Peace as a weapon of personal and political defense in the work of Antonio de Trueba

Abstract

The article studies the literary work of Antonio de Trueba, a famous writer in his time and representative of the Basque fuerismo, in the period between the Revolution of 1868 and the abolition of the Basque-Navarrese fueros in 1876. The purpose is to show how the pacifist message becomes a political argument in defense of his nature and his ideology and, also, in the defense of the foral regime of the Basque Provinces. The writer adds to the idyllic image of the Basque Country created by the foral literature, of which his word was a reference, the apology of the peaceful character of the Basque people determined by the provincial liberties and harshly criticizes the Carlist civil war in tis two warlike manifestations, blaming liberals and Carlists for being the cause of the civil confrontation. The short stories «Por qué hay un poeta más y un labrador menos», «La guerra civil», «El fomes peccati» and «Los corretones» are analyzed with the support of the novels El gabán y la chaqueta (1872), Mari-Santa (1874), El redentor moderno (1876), the travel book Madrid por fuera (1878) and some articles published in those years.