Spain

The Basques of Madrid had many houses over the twentieth century, and almost all of them ended up closing: short-lived societies in the late nineteenth century, a Hogar Vasco that the war turned into a barracks, a religious brotherhood created when the authorities did not answer a request for a civil association and, since 1982, the premises on the calle Jovellanos. Through them passed those who came to the capital to work or to study.

Basque-Navarrese societies and frontons (1888-1910)

In the late nineteenth century, besides the two congregations, the Basques and Navarrese of Madrid tried several times to have a recreational and cultural society. Almost none of them lasted. Estíbaliz Ruiz de Azúa traced them in the registers of the Civil Government: the Círculo Vasco was dissolved in October 1888, six months after submitting its rules; Euskal-Erria (Centro Vasco-Navarro) lived for forty days, between December 1893 and January 1894, and the Laurak Bat society, opened on 3 February 1899 on the calle Carretas, was dissolved in May. The one that lasted longest was the Sociedad Vasco-Navarra (1900-1909), known for its literary and musical evenings on the calle de la Cruz.³ It was on its premises, on the night of 25 April 1903, that Athletic Club de Madrid was founded: it was the wish of some young men from Bizkaia who were studying at the Escuela de Minas (School of Mines) and wanted a branch of Athletic Club de Bilbao in the capital.³

These were also the years of pelota. Between 1891 and 1899 five large frontons were built in the centre of Madrid: the Jai Alai, Fiesta Alegre, Euskal Jai, Beti Jai and the Central. The Club de Sport Vasco, founded in 1904 to play pelota without betting, had its headquarters at the Jai Alai and in 1909 moved to the Beti Jai, opened in May 1894.³

Of those five, the Beti Jai, on the calle Marqués de Riscal, is the only one still standing. It was designed by the architect Joaquín Rucoba for the Donostia-San Sebastián developer José Arana, with a 67-metre court and room for 4,000 spectators. It closed for good in 1919, and afterwards it was a mechanic’s workshop, a motorcycle dealership and a factory. The Community of Madrid declared it a Site of Cultural Interest in 2011, the City Council expropriated it in 2015, and since 28 March 2024 it has been open to the public. According to the City Council, it is the last one standing of the thirty monumental frontons that Madrid once had.⁹

The first Hogar Vasco (1923-1940)

The house that did last came in the twentieth century. In 1917 there was already a Euzko-Etxea in Madrid, and in 1923 the Hogar Vasco was founded, with premises at Carrera de San Jerónimo, 38. In 1927 its president was Bonifacio de Echegaray, of the Society of Basque Studies, whose Madrid delegation met there, and under him the Hogar set up a service to help Basque town councils with their business in the capital.² It was, above all, a house of men: a list of members from its early days gathers 672 names, of which at most nine were women.²

Jesús de Galíndez wrote that the vast majority of the Basques who had moved to Madrid for work were members of the Hogar. It had a fronton and a garden, monthly dances and festivals with txistu, and from 1925 a choir, conducted by maestro Busca de Sagastizábal, which sang at the Circo Price and the Palacio de la Música and staged the opera Maitena at the Teatro de la Zarzuela before the king and queen. Basque classes began in 1932, and in 1933 a drama group was formed.²

The Spanish Civil War turned it into something else. Many Basque students and conscripts who were caught in Madrid by the outbreak ended up gathering there, and the Milicias Vascas seized the building and set up their barracks in it: the companies that left each week to relieve the militiamen at the front formed up in the fronton. More than a hundred Basque families evacuated from the danger zones were housed in the Refugio Vasco on the calle Serrano. When the war was over, the Hogar was returned to its members, but it closed in the early forties.²

The Mass in Basque and the Hermandad de San Miguel de Aralar (1965-1982)

After the war Madrid was left without a Basque house, and what brought people together again was a Mass. In the mid-sixties a group of Basque students began to meet to celebrate it in Basque, first at the Colegio Mayor Guadalupe (a hall of residence) and in the chapel of a religious school and, from the end of 1969, at the Colegio Mayor Pío XII. It was said in turn by several Basque priests, some of them in Madrid to study, and families who had moved there for work gradually joined the group. The gastronomic society Txoko Zar was also founded in 1967.²

From that group, driven by Pedro Aramburu, came the idea of an association. They asked for permission to create a civil association, the Euskal Etxea de Madrid, and the authorities did not answer. In 1972 the archdiocese advised them to take another route, a religious brotherhood, and so the Hermandad de San Miguel de Aralar was born, with statutes of 1973 open to natives of Araba, Gipuzkoa, Navarre and Bizkaia and people of that origin living in Madrid. It obtained final church approval in December 1974 and was registered with the Dirección General de Seguridad in March 1975.² In 1976 the chance of premises at calle de Hileras, 17 came up. To pay for them, the Hermandad obtained a loan of one million pesetas from the Caja de Ahorros Provincial de Guipúzcoa, and seven people guaranteed it personally. From October 1977 it used the name Hermandad de San Miguel de Aralar-Euskal Etxea.²

The new Hogar Vasco and the Jovellanos premises (1979-1982)

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Hermandad were preparing the civil Basque centre they had asked for without an answer. The Hogar Vasco de Madrid-Euskal Etxea was constituted on 5 February 1979, and on 14 March the Civil Government of Madrid recognised the body and registered its statutes. Among its aims were making the Basque Country known in Madrid, promoting the Basque language and culture, and guiding and helping the Basques who came to Madrid for work or study.² For three years it coexisted with the Hermandad. At the Hermandad’s request, the Cajas de Ahorro Vascas (Basque savings banks) bought the building at calle Jovellanos, 3, to hand it over as premises, and on 26 July 1982 the Hermandad agreed to dissolve and to have its members join the Hogar Vasco.² In 1996 the association changed its name to Euskal Etxea-Hogar Vasco de Madrid, and the wording “people originating from the Basque provinces” in its statutes to “Basques and people originating from Euskal Herria”.²

The premises were inaugurated on 1 October 1982 with the lehendakari (president of the Basque Government) Carlos Garaikoetxea, the mayor of Madrid Enrique Tierno Galván and the president of the Euskal Etxea, Jon Goitia. That night the Orfeón Donostiarra sang at the Teatro de la Zarzuela.² In May 1982 there were 650 members and the plan was to reach 2,000 by the end of the year; 1982 ended with 2,600. There were 3,073 in 1985, 3,247 in 1991 and 2,819 in 1999.² The register of centres now credits it with 2,134 members.¹