page_title: Jesús Evaristo Casariego Fernández-Noriega
section_title: Reception and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Jesús Evaristo Casariego Fernández-Noriega / Reception and legacy
caption_attribution_description: Español: José María Albiñana entrevistado por Jesús Evaristo Casariego
context_page_description: Jesús Evaristo Díaz-Casariego y Fernández-Noriega was a Spanish writer and publisher, popular especially during the early and mid-Francoism. Among some 60 books and booklets he wrote most are popular and semi-scientific historiographic works, though he was known chiefly as a novelist, especially as the author of Con la vida hicieron fuego. In the early 1940s he managed a vehemently militant Francoist daily El Alcazár, yet in his youth and older age he was active as a Carlist. Today he is considered the author of second-rate literature, occasionally recognized as expert on Asturian culture and history.
context_section_description: Before the Civil War Casariego was known only to readers of La Nacíon and to a few Carlists; until the mid-1940s he gained some recognition due to El Alcazár assignment and the first two novels. It was Con la vida hicieron fuego which in the mid-1950s earned him the nationally recognized status. Popular among both readers and critics, the book was dubbed "novela de una generación" and applauded by intellectuals like Marañon; many appreciated its Galdosian breadth. The novel also served as basis for a 1956 movie, yet the cinematographic work traded the original melancholy for "exaltación oficialista" and was not a success. The late 1950s marked the climax of Casariego's popularity; though he kept writing his later volumes were addressed to limited audience interested in specific topics, like hunting, maritime history, Carlism and the culture of Asturias. Only in his native region he gained monumental status, in the 1970s recognized as an expert on Asturian past but also as sort of a living relic, "un gran tipo", picturesque icon, "man living in the 18th century" and a protagonist of countless anecdotes. He was named Hijo Adoptivo by Luarca and Hijo Predilecto by Tineo and in 1983 earned a commemorative booklet.
  The writings of Casariego did not stand the test of time. As a novelist he is absent in general works on 20th-century Spanish prose, reduced to short passages in accounts on "literatura fascista" or civil war novel. His books are usually presented as slightly more than propaganda. With political apologetics, lively yet simple plot, nagging moralizing objectives and anachronistic message, they are counted within "corriente martirológico-heroica" and denied major value. Even more damning are scholars who focus on pro-Nazi threads in Casariego's writings; they quote poems which exalted Hitler and his crusade against Soviet bolshevism or British plutocracy and note that as late as 1953 protagonists of his novels identified with Fascism. There are also competitive views, though. Apart from apparently ideologically-grounded references to "outstanding writer", also by foreign authors, some students note that especially Con la vida was grounded in philosophical concepts, protagonists remained complex figures in dialectic relationship with environment and the message was far from unambiguous proselytizing. Nazi threads are presented as Casariego's protest against hypocrisy, which turned Wehrmacht generals who invaded Poland into criminals and Soviet generals who invaded Poland into prosecutors.
  Casariego historiographic works went into almost total oblivion, though they are at times quoted by historians of Carlism, Asturias, hunting or navigation. His best-known contribution is actually an erroneous concept on Marx and Carlism, which entered wide circulation and which needed decades to get corrected. Among the Traditionalists Casariego is considered a valiant soldier, talented writer and recently also a theorist, counted among "maestros del tradicionalismo hispanico de la segunda mitad del siglo XX". There is a street named after Casariego in Tineo and some local prints name him "tinetense universal". His massive collection was largely lost in chaos following his death; his house in Barcellina was until recently in decay approaching a ruin.
caption: interviewing Albiñana, 1936
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