Leadership in bronze: democratising Bilbao’s public space

Abstract

One bust and one statue located in close distance to each other in the centre of Bilbao ‒ the bust being that of the second President of the United States, John Adams, the statue that of José Antonio Aguirre, the first democratically elected first minister (lehendakari) of the Basque Country ‒ are visual representations not only of two charismatic statesmen and patriots but also reminders of what it practically entails to fight for independence and the survival of new polities under difficult circumstances. This paper does three things. First, it establishes the historical nexus between the two figures in terms of a rarely discussed transatlantic intellectual undercurrent, which stretches for a time period of roughly one and a half centuries from the American Revolution to the fall of Bilbao in the Spanish Civil War and the beginning of the Basque government in exile. Second, it discusses various aspects of the charismatic leadership of the two distinguished leaders which the two monuments and their proximity might evoke. Third, it points to the contemporary symbolic struggle for remembrance, particularly in the context of Bilbao’s urban renewal and the Basque Country’s attempt to define the modern political contours of its raison d’être.