El nacimiento de Euskadi: el Estatuto de 1936 y el primer Gobierno vasco

Abstract

The Spanish Civil War was the most important event in the history of the Basque Country in the 20^th century, because in that period Euskadi (the Basque Country) came into being as a political and administrative entity, with the passing of the Autonomous Statute and the formation of the first Basque Government (a coalition between the Basque Nationalist Party —PNV— and the Popular Front), in October 1936. From then onwards the course of the war in the Basque Country changed and took a direction towards a more moderate political positioning, which put an end to the revolutionary process which had taken place in the pre-autonomous period. The hegemony of PNV and the concentration of power in the Government of Aguirre converted the autonomous Euskadi into a type of oasis within republican Spain. This was reflected by such varied facts as respect for the Catholic Church, the lack of social revolution, more political pluralism than existed among the two fighting factions and a more moderate judicial system. The aforesaid oasis existed in the autonomous period, during which the Government of Aguirre constructed in Biscay a small Basque State, with its own sovereignty and multiple organisms. However, this State did not last long and disappeared when Franco's Army took Bilbao and the whole of Biscay in June 1937.