Jaime del Burgo Torres (1912 – 2005) was a Spanish official, writer and a Carlist activist. He is noted mostly as a historian; his works focus on Navarre and the Carlist wars. As a public servant he is known as longtime head of Navarrese library network, regional Ministry of Information delegate and a governmental and self-governmental tourist official. As a Carlist he is acknowledged as moving spirit behind the Navarrese Requeté in the 1930s and as representative of the Carloctavista faction during early Francoism. He also wrote novels, poems and dramas.
Family and youth
Del Burgo's presumed ancestors can be traced back to the mid-19th century. There is close to nothing known about his grandfather, Victoriano del Burgo Palomar (1861-1931); some authors claim that he contributed to the Carlist cause.Fallece a los 92 años Jaime del Burgo Torres, historiador, periodista y escritor, [in:] Diario de Navarra 25.10.05 Victoriano lived in Pamplona and was married twice, first with Felipa Juanillo Pascual and then with Maria Magdalena Pascual Soria.Victoriano del Burgo Palomar entry, [in:] Geneaordonez service, available here, El Cruzado Espanol 13.11.31, available here The first marriage was childess, while the second one produced two sons. The older one was the father of Jaime, Eusebio del Burgo Pascual (1888-1970). However, the official birth certificate of Jaime refers to his paternal grandparents as "abuelos incognitos".see here Some sources claim his father was named Eusebio del Burgo Pascual,see Eusebio del Burgo Pascual entry at Geni genealogical service available here while an official document certifies he was born Eusebio Percal and it only changed to Eusebio del Burgo Pascual in 1926.see Jaime del Burgo's certificate of birth, available here According to one author, he originated from the Navarrese town of Villava,Burgo Tajadura, Jaime Ignacio, [in:] Diccionario Biografíco Español, vol. 9, Madrid 2010, , p. 668, available here according to another he was born in Pamplona.see here ) his father was born in Pamplona He was worker in the local paper-mill.La Accion 04.03.22, available here and married a pamplonesa, Paula Torres Jacoiste (1887-1973).Jaime del Burgo Torres entry at Geni service available here The couple settled in Pamplona. They had three sons and four daughters,Paula Torres Jacoisti entry at Geni service available here all brought up in Traditionalist ambience;Diario de Navarra 25.10.05, José Fermín Garralda Arizcun, Sin caer en el olvido. Jaime del Burgo Torres (1912-2005). Historiador polifacético en su tercer aniversario, [in:] Arbil 118 (2008), available here it is known that at the age of 45 Eusebio took part in street brawls, animated by the Carlists.Fernando Mikelarena, Cuando los carlistas cantaban en San Fermín "no estamos todos, faltan los presos", [in:] El blog de Fernando Mikelarena, available here They were also raised in fervently Catholic atmosphere, which at times bordered exaltation; Catholic visionaries used to run mystical sessions in the del Burgo family house in Pamplona.see William A. Christian, Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ, Berkeley 1996, , 9780520200401, p. 191
Nothing is known about Jaime's early childhood; as a teenager he trained to become "perito mercantil"Garralda Arizcun 2008; ABC 25.10.05 claims he was "profesor mercantil", see here at unidentified school, possibly in Villava.at that time the only local institution enabling this sort of career was Escuela de Peritos Agrícolas in Villava He has never pursued a professional commercial career; during his adolescence years he was increasingly engaged in public activities, consuming more and more of his time. Del Burgo married Maria de las Mercedes Tajadura Goñi (1911-1999);see María de las Mercedes Tajadura Goñi at Geni service available here, also Diario de Navarra 25.10.05; Garralda Arizcun 2008 her father, Federico Tajadura Arnaíz, was a military and rose to the rank of teniente.Diario Oficial del Ministerio de la Guerra, 30.06.19, available here, also BOE 24.10.53, abailable here The couple had three children, Mercedes, Jaime Ignacio and Maria Antonia.Diario de Navarra 25.10.05 Upon death Jaime left three children, thirteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.Garralda Arizcun 2008 His son Jaime Ignacio del Burgo TajaduraDiario de Navarra 25.10.05 was a conservative politician and the Prime Minister of Navarre (president of Diputacion Foral de Navarra) in 1979–1984.Burgo Tajadura, Jaime Ignacio, [in:] Diccionario Biografíco Español, pp. 668-669 His grandson Ignacio del Burgo Azpíroz, otherwise a Pamplona lawyer, gained wider recognition as author of a historical novel.Carlos Mata-Indurain, Panorama de la novela histórica en Navarra, [in:] M. Casado Velarde, C. Saralegui Platero (eds.), Pulchre, bene, recte: estudios en homenaje al prof. Fernando González Ollé, Pamplona 2002, , p. 935, see Ignacio del Burgo Azpiroz entry at Auñamendi Eusko Entziklopedia, available here Another of his grandchildren, an entrepreneur Jaime del Burgo Azpíroz,see his own site available here was married to an older sister of Letizia Ortiz, becoming brother-in-law of Felipe VI of SpainM. Romero, Jaime del Burgo el conquistador, [in:] La Razón 03.05.12, available here Crónica Rosa: Telma Ortiz y Jaime del Burgo, juntos de nuevo - 21/05/14 until their divorce in 2016. In 2023 he claimed he had had an affair with Letizia while she was married to then prince Felipe, which plunged the Spanish parliamentary monarchy into a big scandal.
Rebel
Already as a youngster del Burgo engaged in the Carlist juvenile organization, Juventud Jaimista, in 1930 becoming secretary of the Navarrese branch of the organization;Diario de Navarra 25.10.05 a year later he set up a local Carlist weekly La Esperanza, trying his hand as an editor, manager and contributor.Garralda Arizcun 2008 In 1931 he was among those founding provincial branchManuel Ferrer Muñoz, Carlismo y violencia en la II República 1931-36: la organización del Requeté vasco-navarro, [in:] Sociedad Benéfica de Historiadores Aficionados y Creadores website available here of the newly born national Carlist student association, Agrupación Escolar Tradicionalista.founded in 1930 as a belligerent competitor to Confederación de Estudiantes Católicos Españoles, Eduardo González Calleja, Rebelión en las aulas: un siglo de movilizaciones estudiantiles en España (1865-1968), [in:] Ayer 59 (2005), p. 37 Remaining at its helm until the outbreak of the Civil War,Garralda Arizcun 2008 del Burgo exercised enormous influence on the group and beyond, especially as in 1934 it launched its press tribune, the a.e.t. weekly.Martin Blinkhorn, Carlism and Crisis in Spain 1931-1939, Cambridge 1975, , p. 134
Initially Navarrese AET focused on juvenile activities like sport, leisure and outdoor, though they were increasingly flavored by cult of brotherhood, Carlist heroes, activism and virility,embodied e.g. in long, exhaustive night marches around Pamplona, Javier Ugarte Tellería, La nueva Covadonga insurgente: orígenes sociales y culturales de la sublevación de 1936 en Navarra y el País Vasco, Madrid 1998, , 9788470305313, pp. 280-281 combined with anti-materialist spiritualism and a drive for change.Ugarte Tellería 1998, pp. 276-290 A present scholar relates them to Sorel, Marinetti, T.S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats,Ugarte Tellería 1998, pp. 280-1 also drawing parallels between aetistas and a millenarist Romanian ultra-Right Legion of Archangel Michael;Ugarte Tellería 1998, p. 289 another one points to fascist influenceEduardo González Calleja, La violencia y sus discursos. Los límites de la "fascistización" de la derecha española durante el régimen de la II República, [in:] Ayer 71 (2008), pp. 85-116, esp sub-chapter "Cruzados de la causa": la reactualización de la cultura insurreccional carlista, pp. 94-102 Indeed, the Sorelian thread manifested itself by social radicalism of Del Burgo and a.e.t. The group departed from orthodox Traditionalist line, commiserating with masses of miserable beings pitted against the politically dominant potentates; they advocated limitation of wealth and regularization of profits. Contemptuous towards Carlist landowners like José Lamamié and Jaime Chicharro, the students supported Agrarian Reform, obstructed by feudal egoism of the odious grandees of grain.Blinkhorn 1975, p. 172 The group called for a Carlist Revolutionsome scholars see 2 trends: carlismo nacional and revolución carlista, Juan Carlos Peñas Bernaldo de Quirós, El Carlismo, la República y la Guerra Civil (1936-1937). De la conspiración a la unificación, Madrid 1996, , 9788487863523, p. 21; some authors reduce del Burgo’s revolution to socia issues, see Julio Aróstegui, Eduardo Calleja, La tradición recuperada: El requeté carlista y la insurrección, [in:] Historia Contemporanea 11 (1994), p. 38. He declared: "Somos revolucionarios. Lo oyen ustedes? Revolucionarios!", quoted after Eduardo González Calleja, Contrarrevolucionarios, Madrid 2011, , p. 190 aiming at a good clean-up of society,Ugarte Tellería 1998, p. 287 and was greeted with amazement by the older Carlist generation.
The rupturista stance of the aetistas had nothing in common with social radicalism of the republican Left.Blinkhorn 1975, p. 174; a somewhat opposite view in Steven Henry Martin, The Commonality of Enemies: Carlism and anarchism in modern Spain, 1868-1937 [MA thesis], Peterborough 2014, p. 120: "young Carlists in the age of mass politics of the early 20th century, like those in the Agrupación de Estudiantes Tradicionalistas (AET), were incorporating ideas about egalitarianism, autonomy and wealth redistribution that linked the old values of Carlism to the new ones of anarchism" It remained extremely hostile towards the mass workers' parties, their militancy to be confronted with vengeance and repaid with "bomb, dagger and fire","seamos hombres y sepamos vengar al caído; aunque sea haciendo poner para todo el año a los socialistas crespones de luto en sus centros: Porque contra esos cualquier procedimiento que se utilice es bueno: la bomba, el puñal y el incendio", quoted after José María Esparza Zabalegi, Agur, Del Burgo, [in:] Diario de Noticias de Navarra, see noticias de navarra forum the cult of activism bordering the cult of violence. Strategy of Carlist leaders was denounced as ineffective; in 1934 del Burgo and the young, having declared themselves rebels fed up with legality, accused the old junteros of 3 years of inactivity,Ugarte Tellería 1998, pp. 284-287 their only achievement having been the alliance with caciques and debris of the fallen liberal monarchy. AET despised parliamentary activities of the party eldersUgarte Tellería 1998, p. 281 and especially accommodation with the Alfonsists.Blinkhorn 1975, p. 135 The intemperate tone of the aetistas shocked the Navarrese Carlist authorities and made them call for moderation.Blinkhorn 1975, pp. 134-5; Ugarte Tellería 1998, p. 279 claims that Joaquín Baleztena consented to the a.e.t. tone As a result, Del Burgo did not regret Tomás Domínguez Arévalo resignation and welcomed the appointment of Manuel Fal Conde.Blinkhorn 1975, p. 140
Requeté