Abstract
After Franco’s definitive victory in the Civil War in 1939,1 any expression and symbol of Basque political or cultural particularism was brutally persecuted and the working capacity of the Basque government established in Paris was completely absorbed by the organization of different kinds of humanitarian aid for the thousands of refugees crossing the border. With the beginning of the Second World War, the panorama for the Basque nationalists — and in general all Basques opposed to Francoist fascism — became even darker. The Germans surprised President Aguirre on a family visit to Belgium. He escaped and disappeared for more than a year, before returning to the political stage after a long and dangerous Odyssey with a changed identity.2 The occupation of France forced the Basque government to leave Paris and establish itself in New York. But even during this period of desperation, Basque nationalism did not surrender and maintained an important level of activity with the foundation of the ‘Basque National Council’ in January 1941 in London.3 Chaired by Manuel de Irujo, former PNV minister in the Spanish Republican government,4 the Council was conceived as a temporary substitute for the Basque government, which due to the disappearance of its president and the German occupation of France was forced into political inactivity. Irujo’s initiative was inspired by the example of other governments exiled in the London, and particularly the Polish one.
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Notes
One of the best studies on Francoism and its leader is the biography written by P. Preston, Franco (London: HarperCollins, 1993).
The most recent and comprehensive research on the history of Basque nationalism during the Civil War, Francoism and democratic transition is S. de Pablo/L. Mees/J. A. Rodríguez Ranz, El Péndulo Patriótico: Historia del Partido Nacionalista Vasco, vol. II: 1936–1979 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001).
This odyssey was described by Aguirre himself in his book De Gernika a Nueva York pasando por Berlín, which was translated into English under the title Escape via Berlin (New York: Macmillan, 1944). Recently, an unpublished diary written during his escape from fascism has been discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington. See J. A. de Aguirre y Lecube, Diario de Aguirre (Tafalla: Editorial Txalaparta, 1998).
J. C. Jiménez de Aberasturi (ed.), Los vascos en la II Guerra Mundial: El Consejo National Vasco en Londres 1940–44 (Recopilación documental) (San Sebastián: Sociedad de Estudios Vascos, 1991).
In 1938, Irujo had resigned from his office in the republican government headed by Negrin in protest against the president’s centralist policy in Catalonia. Later, in 1945, Irujo returned to the new government formed in exile until his definitive resignation in 1947. See M. Irujo, Un vasco en el Ministerio de Justicia, 3 vols (Buenos Aires: Ekin, 1976–79).
K. San Sebastián, Crónicas de postguerra 1937–1951 (Bilbao: Idatz Ekintza, 1985).
J. C. Jiménez de Aberásturi, De la derrota a la esperanza: políticas vascas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1937–1947) (Oñati: IVAP, 1999).
J. M. Garmendia and A. Elordi, La Resistencia vasca (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1982).
J. C. Jiménez de Aberasturi and K. San Sebastián, La huelga general del 1. de mayo de 1947. (Artículos y documentas) (San Sebastián: Sociedad de Estudios Vascos, 1991).
Quoted in the editor’s introduction to Aguirre’s diary mentioned in a previous note. Galíndez’s fascinating biography has been the object of several novels. Even today, and after some research has been done, there are still open questions concerning his disappearance in March 1956, when he was kidnapped on Fifth Avenue in New York. The most likely hypothesis concerning the authors of the kidnapping refers to Dominican agents in the service of the dictator Trujillo, who captured Galíndez with the complicity of the American Secret Service, and took him to the Dominican Republic, where he was tortured and then thrown from an airplane into the Caribbean. See I. B. Urkijo, Galíndez: la tumba abierta, Los vascos y los Estados Unidos (Vitoria–Gasteiz: Gobierno Vasco, 1993).
R. P. Clark, The Basque Insurgents. ETA, 1952–1980 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).
J. M. Garmendia, Historia de ETA (San Sebastián: Haranburu, 1995).
P. Ibarra, La evolutión estratégica de ETA (San Sebastián: Kriselu, 1987).
G. Jauregui, Ideología y estrategia política de ETA. Análisis de su evolutión entre 1959 y 1968 (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1981).
F. Letamendia, Historia del nacionalismo vasco y de ETA, 3 vols (San Sebastian: R & B, 1994).
C. E. Zirakzadeh, A Rebellious People: Basques, Protests, and Politics (Reno: Nevada University Press, 1991).
J. Sullivan, ETA and Basque Nationalism: The Fight for Euskadi 1890–1986 (London: Routledge, 1988).
A. Elorza et al., La historia de ETA (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2000).
P. Waldmann, Militanter Nationalismus im Baskenland (Frankfurt: Vervuert, 1990), p. 71.
L. C. Núñez, Clases sociales en Euskadi (San Sebastián: Txertoa, 1977), pp. 157–71.
J. Ruiz Olabuenaga and M. C. Blanco, La inmigración vasca. Análisis trigeneracional de 150 anos de inmigración (Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 1994).
The following figures concerning the decay of Euskara are taken from L. C. Núnez, Opresión y defensa del euskera (San Sebastián: Txertoa, 1977), pp. 26–8.
L. Mees, ‘Zwischen Mobilisierung und Institutionalisierung. Der baskische Nationalismus 1953–1995’, in: H. Timmermann (ed.), Nationalismus in Europa 1945–1995 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), pp. 221–62.
S. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
B. Tejerina, Nacionalismo.y lengua (Madrid: CIS/Siglo XXI, 1992).
F. Sarrailh de Ihartza (pseudonym: F. Krutwig), Vasconia: Estudio dialéctico de una nacionalidad (Buenos Aires: Norbait, 1973; first: 1963), pp. 12 and 44.
X. M. Núñez Seixas, Los nacionalismos en la España contemporánea (siglos XIX y XX), (Barcelona: Hipòtesi, 1999).
L. Mees, ‘De spanische “Sonderweg”‘J. L. de la Granja/J. Beramendi/P. Anguera, La España de los nacionalismos y las autonomias (Madrid: Síntesis, 2001).
P. Waldmann, Ethnischer Radikalismus: Ursachen und Folgen gewaltsamer Minderheitenkonflikte am Beispiel des Baskenlandes, Nordirlands und Quebecs (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984). Waldmann, using also data supplied by Clark (1984, pp. 143–6) analysed the information concerning only 81 prisoners. The recent study of Domínguez includes 1, 118 cases.
F. Domínguez Iribarren, ETA: Estrategia organizativa y actuaciones 1978–1992 (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1998), pp. 43–77.
D. Conversi, The Basques, the Catalans, and Spain (London: Hurst, 1997), p. 263.
T. R. Gurr and B. Harff, Ethnic Conflict in World Politics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), p. 85.
G. Giacopucci, ETA–pm: el otro Camino (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 1997); the lawyer Juan Mari Bandrés was one of the politicians who on behalf of ETA p–m participated directly in the negotiations.
See his memoirs R. Castro, Juan María Bandrés, memo–rias para lapaz (Majadahonda: HMR, 1998).
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© 2003 Ludger Mees
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Mees, L. (2003). Dictatorship and Exile: the Shape of the New Nationalism. In: Nationalism, Violence and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943897_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403943897_4
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