page_title: Román Oyarzun Oyarzun
section_title: Late Carlist engagements
hierarchical_section_title: Román Oyarzun Oyarzun / Late Carlist engagements
caption_attribution_description: Español: Título original: Acto en homenaje a José Antonio Primo de Rivera (7/12) Localización: San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa)
context_page_description: Román Oyarzun Oyarzun was a Spanish political activist, publisher, diplomat, entrepreneur and historian. He is best known as author of Historia del Carlismo, for half a century a key reference work on history of Carlism and today considered the classic lecture of Traditionalist historiography. He is also acknowledged as member of the Spanish consular service, briefly editor of a daily El Correo de Guipúzcoa and a Carlist militant himself.
context_section_description: Prior to 1931 elections Oyarzun lamented Quema de conventos and advocated an alliance of Catholic, monarchist, patriotic and regionalist forces. Entrusted by Don Jaime with launching a Carlist daily, he failed due to financial issues but launched an own Pamplona-based review, Tradición. In the 1936 elections he ran as a Carlist candidate on a joint Candidatura Contrarrevolucionaria ticket in Madrid and failed. The July 1936 coup caught Oyarzun on a diplomatic mission in Vienna. Asked to sign a declaration of loyalty he refused, in his August 2 statement noting that such an act would violate his conscience, especially given the government was dominated "por elementos revolucionarios, comunistas y socialistas revolucionarios". He then travelled to the Nationalist zone offering the Burgos junta his services, only to find that in late September he would have to visit Vienna again: together with a group of top Carlist politicians he attended the funeral of his king Don Alfonso Carlos and in October he visited the new regent Don Javier in his Puchheim residence.
  In December 1936 Oyarzun published a press article titled Una idea: Requeté y Fascio; most authors claim it advanced an idea of a union between the Carlists and the Falangists, though few maintain that it rather highlighted the differences. Until some time in 1937 he believed in birth of a foral corporative regime, yet also following the Unification Decree he remained entirely loyal to the emerging Francoist system and occasionally published pieces looking like a praise of Carlist identity within the new national conglomerate. At that time he was already part of the new administration. In late 1936 Oyarzun was nominated Presidente del Comité Ejecutivo de Comercio Exterior, a unit within the Francoist quasi-ministry of economy. Its task was to control private foreign trade by means of licenses; CECE operated until March 1938, when its duties were taken over by Comisión Reguladora. It is not clear whether Oyarzun joined the body; he was rather noted for presence in other minor economy-related institutions. In 1939 he resumed consular service, posted to Perpignan. It is known that his assignment did not expire before 1944.
  In a 1945 text Oyarzun criticized Don Javier for protracting the regency and lamented bewilderment among the Carlists, yet he offered no solutions. He refrained from taking an active stand and withdrew into his Pamplona privacy, limiting himself to the observer's role. Over time he started to consider himself sort of an appendix to an extinguished idea, as he declared the Carlist dynasty finished and Carlism "reduced into debris and ashes". Priding himself on cool matter-of-fact analysis, he considered the monarchist idea in decline with the throne vacant and no appropriate candidate, yet in 1965 he bothered to publish a work intended to counter the Juanista propaganda. At least in terms of would-be monarchy he seemed entirely put up with the prospect of Franco's personal decision. He did not engage in Francoist propaganda, yet by Traditionalists he was considered a Francoist and an ex-Carlist.
caption: Francoism, 1940s
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