Paraguay

Paraguay’s relationship with the Basques can be told through three lives: that of a hidalgo from Bergara who governed Asunción in the sixteenth century, that of a general of Basque descent who commanded the army in the war and later became president of the Republic, and that of an emigrant of 1926 whose stew is today the dish of a city.

Domingo Martínez de Irala, from Bergara to Asunción

Domingo Martínez de Irala was born, it is presumed, in 1506 in Bergara (Gipuzkoa). He was the son of Martín Pérez de Irala, a royal notary, and of Marina de Albisua y Toledo, of a family of the minor nobility from Bergara and Antzuola. His future was settled at home: his parents created the entailed estate of Irala for him and in 1529 gave him their landed property in Bergara.¹³ Even so, he chose the American adventure. He was secretary to the adelantado Pedro de Mendoza, and in 1555 he was appointed governor and captain general.² He died in Asunción on 3 October 1556.¹³

His name still links Paraguay with Euskal Herria. The book Domingo de Irala y su entorno en la villa de Bergara, by Miguel Ángel Elkoroberezibar, was presented in its updated edition at the I Semana Vasca de Asunción, in 2011.³¹³

José Félix Estigarribia, the general of the Chaco

The Auñamendi Encyclopedia presents José Félix Estigarribia as a “Paraguayan military man of Basque descent”. He was born in Caraguatay in 1888, led the Paraguayan Army in the Chaco War against Bolivia (1932-1935) and in 1939 was elected president of the Republic. The following year he dissolved Parliament, took on full powers and promoted a constitution that was approved by referendum on 4 August 1940. A few months later he died in an accident.¹⁷

He was already known in the diaspora before he governed. In November 1936, when he was being called the “hero of the Chaco”, he visited the Basque society Euskal Erria in Montevideo, and its president, Luis San Martín, welcomed him.¹⁸

The batiburrillo of San Juan Bautista

Batiburrillo is a stew of beef offal (liver, kidney, tongue and heart) with pepper, onion or garlic, and it is attributed to Sebastián Sasiain and Brígida Zubia. Sasiain began to make it in San Juan Bautista the same year he arrived, 1926, and he also created a drink, siriki.⁷⁸ Today the dish identifies the city. Its annual festival held its 19th edition in January 2020, with batiburrillo, siriki and chorizo contests, and on the jury, as its chair, was Silvia, one of Sasiain’s granddaughters.⁷ He had died in 1976, and the municipality dedicated a plaque to him on the Paseo de los Ilustres.⁸