Elyakuria, Ignacio

After graduating from the Jesuit College in Tudela ( Navarre ) in 1947, Elyakuria, at the age of 17, became a novice in the Jesuit order and the following year was sent to the Central American Republic of El Salvador , where he lived and worked most of his life until his murder in 1989.

He also spent some time in Ecuador , studying humanities and philosophy in Quito ^[6] . In 1958, Elyakuria studied theology with one of the theorists of the Catholic renewal of the second half of the 20th century, associated with the Second Vatican Council, Karl Rahner in Innsbruck , Austria ^[7] .

Then he returned to Spain to study for doctoral studies in Madrid at Complutense University under the guidance of Basque philosopher Xavier (Javier) Subiri from 1962 to 1965, following the mentor's philosophical thought. Collaborating with Subiri in the future, Elyakuria sporadically visited Madrid.

In 1967, he finally settled in El Salvador , to devote himself to the Central American University named after Jose Simeon Canas (UCA), founded in 1965. He made a great contribution to the work of this university as an associate professor and professor of philosophy, and then the rector . Among other things, Elyakuria was responsible for developing the training program for Central American Jesuit priests.

In 1972, he was appointed director of the department of philosophy (replacing the missing faculty of philosophy), and in 1979, he was rector of the university, which he held until his death.

After the ultra-right-wing assassinations of Jesuit father Rutilio Grande and Archbishop Oscar Romero went into forced exile in Spain (from March 1977 to August 1978 and since late 1980), using this time to publish the works of his teacher Zubiri, editing him and his colleague Jon Sobrino magazine "Revista Latinoamericana de Teología" and attracting world attention to the terror in El Salvador.

Since the beginning of the civil war in El Salvador in 1980, it called for an end to violence and a peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations. Returning to November 13, 1989 in El Salvador, he intended to mediate in the peace process.

The scientific work of Elyakuria was an important contribution to the “philosophy of liberation”. This school of philosophy was associated with the works of such thinkers as Augusto Salazar Bondi (1925–1974), Leopoldo Cea (1912–2004), Enrique Dussel (born 1934) and Arturo Andres Roig (1922–2012). It is aimed at the liberation of the oppressed, "in order to achieve all the fullness of humanity." Elyakuriya advocated the adoption of the theology of scientific achievements, and was also an active supporter and participant of the liberation theology movement .

His philosophy originally comes from the criticism of Subiri of Western philosophy, which, since the times of Parmenides, separates sensory perception from reason. In his work “The Philosophy of Historical Reality”, he develops these provisions in order to take into account, in all its complexity, the structure and dynamism of historical reality, understood as an object and starting point for the departure of philosophy, and with a political eye to comprehend and highlight the relevant historical practice of liberation. For him, human history consists in successively creating new opportunities along with leaving the fields of other alternatives. Because of this, history cannot be understood as inexorable progress towards an ideal goal, because it is not predetermined, but accomplished from the very beginning of human activity on the basis of a system of possibilities arising in every situation and in every moment of the historical process.

In his last speech in Barcelona in early November 1989 on the occasion of awarding the Central American University an international prize. Alfonso Comina, Elyakuria reaffirmed the importance of the emancipative dimension of intellectual activity within the framework of his radical criticism of the civilization of capital and the alternative proposal of the “civilization of labor”.

The political implications of Elyakuria’s commitment to their ideas were strongly opposed by conservative religious and political forces in El Salvador. This confrontation made Elyakuria one of the targets for the ultra-right death squads and the Salvadoran army waging a civil war against left-wing rebels from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FNFM) . On the account of the right-wing forces of El Salvador, there were already quite a few murders of representatives of progressive clergy, including Archbishop Oscar Romero , Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande , Franciscan priest Santi Spesotsto, and four nuns from the United States.

Ellacuria, as well as five of his Spanish Jesuit counterparts (Segundo Montes, Juan Ramon Moreno, Amando Lopez, Joaquin Lopez and Ignacio Martin-Baro, also a famous thinker), as well as their chef Elba Ramos and her fifteen-year-old daughter Selina, were killed by the military battalion " Atlakatl " on the orders of the higher army command at the final stage of the Salvadoran civil war (as it turned out later, one of the priests, left-wing, participated in peace negotiations as an intermediary between the authorities and Marxist Antsy).

The killing of Elyakuria with five other Jesuit priests and two women workers on the campus of San Salvador was a turning point for the civil war in El Salvador and the subsequent history of the country . The news of this crime increased international pressure on the government of El Salvador, forcing him to sign the Chapultepec peace agreements with the partisan organization FMLN and end the war. After the tragedy, the ideas of Ellacuria, with whom they had previously been acquainted only in Latin America and Spain , became known throughout the world.

At the same time, no one suffered any punishment for the shooting of Father Elyakuria and other victims. In 1991, researchers discovered that the immediate order to kill priests was given by the Minister of Defense of El Salvador, General Rene Emilio Ponce. The report of the UN Commission of Truth for El Salvador states that on the night of November 16, 1989, General Ponce, in the presence of several soldiers, ordered Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides to kill Ellacuria the priest, leaving no witnesses ^[8] . Twenty years later, Spanish human rights activists brought charges against the former President of El Salvador from 1989 under the year 1994 Alfredo Cristiani and another 14 military commanders of involvement in the murder of six priests and two women ^[9] .

In 2008, the Basque government of Spain established the Ignacio Elyakuri Prize for Cooperation and Development.

• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Vein Años de Historia en El Salvador: Escritos Políticos [VA], 3 volumes, 2nd edition, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1993
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Escritos Universitarios [EU], San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1999.
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Filosofía de la Realidad Histórica , San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1990.
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Escritos Filosóficos [EF], 3 volumes, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1996–2001.
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Escritos Teológicos [ET], 4 volumes, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2000–2002
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Filosofía y Política" [1972], VA-1, pp. 47–62
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Liberación: Misión y Carisma de la Iglesia" [1973], ET-2, pp. 553–584
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Diez Años Después: ¿Es Posible una Universidad Distinta?" [1975], EU, pp. 49–92
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Hacia una Fundamentación del Método Teológico Latinoamericana" [1975], ET-1, pp. 187–218
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Filosofía, ¿Para Qué?" [1976], EF-3, pp. 115–132
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Fundamentación Biológica de la Ética" [1979], EF-3, pp. 251–269
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Universidad y Política" [1980], VA-1, pp. 17–46
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "El Objeto de la Filosofía" [1981], VA-1, pp. 63–92
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Función Liberadora de la Filosofía" [1985], VA-1, pp. 93–122
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "La Superación del Reduccionismo Idealista en Zubiri" [1988], EF-3, pp. 403–430
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "El Desafío de las Mayorías Populares" (1989), EU, pp. 297–306
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "En Torno al Concepto ya la Idea de Liberación" [1989], ET-1, pp. 629–657
• Ellacuría, Ignacio, "Utopía y Profetismo en América Latina" [1989], ET-2, pp. 233–294

• Hector Samur. In search of a new paradigm: Ignacio Elyakuria (1930-1989)