Uruguay

The Basque community that exists in Uruguay today is, for the most part, the work of descendants. From the eighties onwards the two old societies of Montevideo were joined by new centres all over the country, a federation that brings them together and a national Basque week held every April in Trinidad, in the department of Flores.

A second wave of centres (1982-2019)

In the eighties and nineties the two Montevideo societies of 1911 and 1912 were joined by new centres in the capital and in the interior of the country.¹ They were no longer founded by immigrants: throughout America, the new centres of those years were formed and run by Basques of the second, third or fourth generation.¹³

The first was Haize Hegoa, in Montevideo, born in 1988 out of a youth group from 1982, Eusko Indarra. Then the centres of the interior began to appear: the Euskal Etxea Durazno, in Durazno, in 1990; the Confraternidad Vasca Gure Baserria, in Minas, in 1991; in 1992, Gure Etxea Colonia, in Rosario, and Saltoko Euskaldunen Taldea, in Salto; and Ibai Ondoko Etxea, in Carmelo, in 1995.

The list went on growing with the new century: the Euskal Etxea of Juan L. Lacaze, recognised by the Basque Government in November 2006;¹⁵ the Centro Vasco de San José de Mayo (2009); the one in Flores, in Trinidad, refounded in 2010 and recognised in February 2011;¹⁶ and the Euskal Etxea Vasconia of Florida (2019).¹⁹

There had been an earlier attempt that did not prosper: Gernika Bazkuna, founded in Colonia in 1944.¹³

The federation

With so many new centres, the next step was to federate them, and it did not come easily. A first attempt, in 1992, came to nothing because of differences between the centres; in July 1995 an Asamblea Abierta de Centros Vascos del Uruguay (Open Assembly of Basque Centres of Uruguay) was set up to prepare the federation, and the Federación de Instituciones Vascas de Uruguay (FIVU), the Federation of Basque Institutions of Uruguay, was formalised in 1997.¹³ In 2011, according to the Basque Government, it brought together a good part of the Basque centres in the country.¹⁷

How many they are

How many they are depends on what is counted. The register of centres on this portal lists 11 recognised bodies in Uruguay, 10 centres and the federation, in eight cities.¹⁹ In 1999 the 8 recognised Uruguayan centres had 2,087 members, 11.8% of all the members of the recognised Basque centres in the world, behind only Argentina and the United States.¹³ And in 2005, 915 citizens of the Basque Autonomous Community living in Uruguay were on the electoral roll, a figure of Basque citizens and not of descendants.¹³

Flores, the department of Basque surnames

The municipality of Trinidad considers that the population of Basque origin in Flores is, relative to its present population, the largest in the country, and attributes this to the number of Basque surnames in its society.¹⁸ Since 2011 Trinidad has hosted the Semana Nacional Vasca (National Basque Week) every April, with pelota, mus, food and talks on genealogy.¹⁶¹⁷