Centro Laurak Bat

The Centro Laurak Bat in Buenos Aires is the oldest Basque centre in the world still in activity. It was founded by thirteen young Basques on 13 March 1877, gathered at the café Milán, at number 410 Calle Cangallo, as a direct response to the abolition of the fueros (the Basque charters) the year before. In 1904 it opened its own chair of Basque, which ran until 1906 under the direction of Pello Mari Otaño, and in 1955 it was among the founding organisations of the FEVA, on whose Board of Directors it has had a guaranteed seat ever since. Its building, in the Montserrat neighbourhood, is a Building of National Historic Interest and has a fronton, a restaurant and a sapling of the Tree of Gernika planted in 1906. Organisations such as Acción Vasca de Argentina, Emakume Abertzale Batza, Euskaltzaleak and Eusko Kultur Etxea came out of the centre.