Chile

The Centro Basco de Santiago (1912)

The Basque institutions of Chile were built by the humble emigrants of the twentieth century, and in two cities. In Santiago they were two entities that the Civil War split apart and that ended up merging into a single house; in Valparaíso, a mutual society open to all and, decades later, a Eusko Etxea.

The first was formed in Santiago on 21 March 1912 under the name of Centro Basco. Giving it legal form required a general assembly, which was held on 16 November 1913, and the Government of Chile granted it legal personality on 19 June 1914.² Its statutes set it four aims: fellowship among Basques and their descendants, entertainment “within traditional culture and morals”, mutual aid and finding premises with a library and a fronton or trinquete.²

Euzko Gastedija, the Basque youth (1931)

Nineteen years later another group was born within it. In July 1931, Vicente Yarza and Bonifacio de Larrañaga met at the premises of the Centro Vasco to create within it, as an affiliate, a new association: after the preparatory meeting of 26 July 1931, the first assembly of Euzko Gastedija (Basque Youth) was held on 9 August, and it obtained legal personality in 1933.² Its character was explicitly nationalist, and among its aims was the study and practice of the Basque language.²⁴

The Civil War split the Centro Vasco in two. On one side were the supporters of the Basque Government, linked to Euzko Gastedija; on the other, some former board members who sympathised with Franco’s side.¹⁰

The union: Euzko Etxea (1949-1950)

Bringing the Basques of the capital back together took years. The first step was taken by the lehendakari (president of the Basque Government) José Antonio Aguirre, who in 1942 spent a week in Santiago.¹⁰ Around 1949 the two entities reached an agreement, and in March 1950 the Euzko Etxea corporation was constituted, “the Basque house of the whole community living in Santiago”.²¹⁰ Its definitive statutes were approved in 1957,² and the building work on its premises at 547 Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, with a euskaltegi included, was completed in 1980.⁷

Valparaíso: a mutual society (1915) and a Eusko Etxea (1943)

In Valparaíso the road began with mutual aid. A group of merchants founded the Centro Vasco Chileno de Socorros Mutuos there on 17 June 1915, with legal personality from 13 September that year. It was not a closed society: it also admitted Chileans and natives of other regions of Spain.⁵

The Eusko Etxea came almost thirty years later. On the night of 13 May 1943, a group of Basque merchants drew up its founding charter at the Academia de Billares on Avenida Pedro Montt. The house was inaugurated with a banquet on 20 April 1947 and obtained legal personality in September that year.⁵ Of its seven aims, one was “to devote special attention to our language, Euzkera”.⁵