Chavez Nogales
Manuel Chaves Nogales is of Spanish origin. He was born in the province of Seville, capital of the Andalusia region, in August 1897. He comes from a cultured family. He grows up surrounded by activities related to journalism and art.
As the first-born son, he descends from his father Manuel Chaves Rey who was a journalist and worked for the newspaper El Liberal. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of Good Letters of Seville and served as the official chronicler of Seville.
For her part, Pilar Nogales Nogales, her mother, was dedicated to the piano. The paternal grandfather, José María Chaves Ortiz, was a renowned painter, who specialized in bullfighting. He is the author of the first illustrated poster for the Seville Fair in 1878, leaving his name recorded in the history of art.
From the maternal family, the brother of Pilar Nogales and uncle of Manuel Chaves Nogales devoted himself to law, journalism and was a writer. He was part of the governing body of the newspaper El Liberal holding the position of director. He was a character who reached the considerations of the city of Seville.
As can be seen, Manuel Chaves Nogales' family environment revolved around culture, the arts, and books. It was no surprise, then, that Manuel Chaves Nogales was a man passionate about journalism.
Chaves Nogales professional development
For the year 1915, Manuel Chaves Nogales, enrolled in the University of Seville to study Philosophy and Letters alternating with journalism, however he did not finish his university studies.
Despite this setback, his journalistic performance gave him space to work in the newspaper El Liberal, as well as in El Noticiero Sevillano and La Noche. He actively participates in the creation of La Voz de Córdoba.
In sevilla
By the year 1920, in addition to marrying Ana Pérez, he published his first book titled Marvelous Narratives and Exemplary Biographies of Some Great, Humble and Unknown Men. That same year he moved to the city of Córdoba to work at La Voz as an editor. However, he would return to Seville.
In 1921, he published an essay entitled La Ciudad, which ended up being awarded by the Seville City Council. After two years, he decides to move to Madrid where he would meet with intellectuals where he would give answers to his professional concerns.
In Madrid
He manages to belong to the staff of the Heraldo de Madrid as chief editor. In the year 1928, he managed to obtain the accredited prize for journalism in Spain, the Mariano de Cavia, with his chronicle The arrival of Ruth Elder in Madrid, which was published in the ABC newspaper. She was the first female to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in a Junker plane.
Some works
For Manuel Chaves Nogal, using airplanes as a means of transportation became a fundamental tool for his work. During 1929, he traveled extensively, resulting in his twenty-six articles published in the Heraldo de Madrid, entitled "Around Europe by Airplane."
He produced works related to the empire of the Tsars and the Soviet revolution, entitled "What has remained of the empire of the tsars" (1931). In these works he revealed the ravages caused for a decade by the Bolshevik revolution, which generated the civil war in the Union of Soviet Republics (USSR).
Within this Soviet context, he publishes his works “A petty bourgeois in red Russia” and thanks to his collaboration with Estampa, he publishes a story about the Bolshevik in love.
He also published his famous fiction novel “El maestro Juan Martínez que tú tú” (1934), which comes from a true story. Other works that had as a muse the genesis of fascism, as well as the Second European War and the mediation in the conflicts that occurred in the League of Nations.
masterpiece
However, it is in 1935 that he publishes his true masterpiece. It was the biography of the legendary bullfighter Belmonte, a work he titled "Juan Belmonte, bullfighter, his life and his exploits." This work was published after the end of the Spanish Civil War. By 1931 he already held the position of director of the newspaper Now, an outstanding newspaper that ideologically approached the monarchical system.
It should be noted that Chaves Nogales manages to interview the person in charge of propaganda for Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, Joseph Goebbels, who from a critical position asked questions that made the interviewee uneasy and became a suspicious person for the Gestapo.
This interview was published in Now, which was called “Will there be fascism in Spain? There he described Nazi Germany's concentration camps and referred to Goebbels as "ridiculous and unpresentable."
The Civil War and Manuel Chaves Nogales
Manuel Chaves Nogales takes the side of the Republic at the outbreak of the Civil War in Spain. For this reason, he undertook the democratic ideals of the Republic and made an effort to combat the fascism that was taking over Europe.
When he went into exile, he lived in Paris, in the Montrouge neighborhood and worked in collaboration with newspapers in Latin America, through French media outlets such as Candide, L'Europe Nouvelle and the Cooperative Press Service.
There he writes about his own experience of the Spanish Civil War. Chaves Nogales's testimonies in *A sangre y fuego . Héroes, bestias y mártires de España* (Blood and Fire: Heroes, Beasts, and Martyrs of Spain) describe the horrors of the war in the city of Madrid, the result of bombings that caused countless civilian casualties.
Likewise, from his home he undertakes the artisan publication entitled "Sprint" where he writes the events that they saw developing in his native country. News that he wrote because of the information provided by the exiles who arrived in France.
As we have previously pointed out, Manuel Chaves Nogales had been booked by the Gestapo after that uncomfortable interview for Goebbels. This brought as a consequence that when the German troops approached France, Chaves Nogales had to flee.
He manages to go to London where he immediately develops his journalistic activity in the Evening Standard. He also worked collaboratively for the BBC in London providing his expertise on foreign services.
After the invasion by the German army of France, Paris, both his wife and their three children return to Spain in 1940. His youngest daughter is born on the way to Irun. In other words, Chaves Nogales lives alone in England for four long years.
He dedicates his time, from the letters, to combat the extremes of both sides, referring to the position assumed by the right-wing parties, as well as those of the left.
He died young at the age of forty-six in 1944. He suffered from deadly stomach cancer. He dies alone in London and his remains lie in an unmarked grave in London, England at North Sheen Cemetery in Richmond.
Chaves Nogales and his works
As we have mentioned, Chaves Nogales has written many books. Today he is recognized as one of Spain's best writers. Below we will review his most important works.
Juan Belmonte, bullfighter; his life and his exploits
The publication made by Estampa (1935) written by Chaves Nogales entitled Juan Belmonte, matador de toros; his life and his exploits is about the biography of the famous bullfighter, Juan Belmonte.
This character, according to Chaves Nogales, had prodigious qualities. He was characterized by having a surprising spirit of overcoming, a human quality that stood out for the time, as well as his power to reconcile. These were the motivations that moved Chaves Nogales to write about his friend.
Throughout the work, the dialogues between the biographer and the character blur together, with no clear understanding of where each begins and ends. This resource, used by the author, allows Belmonte's recollections to unfold with great clarity and naturalness.
In this extraordinary work the following sentence stands out:
“We must gallantly offer destiny the place where it can hurt us. When I think of a misfortune and become familiar with it and have enough soul to live it in all its intensity, that's when I avoid it. This is my only true superstition."
To blood and fire. Heroes, beasts and martyrs of Spain
This extraordinary work by Manuel Chaves Nogales is considered today as the narrative that most accurately describes the ravages of the Spanish Civil War. In it he captures his own testimonies about the events that occurred on both sides.
In the development of this work there are two phrases that stand out, they are quoted below:
"I don't want to join this sad legion of the < > and, although the fact of being Spanish feels like an affront, I strive to maintain a purely spiritual Spanish citizenship, of which neither whites nor reds can dispossess me”
"In any case, I can better bear servitude on someone else's land than in my own house"
Master Juan Martínez who was there
This work is about Juan Martínez, a flamenco dancer who worked and was successful in different cabarets in Europe. Then it reveals the experiences of the character and his partner Sole, who were in the former Soviet Union during the October Revolution and the civil war that degenerated from this event.
The author met Juan Martínez who narrated his experiences with these events. Faced with the horrors of both events, Manuel Chaves Nogal decided to collect this data and create a work.
Master Juan Martínez who was there narrates this story with intensity. He took care of his writing so that the testimonies of his friend Juan Martínez would not lose the traits of humanity that they should have. In short, it is about the transformations that the characters had to undergo in order to survive in the USSR.
Different characters can be seen in the work, such as Russian dukes, artists, German spies, speculators, murderous Chekists, among others. This masterpiece gives us, from the lyrics of Chaves Nogales, the following phrases.
“On big occasions I always say something inappropriate”
“Just as thieves are not allowed to live among decent people, among thieves it is not possible to be a decent person, and I ended up stealing as much and as cleanly as my veteran comrades”
“Within a few days of being there, war was declared. I didn't realize what that was until the directors of the theater where we worked, who were French, told us that they couldn't pay us, that they were closing and leaving. We went to the consul of Spain. As always happens to our consuls, he could not do anything "
The agony of France
The essay entitled The Agony of France describes the decline of this European country before the invasion of Nazi Germany. From this work the phrase stands out:
“The modern masses put up with everything except material, physical discomfort”
“Totalitarian regimes do not mark a superiority over democracies except when they are internally rotten”
“The Nazification of the upper classes of French society was an unquestionable fact”
Narratives Marvels and exemplary biographies of some great humble and unknown men
In this work by Manuel Chaves Nogales, a gallery of diverse anonymous everyday characters is built, who make up a model of the human being.
Around Europe by plane. A petty bourgeois in red Russia
During 1929 he had a long itinerary that gave rise to his twenty-six chronicles published in the Heraldo de Madrid entitled "The return to Europe in an airplane."
In the work he reveals the living conditions of Russian society under the Bolshevik regime. Likewise, he manages to meet with figures such as Ramón Casanellas who murdered Eduardo Dato.
What is left of the Empire of the Tsars
In this work, he revealed the ravages caused for a decade by the Bolshevik revolution, which generated the civil war in the Union of Soviet Republics (USSR).
Other works by Chaves Nogales
- The city
- The Bolshevik in Love (Love in Red Russia)
- The defense of Madrid
Today, Chaves Nogales is analyzed alongside other writers, such as José Emilio Pacheco, whose trajectory can be traced in his biography , or in the work of Octavio Paz, which is as interesting as Chaves Nogales's. In this sense, Octavio Paz's literature and his books should be carefully examined.
Having discussed the biography and books of Chaves Nogales, we invite you to enjoy Sigmund Freud's contributions to psychology.