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Basque nationalism (Basque:eusko abertzaletasuna[eus̺koabeɾts̻aletas̺una];Spanish:nacionalismo vasco;French:nationalisme basque) is a form ofnationalism that asserts thatBasques, an ethnic groupindigenous to the westernPyrenees, are anation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today split betweenSpain andFrance. Since its inception in the late 19th century, Basque nationalism has included movements supportive ofBasque independence.
Basque nationalism, spanning three different regions in two states (theBasque Autonomous Community andNavarre in Spain, and theFrench Basque Country in France), is "irredentist in nature"[1] as it favours political unification of all theBasque-speaking provinces.
Basque nationalism is rooted inCarlism and the loss, by the laws of 1839 and 1876, of theAncien Régime relationship between the Spanish Basque provinces and thecrown of Spain. During this period, thereactionary and theliberal brand of the pro-fueros movement pleaded for the maintenance of the fueros system and territorial autonomy against the centralizing pressures fromliberal or conservative governments inMadrid. The Spanish government suppressed thefueros after theThird Carlist War.
Thefueros were the native decision making and justice system issued fromconsuetudinary law prevailing in the Basque territories and Pyrenees. They are first recorded in theKingdom of Navarre, confirming its charter system also across thewestern Basque territories during theHigh Middle Ages.[2] In the wake of Castile's conquest ofGipuzkoa,Álava andDurango (1200), the fueros were partially ratified by thekings of Castile and acted as part of the Basque legal system dealing with matters regarding the political ties of the Basque districts with the crown. The Fueros guaranteedthe Basques a separate position in Spain with their own tax and political status. While its corpus is extensive, prerogatives contained in them set out for one that Basques were not subject to directlevee to the Castilian army, although many volunteered.
The native Basque institutions and lawswere abolished in 1876 after theThird Carlist War (called the Second in the Basque context), and replaced by theBasque Economic Agreements. The levelling process with other Spanish regions disquieted the Basques. According toSabino Arana's views, theBiscayan (and Basque) personality was being diluted in the idea of an exclusive Spanish nation fostered by centralist authorities in Madrid. Arana was inspired by his brother Luis, a co-designer of the Basque flagikurriña (1895), and a major nationalist figure after Sabino's death (1903).
Arana felt that not only the Basque personality was endangered but also its former religious institutions, like Church or theSociety of Jesus, which still often spoke in Basque to its parishioners, unlike school or administration. Sabino characterized Catholicism as a sort of shelter for Basque personality. This became a point of contention with other personalities holding like views and clustering around Arana's manifestoBizkaya por su independencia (1892). Later industrialist and prominent Basque nationalistRamon de la Sota dismissed Sabino's positions ofCatholicism as inherent to the national issue.
In 1893, the Gamazada popular uprising erupted in Navarre against the breach by the Spanish government of several foundations of the treaties ending theCarlist Wars (1841, 1876). Arana eagerly supported the Navarrese outbreak by travelling to the territory and participating. The widespread protest in Navarre sparked solidarity in Biscay. In 1893, after a support meeting held in Gernika attended by pro-fueros personalities, a group led by Arana overtly blamed Spain for the current state of matters, going on to set a Spanish flag ablaze. This rebellion, called theSanrocada, is held as the beginning of political Basque nationalism.
In 1895, theBasque Nationalist Party was founded around Arana (PNV in its Spanish acronym, EAJ in Basque). His nationalism shifted from a focus on Biscay tothe rest of Basque territories. The program ofArana was specified as follows:
The Basques represent a nation, with their own history and culture. This nation consists of race, language and an own political system(theforuak). The liberty ofEuzkadi [term created by Sabino Arana to refer to the Basque Country] has been destroyed byFrance and, mainly, bySpain, who subjugated by force the different Basque territories, including the formerKingdom of Navarre’s territories, with the exceptionLa Rioja, as well asLapurdi andZuberoa. As a consequence of the lack of independence of the country, the country has a political despondency, which has its last expression in the suppression of the Basque Traditional Laws and its own institutional system, the economic submission towardsFrance andSpain, and the disappearance of the signs of identity. The solution to all these problems is to restore independence, by breaking the political ties withFrance andSpain, and the construction of a Basque state with its own sovereignty.
By the end of the 19th century, Arana differed clearly from theCarlists, his initial background. He accompanied his views with an ideology centred on the purity of the Basque race and its alleged moral supremacy over other Spaniards (a derivation of the system oflimpieza de sangre ofModern-Age Spain), and deep opposition to the mass-immigration of other Spaniards to the Basque Country. The immigration had started after theIndustrial Revolutions boom of manufacturing related to the ore exportation to England and privatization of communal lands and exploitations (mines) as thefueros were lost.
Arana died in 1903 months after releasinga controversial manifesto renouncing his former tenets while in prison for supporting Cuban independence, and just months after the Basque leadercongratulated US president Theodore Roosevelt for its support to Cuba. The nature of that document is still subject to discussion. Luis Arana took the reins of the Basque Nationalist Party.
In the early 20th century, Basque nationalism, developed from a nucleus of enthusiasts (non-native Basque speakers themselves) in Bilbao to incorporate the agrarian Carlists in Biscay, and Gipuzkoa. The seeds of Seminal Basque nationalism bloomed also in Navarre and Álava early on (Aranzadi, Irujo, Agirre, etc.) on the heat of theGamazada (1893–1894).[citation needed]
The movement survived without major problems the dictatorship ofMiguel Primo de Rivera under the guise of cultural and athletic associations. The Basque Nationalist Party split in the early 20s, andComunión Nacionalista Vasca was created. Basque nationalists allied with Carlism in support of the Catholic Church as a barrier against leftistanti-clericalism in most of the Basque provinces, although alliances started to change with the coming of the Second Spanish Republic (1931).
By the start of theSecond Spanish Republic, a small cluster of secularist Basque nationalists had sown the seeds of theEAE-ANV, while PNV clung to its traditionalist Catholicism. However, failure by a Carlist faction to back upthe Basque statute in 1932 and the radicalization of their anti-Republican discourse, opened the Basque nationalists to new alliances with Republican and leftist parties, gradually shifting to a Christian-Democrat position willing to some sort of compromise with the left.
In 1936, the main part of theChristian-Democrat PNV sided with the Second Spanish Republic in theSpanish Civil War. The promise of autonomy was valued over the ideological differences, especially on the religious matter, and PNV decidedto support the legal republican government. After stopping the far-right military rebels in Intxorta (Biscay-Gipuzkoa border),autonomy was achieved in October 1936. A republican autonomous Basque government was established, with José Antonio Agirre (PNV) asLehendakari (president) and ministers from the PNV and other republican parties (mainly leftist Spanish parties).
However, in 1937, roughly halfway through the war,Basque troops, then under control of theAutonomous Basque Government surrendered in an action brokered by the Basque church and theVatican inSantoña tothe Italian allies of General Franco on condition that the Basque heavy industry and economy was left untouched.[3]
For many leftists in Spain, the surrender of Basque troops in Santoña (Santander) is known as theTreason of Santoña. Many of the nationalist Basque soldiers were pardoned if they joined the Francoist army in the rest of the Northern front. Basque nationalists submitted, went underground, or were sent to prison, and the movement's political leaders fled. Small groups escaped to theAmericas,France andBenelux, of which only a minority returned after the restoration of democracy in Spain in the late seventies, or before.
During World War II, the exiled PNV government attempted to join the Allies and settled itself in New York to gain American recognition and support, but soon after the war finished, Franco became an American ally in the context of theCold War, depriving the PNV of any chance of power in the Basque Country.
In 1959, young nationalists (abertzaleak) founded the separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA; "Basque Homeland and Liberty"[4]). Its activism—paintings, pitching Basque flags, pamphlets—escalated into violence after shocking revelations emerged of torture practised by Spanish police on Basque activists during repression in the mid-1960s. By that time, ETA was adopting aMarxist revolutionary theory. Inspired by movements like those ofFidel Castro inCuba andHo Chi Minh inVietnam, the group aimed to establish an independent socialist Basque Country through violence. ETA's first confirmed assassinations occurred in 1968, thereafter including violence, even killing, as a practice—theory of action-repression-action. At an ideological level, instead of race, the organization stressed the importance of language and customs.
When Spain re-emerged as a democracy in 1978, autonomy was restored to the Basques, who achieved a degree of self-government without precedent in modern Basque history. Thus, based on thefueros and theirStatute of Autonomy, Basques have theirown police corps and manage their own public finances. The Basque Autonomous Community has been led by the nationalist and Christian DemocraticPNV since it was reinstated in the early 1980s, except in the period 2009–2012, when thePSE-EE led the regional government. The left-wing Basque independentistEH Bildu has been the main opposition party since its formation in 2012.
InNavarre, traditionally, Basque nationalism did not manage to reach the government of theautonomous community, the latter being usually controlled by the Navarrese regionalists of theUPN, often with the support of thePSN, but Basque nationalist parties ran many small and medium-sized town councils, where most ethnic basques and basque speakers are located. In 2015,Uxue Barkos became the first Basque nationalist president of Navarre with her coalitionGeroa Bai, which includes the PNV, and since 2019 has been part of subsequent PSN governments. EH Bildu has also notably grown its influence in the region, taking over the mayoralty ofPamplona in 2023, and being key in theNavarrese parliament.
Although France is acentralized state,Abertzaleen Batasuna, a Basque nationalist party, maintained a presence in some municipalities through local elections until late 2000s. In 2007, the Basque nationalist electoral coalition and later political partyEuskal Herria Bai was formed. They obtained regional representation in 2015, and in 2024 they obtained one seat in theNational Assembly, as a part of theNew Popular Front.
