Royal Society of Friends

of the Basque Country

he prime mover among the founding members was Xabier María de Munibe e Idiaquez, eighth Count of Peñaflorida, who made large financial and personal contributions. Like the other 16 founders, he had been educated at Jesuit schools in France and had later lived abroad. He had therefore seen for himself the cultural movement in Europe in what is referred to today as the Age of Enlightenment.

he success of the initiative was so great that King Carlos III granted the Bascongada the rank of Royal Academy on April 8th 1765. Its first general assembly had actually been held two months before this date.

s all historians who have studied this field agree, the Bascongada served as an example in the creation of numerous economic societies throughout the territories ruled by the Spanish Crown.

he governing philosophy of the Bascongada was that the social renewal needed to overcome the economic crisis which Basque society was suffering at that time could only be achieved by training men and women to become more skilful. Education was its watchword.

tatements from the society repeatedly confirmed that the useful was to be preferred to the pleasant. The society began to work to introduce the most advanced techniques in agriculture, industry, architecture, medicine, etc. into the Basque Country. The emergent science of political economics was also given careful attention.

any initiatives aimed at modernizing the Basque Country and improving the lot of its inhabitants stemmed from the Bascongada, but its most far-reaching scheme in international terms was the Royal Seminary at Bergara, which opened on November 4th 1776. This was Spain's first research institute, and the forerunner of today's engineering schools. 1778 saw the setting up at the Seminary of a chemical laboratory and the commencement of studies in chemistry and metallurgy.

hat same year the French physicist Pierre François Chavaneau and the chemist Louis Joseph Proust joined the Seminary. The latter began to give Spain's first courses in chemistry.

he brothers Fausto and Juan José Elhuyar joined the Seminary in 1781 and 1782, respectively.

t was at Bergara that Joseph Proust discovered the chemical law of defined proportions in 1778, that Chavaneau first made platinum malleable in 1782 and that the Elhuyar brothers discovered and isolated wolfram in 1783.

he Swede Anders Nicolas Tunborg, who forged various items from platinum, arrived in Bergara in 1787.

n 1794 the activities of the Seminary were cut short by the entry into Bergara of French troops. Its premises were destroyed and the Seminary eventually ceased to exist because of hardships arising from civil strife in Spain during the 19th century.

he members of the Bascongada have included many renowned personalities from the Basque Country, at Court and from various European cities. The Bascongada also spread to the Americas, where it became most important in Mexico (the Viceroyalty of New Spain). Basques residing in Mexico set up a delegation of the Society there which came to include among its members many renowned Mexicans. Many accounts exist of its work in the development of education, culture, mining and commerce. Members of the Mexican delegation of the Bascongada featured prominently in the process of Mexico's independence.

t is an open intellectual forum whose activities centre on organizing lectures, seminars and talks on various matters, especially those of interest to the Basque Country, and on producing publications related to these activities. Among others, the society regularly publishes the gazettes Boletín de la Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País in Spanish and EGAN in Basque.

he Society's badge shows three hands linked together under the legend IRURAC BAT (The Three Make One), symbolizing the union of the three Basque provinces of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa as the core of the Basque Country.

he Society is made up of Numerary Members, who have special duties in relation to its activities and who are appointed after presenting a work, Supernumeraries and Honourary Members, who are appointed in acknowledgement of some special merit. There are also Student Members and Collective Members. This last category refers to bodies or companies which have given particular support to the Society.

he Numeraries and other members meet at least once a year in the General Assembly. A new Director is voted in every two years to preside over and represent the Society. The director must be a Numerary Member from Araba, Bizkaia or Gipuzkoa.

here is a Governing Board in each of these three provinces, whose members also meet in Regional Assemblies.

here is also a delegation in Madrid known as the Delegation at Court, and the Delegation in Mexico.

The Royal Society of Friends of the Basque Country is a full member of Bilbao Metropoli-30