in 1951) is a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 poet, essayist and translator in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 and Basque, as well as a self-confessed former ETA

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 militant. At the moment he resides in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

.

Having started as a Basque separatist during his youth, Juaristi is now a staunch Spanish nationalist, to the point of being a patron of the right-wing Foundation in Defense of the Spanish Nation.

Education and employment

A Ph.D. in Romance philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

, he studied at the University of Deusto

University of Deusto

The University of Deusto is a Spanish Jesuit University, with campuses in Bilbao and San Sebastián, Spain.-History:The University of Deusto first opened in 1886, having been founded because of the Basque Country's desire to have its own university and the Society of Jesus's wish to move its School...

 and in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

.

He has occupied the chair of Spanish Philology at the University of the Basque Country

University of the Basque Country

The University of the Basque Country is the only public university in the Basque Country, in Northern Spain...

, the King Juan Carlos I of Spain

Juan Carlos I of Spain

Juan Carlos I |Italy]]) is the reigning King of Spain.On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated king according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Spain had no monarch for 38 years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the...

 Center at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, and has been titular professor of the Chair of Contemporary Thought of the Cañada Blanch Foundation at the University of Valencia

Universitat de València

The University of Valencia is a university located in the Spanish city of Valencia. It is one of the oldest surviving universities in Spain,and the oldest in the Valencian Community, and is regarded as one of Spain's leading academic institutions...

. Juaristi also worked as a lecturer and researcher in Austin and at El Colegio de México

El Colegio de México

El Colegio de México, A.C. is a prestigious Mexican institute of higher education, specializing in teaching and research in the social sciences and the humanities...

. He directed the National Library of Spain

Biblioteca Nacional de España

The Biblioteca Nacional de España is a major public library, the largest in Spain.It is located in Madrid, on the Paseo de Recoletos.-History:...

 from 2001 to 2004, and then left that position to direct the Cervantes Institute

Instituto Cervantes

The Cervantes Institute is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes , the author of Don Quixote and perhaps the most important figure in the history of Spanish literature...

 until his replacement after the Socialist triumph of March 14, 2004.

Early political activism

At the age of 16, spurred by the reading of Federico Krutwig

Federico Krutwig

Federico Krutwig Sagredo was a Spanish Basque writer and politician, author of several books.Along with Felix Likiniano, he tried to create some resistance to the Francoist regime after the Spanish Civil War...

´s Vasconia

Vasconia

Vasconia is an historical name derived from the ancient tribe of the Vascones and used in different times, specially in the Middle Ages, to refer to the Basque territories...

, he entered in a fledgling ETA

ETA

ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

. His most notable action was to put Carlist

Carlism

Carlism is a traditionalist and legitimist political movement in Spain seeking the establishment of a separate line of the Bourbon family on the Spanish throne. This line descended from Infante Carlos, Count of Molina , and was founded due to dispute over the succession laws and widespread...

 armed cells in contact with ETA after the expulsion by the Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

 regime of Carlos Hugo de Borbón Parma (a pretender to the Spanish throne)

Later, at University, he entered a minority workerist grouping of ETA, named ETA VI Asamblea, which in 1973 amalgamated with the Trotskyist Liga Comunista Revolucionaria (LCR) as its Basque branch. Having come to police attention, he abandoned his native city to study Romance Philology in Seville, returning eventually to the University of Deusto, where he received his doctorate. In Deusto he was expelled in 1972 "for agitation" but was re-admitted the following year. In this period he spent a number of spells in prison for "minor offences", and was condemned by the Tribunal of Public Order.

In 1974 he left LCR and leftist political activity almost completely and dedicated himself to his academic career.

In 1980, he affiliated himself with the Communist Party of Spain during its process of unification with Euskadiko Ezkerra

Euskadiko Ezkerra

Euskadiko Ezkerra or EE was a Basque socialist political organisation. It was founded as a coalition of Euskal Iraultzarako Alderdia and other Basque Marxist forces in 1977 to present lists for the Spanish general elections in the constituencies of Vizcaya,...

 (EE), which would give rise to a new social-democratic

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 group that actively rejected the use of violence. He left it in 1986, disappointed when EE did not form an alliance with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

 (PSOE) after the Basque Autonomous Community elections of 1986

Basque parliamentary election, 1986

Elections to the Parliament of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain, were held on November 30, 1986.The Socialists won 19 seats, the Basque Nationalist Party came second with 17 seats, the Batasuna party and Eusko Alkartasuna each won 13 seats, and Euskadiko Ezkerra won 9 seats.-...

. In 1987 Juaristi joined the PSOE. Later, he declared in his memoirs that he did so spurred by "ethical imperatives" as a result of the attack by the radical separatist "Mendeku" group

Mendeku

Mendeku was a group of the Basque armed organisation Comandos Autónomos Anticapitalistas who killed Enrique Casas, a Spanish senator, in 1985. The police tried to link another group with the same name with this commando, after an attack against the headquarters of the Spanish Socialist Workers'...

 against the "Casa del Pueblo" (PSOE local chapter) in Portugalete

Portugalete

Portugalete is a town lying to the west of Bilbao in the province of Biscay in the Autonomous Community of Basque Country, northern Spain.The town has 51,066 inhabitants and is part of Bilbao's metropolitan area. It is located at the mouth of the Estuary of Bilbao, on the left bank...

. Several PSOE members were burned to death in the attack.

Current political activity

His criticism of ethnic nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 and its invention and manipulation of myths, in particular on the part of Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...

, has gained media visibility through numerous articles, essays, and speeches. Juaristi's stance against terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, and his support of victims of ETA violence, was further made visible by the formation of the Foro Ermua

Foro Ermua

The Foro Ermua is a Spanish civic association, the membership of which is composed of Spanish citizens...

(Forum of Ermua, now a conservative anti-terrorism organization but with roots in the Basque left) in 1997. In the last decade he has been defined, in different interviews from mass media, as a “Spanish nationalist".” Since the end of the 1980s, due to his harsh criticism of Basque separatist violence, his life has been threatened by ETA. At the end of 1999, he left the university of Deusto and the Basque country after the ETA announcement that it would end its ceasefire of the previous year, and having been advised of the seriousness of the threats on his life by that group.

Juaristi converted to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

  for reasons more personal than religious:

"El judaísmo para mí no es exactamente una religión, sino más bien una visión ética del mundo"

"Judaism is for me not exactly a religion, but rather an ethical view of the world"

Juaristi dedicates a number of his articles to the criticism of antisemitism (and anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...

, which he considers to be inherently antisemitic). He has also written in defense of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

's right to be its own state.

Poetry

Juaristi's poetic voice is influenced by the Basque poet (and his great friend) Gabriel Aresti

Gabriel Aresti

Gabriel Aresti Segurola was one of the most important writers and poets in Basque language in the 20th century....

, and by the Basque-born, Spanish-writing writers Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...

 and Blas de Otero—as well as by the irony of the poet and Anglo-American essayist W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

. His poetry frequently evokes the mood of the Bilbao of his childhood and youth, and its tone is disillusioned, bitter, urban and intelligent.

His works of poetry have been published as the following:

• Diario de un poeta recién cansado ("Diary of a poet recently tired") (1986).
• Suma de varia intención ("Amount of varying intention") (1987).
• Arte de marear ("Art to annoy") (1988).
• Los paisajes domésticos ("The domestic landscapes") (1992).
• Mediodía ("Noon") (1993).
• Tiempo desapacible ("Unpleasant time") (1996).
• Poesía reunida ("Reunited poetry") (1986-1999) (2001).
• Prosas en verso ("Prose in verse") (2002).

Essays

In Juaristi's essays analysis is a habitual subject, from a psychological and sociological perspective inspired by Carl Jung

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...

 and Leon Polyakov, and the historical and mythical roots of European nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, particularly Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...

. Philological references are found frequently in the texts, as well as references and anecdotes which deal with authors, subjects and works of occultism. These are usually mentioned with distance and irony.

• Euskararen Ideologiak (1976).
• El linaje de Aitor. La invención de la tradición vasca (1984).
• Literatura vasca (1987).
• Arte en el País Vasco (1987). Con Kosme M. de Barañano y Javier González de Durana.
• Vicente de Arana (1990).
• Vestigios de Babel. Para una arqueología de los nacionalismos españoles (1992).
• Auto de Terminación: raza, nación y violencia en el País Vasco (1994). Artículos: en colaboración con Juan Aranzadi y Patxo Unzueta.
• La Europa (cultural) de los pueblos: voz y forma (1994). En colaboración con otros autores.
• El chimbo expiatorio (la invención de la tradición bilbaína, 1876-1939) (1994).
• El bucle melancólico. Historias de nacionalistas vascos (1997).
• Sacra nemesis. Nuevas historias de nacionalistas vascos (1999).
• Sermo humilis: poesía y poética (1999).
• El bosque originario (2000).
• La tribu atribulada. El Nacionalismo Vasco explicado a mi padre (2002).
• El reino del ocaso (2004).

Prizes

• 1988: Ícaro de Literatura.
• 1997: Espasa de Ensayo por El bucle melancólico.
• 1998: XV Premio de Periodismo Francisco Cerecedo.
• 1998: Premio Nacional de Literatura por El bucle melancólico.
• 2000: Fastenrath.