Even after its restoration, self-government was still not enough for some Basques — including a militant group, ETA, which killed more than 800 civilians, policemen and soldiers in a decades-long campaign for independence that formally ended this year.

But despite this tortured history, or perhaps because of it, the Catalan crisis does not appear to have markedly increased the zeal for Basque independence.

Many here sympathize with Catalan nationalists. But after a controversial Catalan independence referendum in early October, an opinion poll found that nearly 63 percent of Basques did not want to copy the Catalan approach to achieving independence, while only 22 percent were in favor. And while 44 percent hope for greater autonomy from Madrid, just 23 percent want their own independent country.

After over 40 years of separatist violence, many Basques want a timeout from the independence question, suggested Kirmen Uribe, an acclaimed Basque author who writes in Euskera, the Basque language.

“It’s like we’re different planets — Catalonia and the Basque Country — and we have different orbits,” Mr. Uribe said during an interview in San Sebastián, a coastal city famous for its food and shoreline. “The Basque orbit is longer, and the Catalan orbit is shorter. We need more time because we don’t want to break the Basque Country again.”

“It’s a question of timing — we don’t want independence right now,” Mr. Uribe added. “We’re more thinking about cleaning the wounds between us, between the Basque people.”

In Bilbao — the largest Basque city, and where tourism has boomed as separatist tensions have ebbed — the leader of the region’s largest nationalist party, Andoni Ortuzar, said there was no rush to achieve independence.