Marcelino Oreja Elósegui (1894–1934) was a Spanish entrepreneur, Catholic activist and Carlist politician.
Family and youth
Marcelino Oreja Elósegui was descendant to a petty bourgeoisieBasque family, originating from the Gipuzkoan town of Orexa.[1] His paternal grandfather was a physician.[2] His father, Basilio Oreja Echaniz, settled in the Biscay Ibarrangelu and since the late 1870s also practiced as a doctor,[3] in the early 20th century briefly serving also as a mayor.[4] Marcelino's mother, Cecilia Elósegui Ayala, came from a distinguished and much branched Gipuzkoan family.[5] His older brothers were active in the Vascongadas branch of Carlism during the late Restoration period already. Basilio died early.[6]Benigno made his name as a physician and one of urology pioneers in Gipuzkoa.[7]Ricardo became one of the Gipuzkoan party leaders; he was elected to the Cortes in 1920 and 1923,[8] during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship serving as gobernador civil of the Santander province.[9] Both were members of the FrancoistCortes in the 1950s and 1960s.[10]
Marcelino Oreja was born to his parents rather late,[11] much junior than his older brothers,[12] and was brought up in a militantly Catholic ambience.[13] He studied civil engineering and graduated as ingeniero de caminos, canales y puertos,[14] in 1925 nominated “ingeniero en practicas”.[15] He married Purificación Aguirre Isasi, descendant to a well-to-do Gipuzkoan family. Her father, Toribio Aguirre Ibarzabal, served as a Traditionalist officer during the Third Carlist War.[16] He became a member of new Basque industrial elites as co-founder, one of major shareholders and directing manager of the metalworking company Union Cerrajera.[17] The posthumous son of Marcelino and Purificación, Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, was a Francoist diplomat and later Christian-Democrat politician;[18] in 2010 Juan Carlos de Borbon made him marquis of Oreja.[19] His son and the grandson of Marcelino, Marcelino Oreja Arburúa, is a Partido Popular politician and in 2002-2004 served in the European Parliament. Another grandson of Marcelino Oreja, Jaime Mayor Oreja, also a PP politician, held various high official jobs in the Basque Country, served in the Cortes in 1996-2001 and in the European Parliament in 2004-2014.
Catholic activist
Profoundly religious though falling short of exalted religiosity,[20] Oreja commenced his public activity during the academic period in the very last years of the Restoration era. In early 1920 he entered Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas,[21] the lay Catholics organization founded back in 1909.[22] Seconded by ACNdP, later that year he commenced work on launching a conservative academic union, Asociación Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos Españoles, set up and confederated with Confederación Internacional de Estudiantes Católicos.[23] Based in Madrid, Oreja emerged as number two in the organization, becoming its secretary general;[24] he is credited for “inflammatory[25] harangues, opposing secularism in education and advocating Catholic integrity as an academic foundation.[26] Some time afterwards, still acting on ACNdP initiative, he went on to build another Christian youth organization, Juventud Católica Española, somewhat broader in scope than CEC and more tied up with the parochial network. In 1924 Oreja entered its first Comisión Ejecutiva and became member of the propaganda section,[27] travelling extensively across Spain, organizing JCE structures and taking part in various congresses,[28] described as “vibrant and effusive” speaker.[29]
In 1925 Oreja joined the ACNdP executive, nominated consejero nacional of the organization[30] and rising to one of its key figures, on friendly terms with Angel Herrera Oria. In the mid-1920s[31] Herrera dispatched him to the United States,[32] the key purpose having been management training. Oreja enrolled at Columbia University, studying administration and journalism;[33] he was also gaining hands-on familiarity with top American newspapers, collaborating with Boston Globe and New York Times.[34] He remained in the US for two years.[35] Upon his return, Oreja praised efficiency of modern American Catholic organizations like Caballeros de Colón and warned against the Jewish influence in the US.[36] Back in Spain, ACNdP seconded him to El Debate, a dynamic daily owned by a controlled publishing house, Editorial Católica;[37] Oreja entered the executive board and became its manager.[38] He is credited for setting up an affiliated journalism school, renovating linotype infrastructure, introducing new techniques of editing and innovative advertising strategies.[39]
Manager
In the late 1920s Oreja had to leave Madrid due to family reasons and returned to the Vascongadas;[40] instead of his home Biscay he settled in Gipuzkoa, moving into the family estate of his wife in Mondragón. In 1927 he commenced business activity related to his vocation as an engineer, becoming a manager of Vidrieras Españolas,[41] a Bilbao-based glass and mirror company.[42] In 1928 he set up his own enterprise, Agromán,[43] specializing in construction work and gaining governmental contracts.[44] In 1929 he became secretary of Consejo Administracion of Obrascón,[45] a Bilbao construction agglomerate co-managed by a Carlist politician José Joaquín de Ampuero y del Río, also favored during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.[46] In early 1930s Marcelino Oreja succeeded his father-in-law as managing director of Unión Cerrajera,[47] at that time somewhat of a hybrid between a typical joint-stock company and a cooperative.[48] Some authors claim that during his term Oreja transformed Union into one of the greatest Biscay businesses,[49] the others acknowledge its dynamics with some 1,500 employees, but do not credit Oreja for its growth.[50]
Oreja represented a new breed of managers, attempting to defuse social conflict with a social-Catholic mixture of papal teachings of Leo XIII and traditionalist corporativism of Juan Vázquez de Mella. To promote this vision he co-founded Agrupación Vasca de Acción Social Cristiana in 1931,[51] though he was able to test its feasibility at Union Cerrajera. As a manager he remained attentive to questions of workplace safety, social insurance and education;[52] in 1933 he drafted the statute of Hermandad de Trabajadores de Unión Cerrajera, a Catholic trade union eventually set up after his death.[53] However, he was vehemently hostile to competitive visions of labor relations, denouncing both Fascism[54] and Marxism.[55] Having developed a reputation for being authoritarian,[56] he was considered prime enemy by the local UGT branch,[57] especially that Oreja pledged never to employ a socialist or an anarchist,[58] a statement which might be indicative of both his corporativist and Basque leanings.[59]
Following in footsteps of his older brothers, as a teenager Oreja was active in local Carlist structures; together with Ricardo and Benigno he defected to the secessionist Mellist branch of Traditionalism in 1919.[60] After the Primo de Rivera coup he engaged in collaboration with the regime, though its nature remains unspecified.[61] During the dictablanda period he came out with his first major proposal, presented to the orphaned primoderiveristas: instead of building a successor to Union Patriotica, named Union Monarquica Nacional,[62] he suggested to build a social-Catholic confederation of regionalist movements across Spain.[63] These plans were cancelled by fall of the monarchy and proclamation of the republic. In the early 1930s Oreja already emerged as one of the Basque Right leaders.[64]
During the first republican electoral campaign of 1931 Oreja, still representing the mellistas,[65] forged an alliance with PNV and mainstream Carlism. It eventually materialized in Vascongadas and Navarre as lista catolico-fuerista, with Oreja elected as its deputy from the rural Biscay district.[66] During his first term as a deputy[67] he dedicated himself to the Basque-Navarrese[68] autonomy, approached not as a tactical necessity, but as a matter of principle.[69] He contributed to the so-called Estella Statute[70] and kept supporting autonomous regulations even when the government-imposed draft moved religious issues from regional to central portfolio.[71] Another thread of his parliamentary activity – often merged with the Basque cause - was opposing secularization motions of the Left and backing the Church,[72] especially trying to preserve its education infrastructure.[73]
Supporting reunification of Carlism[74] in 1932 Oreja joined its united organization, Comunión Tradicionalista, though he remained relatively lukewarm to dynastical issues and supported broad monarchical alliances on national[75] or regional basis.[76] He was heading the Biscay section of Requeté, a rapidly growing Carlist paramilitary militia.[77] He successfully represented the party during the 1933 electoral campaign to the Cortes,[78] again standing in the Biscay province and again in alliance with PNV.[79] As late as November 1933 he still advocated the apparently doomed autonomy “contra viento y marea”,[80] which, however, did not amount to endorsing Basque nationalism or Basque separatism.[81] Some scholars oppose him to “integristas” in the autonomy discourse.[82]
During the revolution of 1934, the tension in Mondragon was running high.[83] Oreja was arrested in his home by socialist militiamen, reportedly employees of the company he managed. Following a brief detention, he was shot dead.[84]
Legacy
Oreja was the best known single victim of the 1934 revolution in Spain, as no other parliamentary deputy was killed during the turmoil.[85] His death has long reverberated in the national public debate. The Right presented it as a proof of barbarian and Bolshevik nature of the Left, a prefiguration of the future bloody terror, to be imposed by the mass workers’ movements.[86] For the Carlists, Oreja became another of their martyrs; the following year he was already honored during Fiesta de los Mártires de la Tradición, the feast dedicated to the fallen Carlists and observed every March from 1895.[87] In the Francoist Spain many streets have been named after him. Today “calle Marcelino Oreja” exists, among other places, in Bilbao and Mislata.
The public memory of Marcelino Oreja Elósegui has been kept alive mostly thanks to his son, Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, who remained a well-known figure in Spain until the late 20th century. Today the Basques usually appreciate Oreja's work on the Basque autonomy, though they tend to ignore his Carlist political identity;[88] the Leftist-minded Basques view the Basque and the socialist cases as tantamount and consider Oreja the enemy of both.[89] In the Carlist historical discourse he does not figure prominently.[90] In the partisan debates of current-day Spanish politics he is sometimes acknowledged in relation to Jaime Mayor Oreja, depending on political preferences mentioned either with hostility.[91]
^according to Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, Antecedentes de la Revolución de octubre de 1934 y su repercusión en el País Vasco, [in:] Euskonews s/d, available here; José María Urkia Etxabe, Benigno Oreja, pionero de la Urología en Euskadi, [in:] Noticias de Gipuzkoa, 15.10.14 claims that the family was from “localidades navarras de Atayo y Arriba” see here
^he is first time mentioned in Anuario-almanaque del comercio, de la industria, de la magistratura y de la administración of 1879, p. 1215, see here
^listed as alcalde in 1900 and 1902, compare Annual del comercio, de la industria, de la magistratura y de la administración, 2 (1900), p. 545, available here; in 1899 and 1904 he is listed as "medico", compare here
^see Benigno Oreja entry at Colegio Oficial de Médicos de Gipuzkoa website, available here; he was also active in the Carlist medical service during the Civil War, see Manuel Solórzano Sánchez, Las Margaritas. Enfermeras del Partido Carlista, [in:] Enfermeria avanza service available here
^see Indice Historico de los Diputados at the official Cortes service, available here
^La Vanguardia 03.03.25, compare also here, some internet sources wrongly claim it was Marcelino performing the governor role, see e.g. here
^see Indice Historico de los Diputados available here
^the exact birth year remains somewhat unclear. José Luis Orella Martínez, El origen del primer Catolicismo social Español, [PhD thesis, Universidad de Educación a Distancia], Madrid 2012, p. 235, claims he was born in 1896; the Geni service indicates 1894, the same year is mentioned by Roberto Villa García, Las elecciones de 1933 en el País Vasco y Navarra, Madrid 2007, ISBN8498491150, 9788498491159, p. 272; Marcelino Oreja Elosegui entry at Auñamendi Eusko Entzikipedia available here claims he was born in 1891
^the birth year of his brother Benigno is also unclear. Some claim it was 1878, see Santiago Casas, Los Cursos Internacionales Católicos de San Sebastián (1935), [in:] Sancho el Sabio, 35 (2012), p. 152; some claim he was born in 1880, see Urkia Etxabe 2014; depending what birth of Marcelino is adopted, the difference between the two could be 11 or 18 years, see also José Antonio Martín Aguado, José R. Vilamor, Historia del Ya: sinfonía con final trágico, Madrid 2012, ISBN8415382502, 9788415382508, p. 49
^La formación de la imagen del Colegio. La comunicación de ideas. El Think Tank. La Fundación, [in:] Fundación Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos website, available here/
^Marcelino Oreja habla de su padre, [in:] Diario Vasco 01.11.09, Josemari Velez de Mendizabal, Unión Cerrajera S.A. Riqueza centenaria, [in:] Josemari Velez de Mendizabal, José Ángel Barrutiabengoa, Juan Ramón Garai, “Ama” Cerrajera, Donostia 2007, p. 58 (mentioned as “Second Carlist War”)
^it specialised in supporting construction industry, manufacturing around 1,200 types of devices, Velez de Mendizabal 2007, p. 60; for shareholding structure see Velez de Mendizabal 2007, p. 55, for Aguirre’s managerial activities see p. 58 and passim
^semi-official biography available at Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe service here
^e.g. he rejected approaches by a visionary, Francisco Patxi Goicoechea, see William A. Christian, Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ, Berkeley 1996, ISBN0520200403, 9780520200401, pp. 60, 453
^Orella Martínez 2012, p. 289, Pedro Fernández Barbadillo, El día en que los socialistas asesinaron a Marcelino Oreja, [in:] Libertad Digital Historia, 01.06.11, available here
^Orella Martínez 2012, p. 289, Fernández Barbadillo 2011
^Marcelino Oreja Elosegui entry at Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia, also Fernández Barbadillo 2011. The president was Fernando Martín Sánchez-Julia, Orella Martínez 2012, p. 235
^Aguado, Vilamor 2012, p. 49 claims it was in 1920
^Alicia Tapia López, La enseñanza de la documentación en la escuela de periodismo de «El Debate». Antecedentes y evolución posterior (1989 [sic!]-1971), [in:] Documentación de las Ciencias de la Información 24 (2001), p. 222, wrongly claims it was Ricardo not Marcelino
^Orella Martínez 2012, p. 436, Aguado, Vilamor 2012, p. 49
^see fundacionvicrile service here, later Vicasa S.A; in the 1990s the company merged with the French giant Saint Gobain
^Fernández Barbadillo 2011, also Juan Ramón Garai Bengoa, Celestino Uriarte: Clandestinidad y Resistencia Comunista, Tafalla 2008, ISBN8481365246, 9788481365245, p. 32. The company was favored during the Francoist times, see Juan Miguel Baquero, Qué empresas usaron a esclavos del franquismo?, [in:] El Diario 26.04.14, available here; in 1995 it was absorbed by Ferrovial, see here
^E.g. at the Universidad Central refurbishment works, see ABC 24.07.1930 available here
^Jaime de la Fuente (ed.), De Obrascón a OHL. Crónica de un centenario, 1911-2011, Bilbao 2011, p. 70
^Fernández Barbadillo 2011, Sharryn Kasmir, The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working Class Life in a Basque Town, New York 1996, ISBN0791430030, 9780791430033 p. 59 says it was in 1933, the same date is given by Barrutiabengoa 2007, p. 122
^it became a mythical model of a Basque cooperative, allegedly defying the social class conflict within a framework of an integrated Basque industrial community, see Kasmir 1996, esp. the chapter Making the Myth of Mondragon, pp. 15-40
^Jose Maria Codon, La tradicion en Jose Antonio y el sindicalismo en Mella, Madrid 1962, chapter 6: Marcelino Oreja Elosegui o la accion social, pp. 24. The company is referred to as “todopoderosa”, see Marcelino Oreja habla…
^Velez de Mendizabal, Barrutiabengoa, Garai 2007; the authors at one point straightforwardly dub him “Marcelino the swine”, see p. 122
^and became member of its first Junta Directiva, presided by Jose Antonio Aguirre, see Iñaki Mirena Anasagasti Olabeaga, Acción social Cristiana para salvar la sociedad, [in:] ianasgasti.blogs available here
^e.g. attempting to open a vocational school in Mondragon, see La Escuela de Aprendices, [in:] Josemari Velez de Mendizabal Azkarraga, Unión Cerrajera S.A, un patrimonio de cien años, available here. Entirely different opinion is expressed by the very same author at Velez de Mendizabal 2007, p. 77, where he claims that Oreja opposed vocational schools
^Orella Martínez 2012, p. 235; Velez de Mendizabal 2007, p. 64 when discussing the emergence of HETRUC mentions neither Oreja nor the Catholic character of the union
^Martin Blinkhorn, Carlism and Crisis in Spain 1931-1939, Cambridge 1975, ISBN9780521207294, p. 167 claims Oreja opposed Fascism due to its exaltation of an omnipotent state. Some highly partisan authors claim exactly the opposite and link Oreja with fascism, see Erlantz Cantabrana Berrio, Breve memoria - historia (subjectiva) del siglo XX y XXI, s.l. 2010, entry 1934. Fascismo. Marcelino Oreja Elosegui
^Blinkhorn 1975, p. 167. The issue is not entirely clear. Marcelina Oreja is also alleged to have launched a co-operative project in Ermue, which demonstrated conciliatory approach towards the socialists and the communists, see Manuel Martorell Pérez, Carlos Hugo frente a Juan Carlos. La solución federal para España que Franco rechazó, Pamplona 2014, ISBN8477682658, 9788477682653, p. 79
^and dubbed him “swine”, see Josemari Velez de Mendizabal Azkarraga, 75 años de la revolución de octubre [in:] Euskonews service, available here, also El último revolucionario, [in:] Diario Vasco 30.04.06, available here
^“antes de que cualquier republicano pise el suelo de mi fábrica tendrá que comer hierba”, quoted after Garai Bengoa 2008, p. 17; in other references “republicano” is substituted with “socialista”, “sindicalista” etc., see e.g. Diario Vascohere
^compare Kasmir 1996, especially the chapter Socialism versus Basque Nationalism, pp. 56-59
^it is not clear what political party he joined. The original mellist party was Partido Católico Tradicionalista, and Oreja is reported as representing it as late as 1931, see here and here. According to other sources it was Partido Social Popular, see Orella Martínez 2012, pp. 235
^Orella Martínez 2012, p. 235. His brother Ricardo was civil governor of Santander province
^some sources claim the opposite, namely that he co-founded UMN, see Javier Real Cuesta, Los partidos monárquicos en Vizcaya durante la Segunda República, [in:] Estudios de Deusto: revista de la Universidad de Deusto, 57 (2009), p. 216
^the confederation was supposed to be headed by Rafael Benjumea y Burín, conde de Guadalhorce. The organization was expected to lure the primoderiveristas towards traditionalism and regionalism and to counter La Lliga , see Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, José María Pemán: pensamiento y trayectoria de un monárquico (1897-1941), Cadiz 1996, ISBN8477863059, 9788477863052, p. 38
^Iñaki Egaña, Los crímenes de Franco en Euskal herria 1936-1940, Tafalla 2009, ISBN9788481365597, p. 23
^he gained 15 982 votes , see Indice Historico de los Diputados available here. In his native Ibarranguelua he won 120 votes, only 2 more than a PNV candidate Francisco Basterrechea, see detailed results by municipality here
^he did not perform any official role in the Cortes, ABC 19.03.32 available here
^though a Vizcaino living in Gipuzkoa, Oreja sympathized with the neighboring Navarre and supported the traditional Navarrese identity, see Javier Ugarte Tellería, Un episodio de “estilización” de la política antirrepublicana: la fiesta de San Francisco Javier de 1931 en Pamplona, [in:]L. Castells (ed.), El rumor de lo cotidiano, Estudios sobre el País Vasco contemporáneo, Bilbao 1999, p. 173
^exactly unlike most Traditionalists, see Blinkhorn 1975, p. 47. Oreja remained on friendly terms with the PNV leader, José Antonio Aguirre, and raised many eyebrows within Carlism when named Aguirre a „providencial figure”, José Antonio Vaca de Osma, Los vascos en la historia de España, Madrid 1995, ISBN9788432130953, p. 229
^Blinkhorn 1975, p. 82; detailed though highly partisan account in José María Jimeno Jurío, Navarra jamás dijo no al Estatuto Vasco, Tafalla 1997, ISBN848136021X, 9788481360219
^Marcelino Oreja Elosegui entry at Auñamendi, also Manuel Ferrer Muñoz, La Cuestión estatutaria en Navarra durante la Segunda República, [in:] Príncipe de Viana 52 (1991), p. 206
^compare his speech as follows: "si expulsáis a la Compañía de Jesús de España porque no la consideráis española, nosotros podremos decir que siempre la consideramos vasca, porque vasco es su fundador, y su organización está ínfimamente unida con el alma vasca. Os hablo con el corazón lacerado… Os aseguro que cuando aprobéis este artículo habréis declarado la lucha civil espiritual en aquellas provincias", quoted after this site
^he was active in reunification meetings as early as January 1932, taking part in huge Carlist meetings in Biscay, see Antonio Manuel Moral Roncal, María Rosa Urraca Pastor: de la militancia en Acción Católica a la palestra política carlista (1900-1936), [in:] Historia y politica 26 (2011), p. 210
^detailed electoral analysis, including Oreja’s performance, in Villa García 2007. He lost in Ibarranguelua to both PNV candidates. See also here and Indice Historico available here
^unlike in 1931, the alliance with PNV was strictly provincial, Villa García 2007, pp. 50-51
^growing in the Basque milieu, Oreja was an ethnic Basque, though his father Basilio – a Basque himself - allegedly banned his sons to speak Basque at home, see here. Marcelino Oreja considered himself Basque in a traditionalist sense, e.g. member of the Spanish political nation
^Marcelino Oreja Elosegui entry at Auñamendi Eusko Entzikipedia
^Oreja is named "personaje antivasco” by a Herri Batasuna activist, see Jon Idigoras, El hijo de Juanita Gerrikabeitia, Tafalla 2000, ISBN8481361496, 9788481361490, p. 77
^compare a sixtinos fraction of Carlism service here