the generation of the 1930s, people with the cultural values that permeated the mentality of our particular national renaissance. In fact the aspirations to have a Basque University were not born in the 1920s and 1930s. Rather, they were longstanding and echoed the exploratory initiative of the Navarrese Diputación which, in 1868, sought to establish a Basque-Navarrese University, an effort that failed due to the lack of cooperation among the Basque provinces and the disinterest or hostility of the central government in Madrid. The rebirth of the idea was due to the efforts of the generation of the early twentieth century studied by Idoia Estornes in her monograph on the Society of Basque Studies. The university concept was nourished by the Basque cultural and political ferment in its various guises, all of which were able to agree on the worth of the common project and its importance for Basque cultural development. Let us therefore give men like A. de Apraiz, Telesforo de Aranzadi, Eguren, Elorrieta and others their due. Of particular significance was the project of the 1916 Basque Mancomunidad which mandated creation of a university district for the Basque Country. The following year the State of the Diputaciones address requested governmental authorization of a Basque system of higher education. The First Congress of Basque Studies (1918) underscored the importance of a University system as a key element in the national recovery of the Basque Country. It set the tone for the future institution by identifying its two missions as the provisioning of socio-cultural services to the Basque community while upholding rigorous standards in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Before the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, there was a popular petition in favor of the Basque University circulated by the students. The President of the Eusko Ikaskuntza Society spoke to King Alfonso XIII of the “lively, vehement and heartfelt desire to have a University for the Basque people…” and that “…we should not be denied that which other regions have.” In the atmosphere of the great expectations and illusions regarding a Basque Statute of Autonomy created by the early phase of the Spanish Republic, both the students and the intelligentsia of the Basque Country agreed unanimously on the need to establish a public university. In this they were supported by the finest intellectuals of the Spanish state. Recently, we were fortunate to browse with attention and interest a document which is of fundamental importance for the cultural history of our country, entitled Pro- Universidad Vasca/Eusko ikastola nagusi alde (In Favor of the Basque University) and published in Madrid in 1932 by the Asociación de Cultura Vasca/Eusko Ikasbatza. It should be read by all who are University professionals and those who formulate the cultural policy of the Basque Country. In 1936, just prior to its formal constitution on October 9, the Basque government created a commission charged with determining the necessary steps to be taken in founding the Basque University. We believe that the decision must be understood in a context of well-intentioned nationalistic values in which the mystique of the Basque University had to be reconciled with the reality of going ahead with what was possible, no matter how imperfect and provisional. Whatever the case, it is evident that a flower was made to bloom that was destined to wither quickly. On November 17, President Aguirre placed his signature upon the decree founding the University and one month later professors were named to the Medical School. Shortly thereafter the Nursing School of the Civil Hospital of Bilbao was incorporated into the new institution. The halls of the Medical School remained open as long as possible given the fact that Franco’s forces were tightening the noose around Bilbao’s neck. When the city fell and was lost to the Republican and Autonomous Basque forces, the University which was closely aligned with both causes, was closed. Needless to say many of those who participated politically or academically in the birth of the institution were professionally ruined, or worse. The imagined University which failed because of the Civil War could have been one of the principle instruments in the normalization of Basque nationhood. The changing socio-linguistic and cultural balance is, after all, the result of the competition between different influences and forces. The liveliest and most important prevail and receive the greatest social support. Such has been the case among certain European ethnic minorities that have worked hard to preserve their identity with the long haul in mind. We are certain Aguirre and his government had a pluralistic university in mind where, had there not been a fratricidal war, such ideologically antithetical figures as Gregorio Balparda and Aitzol, to cite two representative victims of the conflict, might have taught. At times we think of how the Basque Country might have been different today had José Miguel de Barandiaran or José Lacarra been permitted to form their schools of thought in the forties and fifties, or if Luis Michelena had been incorporated into a Basque university in his youth, and how many more? Even though we are in the midst of tempestuous elections and the moment is not propitious for supra-party commemorations, we would like to propose that academics, as well as all those citizens interested in the University, honor President Aguirre and his beleaguered ministers. When all appearances suggested that the force of arms were going to abolish the future of this country, they had the courage with an act of faith in creating the Basque University, to wager on the future of a peaceful and educated society, and one that would thereby be free. (The foregoing was adapted from an article published in the newspaper El Diario Vasco, November 17, 1986. It was written by a group of professors at the University of the Basque Country.) |
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