Last year Joan Mari Torrealdai Nabea died (Forua, 1942 - Usurbil, 2020), a researcher in Basque culture and chairman of the Euskaldunon Egunkaria Board of Directors. But before he died, he was preparing a book that tells the creation, development and closure of the project that marked much of his life, that of Egunkaria. This Tuesday night the Egunkaria was presented at the EiTB headquarters. The success of civil society in the Martin Ugalde Cultural Park of Andoain was the commission received by Joanmari Larrarte to finish the book and the journalist and professor Imanol Murua who preceded it.

“You will have to end,” Torrealdai told Larrarte, who explained in Andoain’s presentation the details of this process. Many people approached the act, the world of Euskera and the press, and answering Murua's questions, the act also unearthed what the essence of this book is.

It is a work based on testimonies, newspapers and internal documents, but “it is not the story of Egunkaria written in capital letters,” according to Larrarte, as Torrealdai was very aware that we were too close to explaining that story. That's why it's written in the first person, from their experiences.

Divided into eight chapters, the birth of Egunkaria has a significant weight and the previous attempts that were made also made clear in the presentation. In the book Torrealdai says that the “ÓRDAGO” made by the Argia group to create Egunkaria was fundamental: “Argia took the first step and it was she who started the process of creating Egunkaria.” They already had infrastructure and resources.

Around these origins, Murua highlighted a photograph of the Hotel Ercilla in Bilbao in 1990: In the heart of Martin Ugalde, Joxemi Zumalabe and Torrealdai himself accompany him. They were presenting the project on behalf of the Egunkaria sortzen group. Murua explained that each represented a “world”, Ugalde to post-war nationalism, Zumalabek to the “young and fighting” group of the return of Argia and Torrealdai “connected us with Elkar-Zabaltzen and the Euskalgintza sector surrounding that world”. Murua states in his preamble that this picture was worth “gold.”

Created by civil society

In the opinion of Larrarte, Torrealdai had in recent years a great effort, which is the thesis of the book and which has led to the title: Egunkaria was created by civil society. “Not only at the closing, but also at the time of the creation of Egunkaria had to explain, demonstrate, that Egunkaria was not the one created by ETA, that the newspaper started in Argia and that Argia called the Basque and organized itself in Egunkaria Sortzen, in order to start this project.”

The book also lists the conflicting relations with the institutions and the movements that need to be made in order to obtain the subsidies. Meetings and discomforts, suggestions, speeches and letters... He always doubted who was making decisions, who was behind the project and what the “straws” were in the photo. In the light of the police operation and the 2003 trial, it is clear that some have been able to firmly defend their independence in the face of statements by certain political positions.

In his response questions, Murua did not avoid some thorny issues. For example, in the story of the “distortion” project of Egunkaria’s closing accusations, these accusations gave rise to “arguments that distance us from the ties” with the Abertzale left, so, in his opinion, the support of this political sector for the project at the beginning has not been “sufficiently” recognized. Larrarte also believes that: “If in that situation of the 1990s the PNV had stood against it, if the Abertzale left had stood against it, today we would not be talking about it.”

The end of the book is to thank you. In Larrarte's words, Torrealdai thanked the Basque society that, after the closure of 2003, "the project remained firm", regained its strength and managed to get Berria started four months later. He finished his speech by reading a passage from the introduction written by Torrealdai: "The participation of many was what made it possible for Egunkaria, and later Berria, to follow it up. It is not my intention to take a leading role that does not correspond to me. I do not want to have an exaggerated place in that project that has been (and is) of this people – and could have been achieved! I just hope that my point of view will help to better understand the project."