She was born in Donostia, the daughter of a carpenter and a housewife. She was the eldest of three siblings and she suffered from chronic bronchitis all her life.
He studied Teaching in Burgos and was one of the first graduate teachers but hardly exercised. Virginia Woolf said that a woman, in order to write, needed an income and her own room, conditions that were undoubtedly available to Katalina Eleizegi who lived off her family’s income, which allowed her to dedicate herself to writing and enriching the Basque theater with her dramas. historical.
She did not marry, although that was the life goal of women at that time. She did not have children either, and thus she left her feminine role unfulfilled.
In his time, theater was in vogue, so Eleizegi opted for this literary style in order to contribute to the socialization of the incipient Basque nationalism.
His first four plays were written, published and performed between 1916 and 1934: ‘Garbiñe’, ‘Loreti’, ‘Gaine’ y ‘Jatsu’. Then came the war with repression and censorship. Later, between 1960 and 1963 he wrote ‘Erauso Kateriñe’ which was performed but not published,’The Winding of Bruges’ and ‘Roldan’ it was his last two that stayed in his notebooks.
‘Gabriñe’ It was his best known work, a historical drama in three acts, set in the 13th century, while the war was being waged between Muslims and Christians. It is an impossible love story. Critics have even compared it to “Marianela” by Benito Pérez Galdó, for the union between love and sacrifice that appears in the work. This is an excerpt from this work, where the impossible love that we have mentioned appears:
Looking at the two Garbiñe (Lide and Iboni).
Yes, they are lucky! But me… Poor Garbiñe! You can only stop crying! Why, my poor heart, did you want to climb so high? Go now. I will hide my bitterness deep inside, without anyone knowing. If I remain pitiable, let Ibon be happy, because he loves me! Yes, I love it!
In her youth Katalina Eleizegi traveled a lot and knew Euskal Herria well, but since the beginning of the civil war she lived in Estella rented in the house of a couple without children, until she died. Although Eleizegi’s fear was to die from an asthma attack, derived from the chronic bronchitis she suffered from, she died at the age of seventy-nine, as a result of an allergic reaction caused by an injection.
