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Wilhelm von Humboldt and therepresentative assemblies of theBasque CountryJOSEBA AGIRREAZKUENAGA aa Department of Contemporary History , University of theBasque Country , aptd.644, Bilbao E-mail:Published online: 12 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: JOSEBA AGIRREAZKUENAGA (1999) Wilhelm von Humboldt and therepresentative assemblies of the Basque Country, Parliaments, Estates and Representation,19:1, 143-149, DOI: 10.1080/02606755.1999.9522078

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Wilhelm von Humboldt and the representativeassemblies of the Basque Country

JOSEBA AGIRREAZKUENAGA

SUMMARY

In this article Ioseba Agirreazkuenaga gives an account of Wilhelm von Humboldt'swritings on the political culture of the Basque people. Humboldt had made twovisits to the Basque country in 1799 and 1801, and after leaving public life pub­lished his observations about them in 1821. He saw the Basques as having developeda distinctive political culture, which was based on vigorous self-government throughlocal assemblies, which rested on broad popular support from below. He admiredthis as coming close to the politics of the free city states of ancient Greece, andsought to explain it as the interaction of national character, language and custom,history and geography.

The intellectual personality of Wilhelm von Humboldt was a reference for hisBasque contemporaries. He was especially well known for his linguistic studies, andin particular those dealing with the Basque language. On 31 December 1819, heresigned from all of his public posts because of his political marginalization and hebegan a fruitful intellectual production based on the notes he had gathered duringthe course of his life. Thus, in 1821 he published a work On the Historian's Task,another On the Origin of Grammatical Forms and their Influence on the Ideas and the'Prufung', and Examination of the Research intothe Aborigines of Spain through theBosqueLanguage (1821). Humboldt reflected on the forms of political and social organiza­tion, and on political constitutionalism; he was also an active politician. Perhaps his

Professor ]. Agirreazkuenaga, Department of Contemporary History, University of the BasqueCountry, aptd.644, Bilbao. E-mail:hcpagzij@lg.ehu.es

Sources: Wllil/ulm von Humboldt's Gesammelte Werle (Berlin: 1841-1852).Willlelm von Humboldts Gesammelse ScllTi/te, ed. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenchauften. Dreizellnter

Band Willleim von Humbotdrs Werle. ed. Albert Leitzmann. (Berlin: 1920). (p. 1-196). 'The Basques.Notes on a journey through the Basque Country in the spring of 1801 with research into the Basquelanguage and nation and a brief description of the grammar and vocabulary'.

Translated into Spanish by Dr. Telesforo Aranzandi in Guillermo Humboldt y eI Pais Vasco (SanSebastian: 1925).

Parliaments, Estatesand Representation 19, November 1999. Published for the International Commissionfor the History of Representative & Parliamentary Institutions by Ashgate Publishing Ltd, GowerHouse, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hampshire GUll 3HR, Great Britain. © International Commission forthe History of Representative & Parliamentary Institutions, 1999.

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144 Joseba AgiTTtazkuenaga

most important political achievement was the foundation of the University of Berlinand the educational reform in Prussia, when he was minister of education.

While he was in the Basque Country, first as a traveller (1799) and later, in 1801,as an 'anthropologist', he wrote down observations on the political constitution ofthe Basques, that is to say, the question of sovereignty, their forms of organizationand, logically, he paid attention to the representative assemblies that proceededfrom past centuries. His stay in the Basque Country was an experience that hewas to remember for the rest of his life. Proof of this is that in 1821, twenty yearslater, he was to publish the Priifung. He was impressed not only by the language,but also by the system of political organization developed by the Basques, withwhich he became acquainted during his general visit to Spain in 1799; he did nothesitate to organize a specific visit to the Basque Country, which he was to carryout in 1801. The sovereignty of the representative assemblies within the frame­work of the Spanish monarchy was an aspect that he analysed in his observations.Another aspect of great interest in Humboldt's work on the Basques is that of thescientific terms and categories that he employed for analysing the history, thepolitical constitution and the collective psychology or psychology of the peo­ples (Volkerpsychologie). For Humboldt, the Basques were an example where hefound confirmation of the validity of his categories, a system for making themoperational, a society related with his ideal, classical Greece. In fact, he nevermanaged to visit Greece itself.

It is possible that Humboldt obtained his first information about the Basquesand their political constitution from Herder and A. Oihenart's book. t He deep­ened this knowledge in Paris at the important intellectual discussions of the'ideologues', as they were called contemptuously, which he attended assiduously.There was a continental Basque, a French Basque, Dominique Joseph Garat withwhom Humboldt was in conract.f Garat probably helped him to become informedabout the Basque Country. He was stimulated to make his first journey to Spainprobably by his brother Alexander and by Goethe, to whom he periodically sentletters containing exhaustive observations. In the last twenty five years there hasbeen a debate on different interpretations of Humboldt's intellectual sources:whether he is related to French enlightenment thinkers or if he is more con­nected with the tradition of the German philosophers.!

THE RECEPTION OF HUMBOLDT'S WORK IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY

In 1899, his TraoelSketches of theBosqueCountrywere translated into Spanish by M.Unamuno." From 1922 onwards, in the International Journal of Bosque Studies

1 Oihenart A., Notitia ulriusque Vasconiae, tum lbercae, lum Aquilanicae (Paris: 1637, second edition,1656). Facsimile Reprod. Vitoria-Gasteiz, Parlamento Vasco, 1992.

2 Duhart M., 'Dominique Joseph Garat (1749-1833) 'Bulleti« de la SociiII desSciences Lettreset Arts deBayonne149 (Bayonne: 1994), pp. 33-34.

3 See the conference paper: 'Wilhem vom Humboldt: A bridge between two countries, education,language, Basque Country.' in ReoistaInternaaosal de los Estudios Vascos 41 (San Sebastian: 1996).

4 Humboldt W., 'Bocetos de un viaje a traves del Pais Vascos', Euskal Erria 20 1889. Translated byMiguel de Unamuno.

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Wilhelm von Humboldtand theBosquecountry 145

published previously untranslated works that had appeared in German yearsbefore.t From 1930 onwards, J. Garate became the translator and interpreter ofHumboldt for the Basque public and, in 1933, he published a classic work inBasque historiography with the title Guillermo de Humboldt. Study ofhis Works onVasconia. In 1995, the Basque Studies Society organized another conference onHumboldt. In general, it has been the linguists and anthropologists who have paidmost attention to Humboldt's work. However, given that he was a humanist, heoutlined in his private notes a diagnosis of the political and social situation of theBasques. The different themes are inseparable, but in this paper I will particu­larly refer to his political interpretation of the political-institutional systemdeveloped by the Basques within the framework of the Spanish monarchy, sincethe French Republic abolished the entire traditional representative edifice of theContinental Basques.

For Humboldt, the Basque cultural nation was an objective and irrefutablefact." It extended on both sides of the Pyrenees and had been inserted for centu­ries within two powerful monarchies. However, I believe that the discovery of theBasque political nation and the praxis of sovereignty within the Spanish Monar­chy, or in competition with the absolutist sovereignty of the king, by Humboldtshould be given emphasis. In the following text, which belongs to some notes forwriting a general description of the Basque Country and its inhabitants, therelationship is drawn between the cultural nation, physiographic variety, the lan­guage as a nexus of union and communication, and the political nation. It appearsas if he had found the empirical evidence in the Basque example for his hypoth­esis and theories:

Firstly, I will communicate the observations I wrote down during my stay in Spanishand French Vasconia and I will make every effort to provide the reader by means ofthese with a clear conception of this small country and its inhabitants. This is neces­sary in order to gain a just understanding of a great part of the language with which,naturally, the customs of the nation and the 'local' of the country are interwoven; buteven without that, it is interesting to move into the midst of an intelligent, inspiringand active nation that inhabits the north of a southern country and the mountains of acoast, being for this reason a seafaring and mountainous people, and one whichcombines in its character what in other parts is only to be found in isolation; andwhich, besides, in the time when I visited it, possessed a free constitution and formeda federative state, divided into many small municipalities separated in their turn bylocalities; thus, because of the situation, the legislation and the liveliness of character,I was often reminded of the small free states of ancient Greece,"

In Humboldt's notes, emphasis should be placed on the difference he drawsbetween nation as a synonym of people or community and country. In his descrip-

5 Guillermo Humboldty eIPais Vasco (San Sebastian: 1925). Translated by E. Aranzadi.6 See the article by Altzibar X., 'Euskaldunen nazio eta hizkuntza (1790-1830)' Eusbera 31 (Bilbao:

1986), pp. 17-45.7 Humboldt W. 'Anuncio de una publicaci6n sobre la lengua y naci6n vascas: su punta de vista y

contenido'. In Garate J., Guillermo de Humboldt. Estudia de sus trabajos sobr« Yasconia. Bilbao, 1933, p.120.

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146 Joseba Agirreazkuenaga

tion of the Basque Country he confesses that, 'I was tenaciously drawn by thedifference of the language, the people and the countryf The economical andpolitical elites of the Basque provinces of the second half of eighteenth centuryundertook a long peregrination in search of the new nation. A search that haslasted until the present day. The manifesto of the Real Sociedad Bascongada deAmigos del Pais (Royal Bascongada Society of Friends of the Country) of 1765,similar to a Basque Academy, can be understood within this perspective of con­struction and articulation of the Vascongada nation-community within theframework of the Spanish administrative monarchy? Later events concerningtrade with America, the relocation of the customs posts and the modification ofthe Foral Law are no more than elements that further complicated this search.Hence, when Humboldt raised the following question, he was in reality diagnos­ing a deep problem that penetrated the consciousness of the Basque leadingelites.

How should the Basque nation be treated by the Spanish Monarchy (since, for theFrench Republic, the Basque districts can only have a very secondary importance)to make its strength and its activity as advantageous for Spain as possible? ... Thesecond question has a higher practical interest, even more so now since it is fre­quently the case that different peoples are united in the same State. But it must befreely confessed that until now more thought has been given only to getting rid ofthe difficulties which disparity sets up, rather than in making use of the good whichpeculiarity brings with it. to

The Basque elites sought a new nation, based on the traditional Foral Law butevidently inventing it, like all political nations in the world, within their owncorresponding framework, the Spanish monarchy, in whose territorial ambit, ac­cording to Humboldt, they acted with the collective consciousness of a nation;'!however this creation or 'invention' did not take place exnihi/o, but on the basis ofan historical experience with its juridical and institutional foundation, Foral Lawand the Representative Assembly. If we consider the question raised we will findthat it is not posed in exclusive but rather in complimentary terms, in terms ofagreement and of greater efficiency or mutual enrichment for the parties con­cerned. We are not facing an exclusive nationalist discourse but rather a nationaldiscourse of integration and progress, in which differences are positive and en­riching. Now, if for Humboldt the extension of the cultural nation extendedthroughout the zozpiok bot, 'seven territories in one', the Basque political nation

8 Ibidem, p. 118.9 Estatutas de Ia Sociedad Bascongada de losAmigos de eI Pars (Vitoria: 1765). Art.l 'el objeto de esta

Sociedad es el de cultivar la inclinaci6n y el gusto de la Naci6n Bascongada hacia las Ciencias, Bellasletras y Artes, corregir y pulir sus costumbres; desterrar el ocio, la ignorancia y sus funestasconsecuencias, y estrechar mas la uni6n de las tres Provincias Bascongadas de Alaba, Vizcaya yGuipuzcoa'.

10 Humboldt W., 'Los vascos' in, Guillermo Humboldt y eIPais Vasco. San Sebastian, 1925. Traslatedby E. Aranzadi. p.12a.

II 'Is it not admirable that the Bascongados in Spain playa significant role as a nation that lookswith certain emulation towards the Castilian?' Humboldt W. 'Cantabrica' (written in 1801) in GarateJ., p. 52.

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Wilhelm von Humboldtand theBasquecountry 147

was being defined and built, only, in the west of this cultural territory. Thedifferential ethnic characteristics of the Basques were more accentuated in thecase of the French Basques and were thus more perceptible as such:

The French Basques inhabit small and insignificant districts, they do not have anypolitical or national union between themselves at all, and they are lost in the mass ofthe nation from which they are only distinguished by their language, their customsand their passionate love for their home, in which they aspire to achieve an inde­pendent position.l-

However 'the reflective, hardworking nation that firmly perseveres in its plansand that subjects itself willingly to a necessary constraint' is that formed by theterritory of the Biscayens, that is to say, the inhabitants of the provinces ofGipuzkoa, Alava and the seigneurie of Bizkaia, 'All of the Basques constitute anation' as a Comrnuniryl! but only the Biscayens 'a state in the strict sense'. It isclear that the political will of the Biscayens has brought about a new type ofnation, which is different from the purely cultural one, because it has built aninstitutional edifice endowed with a policy that preserves the degree of publicself-government achieved. It could be said that within the same community oflanguage, Humboldt was able to find the objective nation ('I have never met apeople that has conserved such a national character and physiognomy that alreadyappear so original at first glancc'l") and the subjective nation that is promoting apolitical construction with foundations in its 'free constitution', Foral Law, foundedon the 'Pact theory' of royal sovereignty. In this way the Foral Law is a type ofterritorial sovereignty, evidently framed within other encompassing political struc­tures, such as those conferred by the Spanish Monarchy.

Thus the difference between Basques and Biscayens.P besides distinguishingbetween 'both parts of the Basque nation',16 also expresses that difference lyingbetween the cultural nation of the Basques (the Basque Country on both sides ofthe Pyrenees) and that which constitutes the political nation, the Spanish Basques.With respect to the three western provinces, Humboldt managed to discern unityin the diversity: 'the prerogatives that distinguish the Vascongada provinces are insummary common to the three. But the organization of each one is considerablydifferentiated. That of Guipuzkoa is less complicated than that of Bizkaia, andboth are more purely democratic than that of Alava'i'? The Basques of Francelack the solid and essential qualities of the Biscayens since the latter form 'a

12 Ibidem, 52.13 Humboldt W. Los Vascos... p. 278.14 'Humboldt W. Letters', in Garate J. 'Cinco cartas ineditas de Guillermo de Humboldt' RIEV,

1934, p. 45.15 In an introductory note to the work Los Vascos, Humboldt himself explains that facing the lack

of a name to designate the Basque nation as a whole he decided that 'when one is dealing with awhole people scattered throughout the French Basque Country, the Vascongadas provinces andNavarre: "Vasques"; when one speaks of the Spanish part: biscayens; when one speaks of the French­Basques: Basques. Humboldt W. Los Vascos... pp. 117-118.

16 Ibidem, p. 276.17 Humboldt w., Los oascos, p. 156.

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148 Joseba Agirreozkuenogo

respectable and distinguished political body'. IS The description of the Biscayennenation is made in the following terms:

Car il me pareait incontestable que quelque soit Ie sort qu 'aient eprouve les privilegesdes Provinces Basques de l'Espagne, tous les heureux effets que produit Ie senti­ment d'une liberte bien ordonnee et d'une egalite parfaite de droits, se trouventevidemment exprimees dans Ie caractere de la nation Biscayenne. La Biscaye est Ieseul pars que j'ai jamais vu ou la culture intellectuelle et morale soit vralmentpopulaire, ou les premieres et les dernieres classes de la societe ne scient passeparees par une distance pour ainsi dire immense ... On voit hi veritablement unenation, la force, Ie mouvement, meme la forme generale du caractere vient de lamasse et n'est que cultive et raffine par les individus que leur situation personnellea mis en etat de faire des progres plus rapides. Dans presque tous les autres pars Iepeuple n'est qu'une masse inerte.l''

What facts and information led Humboldt to make such a clear, perspicaciousand solid description, since in the course of the two following centuries hispolitical observations have continued to conserve their degree of relevance? Toanswer this question it is necessary to refer to the political institutional articula­tion of the Basques. I have dealt with this question in the introductory study tothe publication of the Minutes of the 'Basque Conferences'F'' Nonetheless, Iunderstand that it is necessary to provide an outline, at least in a synthetic wayand basing myself on the above mentioned study, of the context in which thepolitical articulation of the three provinces of Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa wasproduced, because that will make it possible to explain the discovery not only ofthe cultural nation but also of the political nation by W. Humboldt.

REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLIES

Humboldt did not have the opportunity to directly witness the working of asession of the representative assemblies in 1801. Nonetheless, he studied this andreported on its working. Just as with other expressions of Basque civilization, heconsidered that its end was drawing near. This is a sensation that is present in allof his descriptions. The course of history seemed to him inexorable for the smallpeoples and for the differential features of the peoples. The description that heoffers of the working of the Junto General is probably the version of J.M. Murga,one of the political leaders, belonging to the merchant elite of Bilbao and the heirto, or owner of, lands in Markina, the prototype of the Biscay gentry. One conclu­sion is that 'a great sense of freedom is expressed there'. Organization of villagersis the description that it receives, rather than organization of the gentry. Hisopinion is different from that of John Adams, who described the Juntos Generalesas aristocratic, representing only the gentry, 'Thus we see the people themselves

18Garate J. 'Cinco cartas ineditas de Guillermo de Humboldt' RIEV, 1934, p. 439. Letter to J.M.Murga, dated Paris, 20 July 1801. He refers to Bizkaia, but I understand that he includes, followingthe uses ofcartography of the time, the three provinces of Bizkaia, Alava and Gipuzkoa.

19 Ibidem, p. 43~0.20 Agirreazkuenaga J., ed. La articulacio« politico institucionolde Yasconia. Actos de los confermcias de

los representontes de Alovo Bizkoio. Gipuzkoo (Bilbao: 1995).

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Wilnelm von Humboldt andtne Basque country 149

have established by law a contracted aristocracy, under the appearance of a liberaldemocracy. Americans, beware!'. 21

In order to realise a universal history and a history of the different nations,Humboldt estimated in 1812 that it was necessary to combine study of the lan­guage, of the customs and of history: 'the union of the study of the language, thehistory and the peoples as a new field, but one which must now be truly culti­vated for knowledge of, and to dignify, the human race'.

The fact that I have chosen the Basques as an object of study was in the first place aquestion of chance. My journey to Spain led me to take an interest in that nationand country... But later when I continued my study with written notes, I wastenaciously drawn by the differential character of the language, the people and thecountry... What has made them great and interesting is the near certainty of thepredictions of the ruin of their nationality and even of their language in a shortspace of time.

Today there are Basque speakers and Basque is an official language in theBiscayan area, in the west of the Basque Country and in some parts of Navarre.And also there are Basque representatives institutions with a high level of sover­eignty in tax questions similar to a state within the Spanish state and the EuropeanUnion. There are not any Basque political institutions in the French Republic.

CONCLUSIONS

Perhaps the representation of the Juntos Generales expressed the democratic idealfor Humboldt. However, the process of the concentration of power in the hands ofan oligarchy, to the benefit of the gentry, was not taken into consideration. Butthis elite had to submit itself to the periodic ritual of the Juntos Generales as theexpression of the collective will and sovereignty of the community. For thisreason, he draws attention to the combination and co-existence within the JuntosGenerales of an enlightened elite and popular participation, which summarizes hisideal of representative democracy.

21 'Defence of Constitutions of Government of the United States', in Charles Francis Adams, TheLife and Works ofJonn Adams, Boston, 1850-1856,4, p. 310. Navascues L.J. 'John Adams y su viaje aVizcaya en 1779', in Gernika, EuskoJakinlZO. Revue des Etudes Basques. (Bayonne: 1947), p. 417-419.

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