“The Water Wolf! ” With visible pleasure, Lotte Jensen discovers the latest work of public art in Nijmegen, a huge bronze statue of a wolf. We are standing in the bay window of museum De Bastei, suspended on a glass floor with a panoramic view over the Waal river. The river usually stays politely within its banks, but – as every inhabitant of the low-lying area knows – this can suddenly change. Because the ‘water wolf’ is always lurking.
The metaphor of the water wolf was conceived by the hydraulic engineer Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater, and became part of our cultural memory thanks to Joost van den Vondel [Dutch poet and playwright]. In his poem 'Aen den Leeuw van Hollant' (1641) he called on Dutch authorities to implement Leeghwater's plan to drain the Haarlemmermeer: ‘O lant Leeuw Waeck eens op’ tegen ‘de Wrede Water Wolff’. [calling for the ‘land lion’ to battle against the water wolf] “The idea that we have to force the water wolf into submission and that we as Dutch people are capable of doing this is deeply rooted in our stories about the battle against the water. This water wolf keeps returning in stories, images and poems. And now in a revitalised version, here on the Waalkade.”
Water conquerors
Jensen is fascinated by the cultural portrayal of crises. Previously, she did research on how cultural media such as paintings, poems and stories create a Dutch identity and a sense of togetherness in times of war and peace. “In wars there is always an us-them feeling, a discourse in which our characteristics are diametrically opposed to those of the enemy, such as the Catholic Spaniards versus the Protestant Dutch. A logical next step was to investigate whether those images and that 'we' feeling are also activated when you experience a natural disaster.” Due to its vulnerable location on a river delta, the Netherlands has contended with many floods. The battle against water and our reputation as water conquerors are deeply rooted in cultural memory. “This has become a unifying narrative that we use in periods of crisis and suffering: We went through hard times together, but we survived. Luctor et emergo: I struggle and emerge [the motto of the province of Zeeland]” Do you also see that happening during the corona crisis? “Yes, I encountered a striking number of water metaphors in the coverage of corona. Such as a 'tsunami of patients' and that ‘the dykes holding back corona are crumbling’. Particularly striking was a corona news item, in which Maurice de Hond constantly talked about holes in the dykes and that Hansje Brinker – the mythological figure who stuck his finger in the dyke – is now absent.” Why is this happening? “Metaphors make the battle against this invisible enemy, a virus, more tangible. Moreover, you create the illusion that we will win that battle as long as we have solid dykes to hold back the flood of patients. We use language to understand the crisis by comparing it to a battle we know. Those interpretations of disasters in old cultural sources are incredibly interesting, because they have an effect to this day.” Even now with corona? “Yes, but also in how we talk about future disasters, such as climate change. In that debate too, you recognise story motifs with ancient roots.” Jensen picks up the brochure that her research group has produced together with Rijkswaterstaat: What stories do you know about sea level rise? Cultural history offers a number of variants. “There is the apocalyptic story variant: beware, soon we will all be irretrievably lost. Or the reassuring technological variant: we can certainly conquer that water wolf. A third variant is to activate awareness of sin, but in a secular version: your actions affect global warming, so drive less and stop flying.” Which variant do you prefer? “I have opted for a fourth variant. This is the ecological variant in which people do not fight nature, but live in harmony with nature and give it space to thrive. That may seem like a contemporary story, but it also has ancient roots, for example in Spinoza's vision of nature. And you come across it in Marsman's famous poem ‘Herinnering aan Holland’ [memories of holland].”
Disaster songs
Songs are one of the first cultural manifestations of natural disasters. Jensen found more than a hundred of them in the song database of the Meertens Institute. In the past, preachers often wrote disaster songs, but these songs also originated from street singers. For example, Jensen found a song about the Spanish flu written by Dorus Stoffel, a street singer from Rijssen. Furthermore, many well-known Dutch writers, from Vondel to Beets, have written an occasional disaster song. That is still happening today. Our Poet Laureate, Tsead Bruinja, wrote a corona poem, although it has not been set to music and was not sung in the streets, as in days past. Moreover, Snelle and Davida Michelle recorded a corona version of the well-known song 15 miljoen mensen [15 million people], now renamed 17 miljoen mensen [17 million people], with phrases like “thousands of students are now keeping to their rooms in the spring” and “but somehow it brings us together”. “That song meant a lot to many students.” Are those songs about recognition? “Yes, and they used to have a news function as well. Performers sang about a disaster for an audience that could not read or write. The songs are sometimes very detailed. In a song about the 1825 flood, you hear an accurate account of how many people and how many head of cattle drowned in each village. It's almost like a sung newspaper report, with the difference that there is also mourning and regret, and there is always a moral lesson at the end. The great thing is that the moral of the story is always about showing solidarity, helping each other in times of need.” So there were no stories with religious morals? “Of course, some stories had religious morals. Stop sinning, and God will stop punishing us. But the moral of the story is very often a call to donate and show solidarity. In many paintings charity, Caritas, is a central motif. Togetherness and solidarity are common threads in the cultural representation of disasters.” This is reminiscent of Rutger Bregman's book De meeste mensen deugen [Humankind: A Hopeful History]. His proposition is that disasters bring out the best in people. “Bregman summarises what researchers have shown, which is indeed that people are more willing to help each other in times of disaster. We see this in our historical sources too. A great many relief efforts and collections have taken place in centuries past. There were also benefit parties, for example in 1881 in Amsterdam. The proceeds went to the victims of the flood near Nieuwkuijk in Brabant. They even wrote a flood version of the Dutch national anthem for that occasion. That is truly my favourite song. It is about King William III, who is portrayed as Triton, a Greek god who leads the water troops. It has a play on words – 'Faithful to the waterland’ (instead of fatherland) – which I think is hilarious, although of course it was deadly serious back then.”
Resilience
As Jensen stated during this year's Foundation Day speech, art and culture play an important role in disaster recovery. “Culture offers us frameworks for interpretation. And more than that, it also offers resilience.” She thinks that the phoenix is a beautiful and powerful image: The bird that rises from its ashes. “After the fireworks disaster in Enschede, they set up a ‘house of stories’ in the destroyed and rebuilt Roombeek neighbourhood. It has a space for silent reflection with a phoenix figure. And after World War II there was a postage stamp with a phoenix image. That is exactly what our imagination does: It seeks appropriate metaphors that we use in every possible way.” Another recurring motif is people who are miraculously saved. “You can still find these stories in the media, and we really like to read them. Someone who has been hospitalised three times, but still survived. The image that you often encounter in old sources is that of the child in the cradle who floated on the waves for days and is nevertheless saved.” That is the symbol of hope? “Exactly. And the same applies to the role models: Heroes who come to the aid of others and receive a medal from the king or queen for doing so. In the nineteenth century, for example, there were cholera medals.”
Text: Bea Ros. This article was also published in Radboud Magazine. Photo: Rijksmuseum.