Centro Vasco 'Euskal Erria'

Euskal Erria was born in Montevideo in 1912 to bring together in a single society the Basques from both sides of the Pyrenees and their descendants. Its founding assembly was held on the night of 30 March 1912 in the halls of the Sociedad Española, with some 350 people, and its statutes made that equality visible every year: the presidency alternated between a native of the French Basque Country and one from the peninsular side. At first it met in borrowed premises, until in 1926 it bought the Cancha de Basilio, the fronton that Inciarte, later president of the society, had acquired in his own name in November 1912; for 48 years it also published its own newspaper, “Euskal Erria”. In 1943 it lent its halls to the Gran Semana Vasca (Great Basque Week), and out of the period that then opened in the society came, in 1944, the first chair of the Basque language in the Americas, at the Universidad de la República, and in 1945 the Departamento de Estudios Vascos. The Basque Government has recognised it since 1996, with 450 members in its register.