Basque-style diplomacy? The Euzkadi team and their international tour

Abstract

At the dawn of the failed coup d'état of 18 July 1936, which unleashed a bloody Civil War, the Basque territory described a series of peculiarities that gave it its own character. Beyond the specific features, which can be seen in the type of government that took shape during the aforementioned episode of war in the aforementioned geographical demarcation, which remained faithful to Republican legality, a type of diplomacy would emerge with dual objectives: on the one hand, to defend the legality of a State and, on the other hand, to publicise another entity, which aspired to be born and escaped the existing logics. This model of diplomacy has been highlighted thanks to the analysis of various archival sources, such as the Official Gazette of the Basque Country / Euskadi´ko Agintaritzaren Egunerokoa or the Historical Archive of Euzkadi / Euskadiko Artxibo Historikoa and newspaper and periodicals (local, such as Euzko Deya, Euzkadi, Gudari, European ones such as Rouge Midi or Przeglgd Sportowy and American ones such as the Mexican El Gráfico, La Afición or El Informador) and by using the analyticalsynthetic method, breaking down the object of study into parts, which will subsequently be related. In this way, we can affirm that in the Basque territory loyal to the Second Republic, a Basque-style model of diplomacy was developed, which was a novelty in the peninsular territory.

Keywords

• euzkadi, selección, guerra civil, fútbol, deporte.