Widok Forest as a thematic park PK XIV/2 2012

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(1)Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis No 3426. Izolda Topp University of Wrocław. Forest as a thematic park. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2 Wrocław 2012. Forest In European culture forest is one of the oldest, richest and most common metaphorical images of nature. It portrays nature as “wilderness par excellence”1, as Jacques Le Goff stressed, describing the world of medieval imagination, the lasting nature of which can be followed almost to this day. Language expresses and maintains this equation. A link between the Latin name of the forest – silva and the adjective wild or savage – silvaticus can be found also in German: Wald – wild or French: sauvage. The last one leads to the pensée sauvage or savage mind and the nature-culture opposition, constituting the basis of Claude Levi-Strauss’ anthropological concept, the key or perhaps picklock to the human world. It is, therefore, not surprising that Le Goff, too, would refer to the raw-boiled opposition from the famous culinary triangle in his description of the lifestyle of the medieval mad knight, who left the world of culture, finding shelter in the forest. The knight, who becomes a naked and savage hunter, an eater of raw meat, “strips his body of his clothing and his mind of its memory”2. Freedom and subordination to social organisation, hunting and agriculture are other forms of this fundamental opposition. The forest is a place in which the laws of feudal hierarchy do not apply, where the royal law does not work, because the law of the forest is above all human law. The wildness of nature is juxtaposed with culture as a reality that functions outside time and thus is primeval, but also as a reality that precedes the existence of culture, in which it resembles the materia prima. “Silva meant both forest and 1 2 . J. Le Goff, The Medieval Imagination, University of Chicago Press 1988, p. 118. “He is naked and without memory”, ibidem, pp. 110, 114.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 1. 2014-02-17 12:03:47.

(2) 2. Izolda Topp. matter (from the Greek hyle) and medieval thought played on this fact”3. Being a source, being eternal, having a perfect form and not having been altered – all these factors make the forest an earthly equivalent of the beyond, even the paradise, but also a place of religious ambivalence. This is a place of initiating journeys and trials, temptation, madness and meditation. This is why Le Goff concludes that “in the medieval West the forest was the equivalent of what the desert was in the East”4. To this day ascetics find here seclusion from the world – it is enough to browse through Thomas Merton’s notebook Woods, Shore, Desert, in which pictures of a redwood forest are not illustrations but prayer formulas... The forest constituted a liminal space,. served as a frontier, a refuge for pagan cults and hermits “who came looking for the ‘desert’ (eremum)” as well as for those defeated in war and those who lived on the fringes of society: fugitive serfs, murderers, soldiers of fortune, brigands. Yet it was also useful and precious5.. It promised abundance, which was there for the taking, and attracted those who could test their valour there. It was not a space for settlers, but among those who entered it there were not only nomads. Le Goff, undoubtedly under the influence of George Dumezil’s vision, describes them in the following manner: The bellatores or warriors, those who fulfilled the second of the three functions [...] common to the Indoeuropean cultures, attempted in the Middle Ages to appropriate the forest and make it their private hunting ground. But they were obliged to share it with the oratores, the men of the first function, whose mission was prayer and who turned the forest into a “desert” for eremites, as well as with the laboratores, the mend of the third function, who gathered food, fuel and honey, and fed their hogs there, making it a region of supplemental economic activity. All went to the forest to behave as men of nature, fleeing the world of culture in every sense of the word6.. Park If this word comes from medieval Latin, from the language of Chretien de Troyes’ chivalric romances, it is to denote a zone “between the world of men and that of wild beasts”, “an enclosed area for grazing”7. From the forest, where savage beasts multiply, through hunting preserves to breeding and domestication of animals runs the process that begins the enclosure of space, clearing of bushes in order to transform it into a garden or orchard. It leads both to farming, which brings benefits to humans, and to improvement, creative transformation, to which no benefit is attributed. The word parc which was used to describe an enclosed 3 . Ibidem, p. 256. Ibidem, p. 110. 5 Ibidem, pp. 52-53. 6 Ibidem. 7 Ibidem, p. 110. 4 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 2. 2014-02-17 12:03:47.

(3) Forest as a thematic park. 3. grove would primarily become part of the history of architecture, denoting a large garden with its form being determined by the style of successive periods. In the English “nature was to be visible evidence of the harmony between humans and the world; peaceful and gentle, it was to seem as if it had not been touched by the human hand”8. In this park image, nature no longer embodies wilderness but freedom of form, picturesqueness and, above all, real world9. Romantic parks, on the other hand, are to reflect primeval beauty. Park-gardens, this space shaped by humans and for humans, are substantially different from the forest, in which humans can only face the strangeness of the world or experience it. The situation is different with national parks, which for this reason turn out to be closer to the forest. They seem to maintain the character of the medieval “enclosed grove” as a borderland “between the world of hunting and the world of farmed land”, where hunting and gathering, just like farming, are no longer possible. However, the liminal position of cultivation is taken over by conserving nurturing, for this is perhaps how we can define nature conservation. National parks are “protected areas of special natural, scientific, historical-cultural, aesthetic and other values”. Utilitarian-hedonistic (“for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” – these words were used by President Grant in 1872 in the bill creating the world’s first ever national part in Yellowstone) and aesthetic justifications of the need to protect non-altered, primeval nature are somewhere between the appropriation of nature and recognition of its separateness and autonomy, making it an object of contemplation subordinated to the laws of spectacle and objectifying aestheticising of wilderness. The borderline nature of national parks is also manifested in the fact that they can be regarded as amusement parks, which eliminates or at least blurs the nature-culture opposition. Both recreational and aesthetic uses of landscape in national parks – seeing it as scenery or separate independent fragments, individual objects, connected or not with actions of tourists – are less important than the mixing in this space of the forest and the civilisation of settled life with its roads, public toilets, sanitary and water supply facilities, shops and waste disposal10.. Woodland Though the words “forest” and “wood/woodland” are used as synonyms, it is worth using in this analysis the clear difference between them that manifests 8 . K. Żmigrodzka, “Działkowicze i ich raje”, [in:] Współczesne zaświaty, ed. I. Topp, Wrocław 2004, p. 106. 9 W. Tatarkiewicz, O doskonałości, Lublin 1991, p. 43. 10 D. MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, Polish translation by E. Klekot, A. Wieczorkiewicz, Warsaw 2002, pp. 125-128.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 3. 2014-02-17 12:03:48.

(4) 4. Izolda Topp. itself in modern Polish. Primeval, wild forests belong to the dimension of former wilderness, bringing to mind meanings that are not far from those from Le Goff’s description of the medieval imagination. Wood or woodland, on the other hand, is associated with taming, subduing the earth, thus also with forestry, tree stands, woodland use and management of its resources11, transforming woodland in accordance with the benefit it can bring to people. It would be difficult to find a better illustration of this thesis than the global motto: “Forests for people” used by the UN to proclaim 2011 the International Year of Forests12. This benefit comprises both economic, industrial-scale use of forests (actions prompted by it, mainly in connection with wood production, many times had disastrous consequences, leading to felling and then planting trees of the same species and age, which disturbed the ecological balance in nature), and treatment of forests as the “green lungs of the planet”, with regard to the protection of water resources, maintenance of space for tourism and recreation. Care of woodland areas is governed by different rules than that of the primeval forest in national parks and reserves, not only in its scope, defined in relevant rules and regulations, but also in its object – foresters are gardeners taking care of cultivation, while park guards protect nature against civilising actions of people.. Woodland as a thematic park Just as the fact that the national park belongs to the zone between the recognition of nature’s autonomy and people’s right to appropriate it reveals to us that it also serves the function of the amusement park, so too the difference between woodland and the forest seems to be well-illustrated by the different nature of cognition associated with them. Saint Bernard wrote: “The forests will teach you more than books. The trees and rocks will teach things that the masters of science will never teach you”13. Eremites in the forest-wilderness sought knowledge transcending the human world, the path to which led through contemplation and meditation on the mystery of God’s work, to the Creation in its most completely preserved form. They sought knowledge that was initiation, leading to a transformation of the seeker himself. On the other hand, educational trails, usually set 11 . Fr Krzysztof Kluba’s book of 1778 is regarded as the first Polish forestry manual. It was to make “us aware of the huge importance of forests in the life of every human being. They make the climate milder, provide people all over the world with wood, medications and livelihood”. Even more significant in this respect seem to be slogans suggested by Polish foresters on this occasion: 1. Forests are growing in Poland; 2. Forests in Poland are accessible to all; 3. Forests protect life; 4. Forests as employers and business partners; 5. Wood as natural and environmentally-friendly material, www.lasy.gov.pl (access: 10 August 2012). 13 Quoted after Le Goff, op. cit., p. 54. 12 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 4. 2014-02-17 12:03:48.

(5) . Forest as a thematic park. 5. in suburban woodland areas, in tourist and spa regions, seem to be rather part of the Enlightenment-inspired, encyclopaedic model of learning.. Phot. 1. A stop on an educational trail, place for leisure and learning activities, Świdnica Forest District (phot. Rafał Łapiński). Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 5. 2014-02-17 12:03:50.

(6) 6. Izolda Topp. Phot. 2. Information board: Introduced species. Educational trail, Świdnica Forest District (phot. Rafał Łapiński). Thus woodland becomes a museum, though not a treasury-museum or shrine, in which, as Ernst Gombrich wrote, “We do not have to learn anything. Nobody will ever cross-examine us about the individual items; we are here to relish the experience of being dazzled and overawed”14. A treasury-museum is the national 14 . E.H. Gombrich, “The Museum: Past, Present and Future”, Teksty 1980, no. 2/50, p. 193.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 6. 2014-02-17 12:03:52.

(7) Forest as a thematic park. 7. park, in which exhibits are presented in accordance with the rhetoric of tourist attractions. On the other hand, educational trails in the woods are more like educational exhibitions, with boards describing the various objects. They describe the principles of classification (nursery, woodland cultivation, young woodland, high pole stand, growing tree stand, mature tree stand – phot. 3), the types of woodland spaces (mixed forest, oak-hornbeam forest), animal and plant species found in them, as well as threats (forest pests, fires). The oak-hornbeam forest is the most common woodland type in the reserve. Visitors can find fresh oak-hornbeam forest area in the vicinity of the trail. It is a type of woodland area on rusty and brown soils. The predominant type of trees is Scots pine, pedunculate oak, birch with aspen or, less often, hornbeam. The understory is composed of young oak, alder buckthorn, hazel and hornbeam. In early spring, when in other types of woodland the plants are just beginning to wake up from their winter sleep, life in this forest is already in full swing. Numerous species of herbaceous plants flower, creating beautiful white and purple carpets on the bottom of the forest. They hurry to flower and then produce seeds before leaves appear on trees and completely obscure light they need so much to live. Visitors setting out on a trip in spring will see the wood anemone, the liverwort and other early-spring species15.. When reading this description it is easy to see that its authors wanted first of all to make sure that the visitors to the forest would learn as much as possible about it, wanted to encourage them to observe nature carefully more than contemplate it aesthetically or enjoy experiencing it. Transformation of the forest into a museum. Phot. 3. Information boards: Role of foresters, Role of forests. Educational trail, Świdnica Forest District (phot. Rafał Łapiński) 15 . Text from an information board: Stop no. VII – Stefan Starzyński Kabaty Forest, Warsaw (2012).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 7. 2014-02-17 12:03:54.

(8) 8. Izolda Topp. and the Enlightenment narrative accompanying it would mean for Giorgio Agamben its desacralisation, treating the forest as a cultural rubbish heap, a place where we transfer what we no longer regard as true or fundamental; an exposition of the impossibility of using, living, gaining experience16. The forest, increasingly distant from the experiences and ideas making up our life, is sometimes metaphorically compared in these educational descriptions to the human world and its ordinariness, also by using anthropocentric categories (for example, “the fox is a slob in comparison with the badger”), which often make the narrative infantile, only infrequently transforming it into the language of the fairy tale. We can find this in the information boards: Forest kindergarten (presenting not so much animal infants, but small animals; birds hatching eggs, feeding nestlings, building nests; small mammals stocking up on food for the winter, taking care of their offspring), Forest canteen (explaining the need for and showing the way of feeding animals), Bird alarm clock (imposing the human way of measuring time on nature’s rhythm). What wakes singing birds up is dawn. For most species the time for beginning the morning singing is an established feature depending on the degree of light. This specific natural clock is so precise that within the specific time-frame in the morning we can be woken up by the singing of a selected bird species. However, with the progress of calendar time, we need to adjust the waking up time to the changing time of sunrise. Our bird alarm clock refers to mid-May, i.e. to sunrise at 4.00 am summer time. The selection of bird species in the bird alarm clock concerns common bird species from our forests. Most of them are well-known to lovers of nature. All are characterised by sonorous, easily recognisable singing. If someone does not know the voice of a given bird, he or she should come closer, trying to guess and remember the species17.. Attempts to bring humans and nature closer together, to make the forest, its sounds, smells and shapes once again part of the human world assume the form of not only an Enlightenment-style encyclopaedia, but also a manual of how to recognise and imitate nature. Sometimes it is supported by references to folk wisdom, usually in a folkloric form, which – almost like in the Romantic period – is associated with the authenticity of experience at source. It reveals a similarity in language and ideas/, which is the basis for recognising cosmic-biological unity or solidarity (as Mircea Eliade puts it). This type of rhetoric is characteristic of quotes from the information board BIRD ALARM CLOCK: Whinchat. It can be imitated by sharp utterances of “hue-tac-tac”, clicking with the tongue against the front upper teeth (hence the very apt name of the bird in Polish: “pokląskwa”). 16 . G. Agamben, Profanations, Zone Books 2007. text goes on to describe the characteristic places in which birds sing: “the song thrush – tops of high trees; the robin – thick forest floor; the blackbird– tops of high trees and also lower layer of the forest; the tree pipit – tops of high trees and in flight; the cuckoo – mostly among tree branches; the great tit – lower layers of the forest; the chiffchaff – higher layers of the forest; the chaffinch – lower layers of the forest; the oriole – among the branches of high trees; the starling – various places” (Information board: Bird alarm clock. Educational trail, Świeradów Zdrój Forest District, 2012). 17 The. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 8. 2014-02-17 12:03:54.

(9) Forest as a thematic park. 9. Chaffinch. Its call consists of a short, full, melodious, sharp verse, as if comprising three parts: introduction, main tone and ending. It could be transcribed as “chip-chip-chip-tweet-tweet-tweet diddip”. A folk translation runs as follows: “Wait, wait, wait, what you’ve done, see”. Sometimes it also produces a “seee” on cold days, which may herald rain; this call resembles the word “ziąb” (“cold”) and hence the Polish name of the bird (“zięba”). Icterine warbler. Its song comprises many verses with frequent repeated motifs. Hence its folk name of “mimicking bird”. Many tones sound as if they were borrowed from other birds. Its song is “translated” in Polish as “tata bije, tata bije, tata bije, zbił zbił zbił zbił kto to widział, kto to widział” (“dad is beating, dad is beating, beat beat beat well well well well, well well well”)18.. The above examples are given just to illustrate the thesis that the forest has been transformed into a theme park, though an analysis of the texts placed on information boards based on broader material than the one presented here would reveal the variety of mechanisms contributing to this process. The educational trail is the basic element, the axis of a theme park, indicating the route and stages of modern learning about the forest. Successive numbered stops define the itinerary and thus the route of the visit. Information boards are. Phot. 4. Information board: Bird alarm clock. Educational trail, Świdnica Forest District (phot. Rafał Łapiński). often placed next to objects-exhibits (tree species described in them, areas in which specific animal or plant species occur), supplemented by their photographic close-ups, 18 Text. from an information board: Bird alarm clock. Educational trail, Świdnica Forest District (phot. 4).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 9. 2014-02-17 12:03:56.

(10) 10. Izolda Topp. in accordance with the traditional model of museum displays, which are to be made more attractive by the context, the forest itself as a “living museum”. The educational trail, though it is only one of many forest paths, shows the results of the transformations the image of nature in European culture has undergone since the Middle Ages. Paths in the forest serve many functions. Traditionally, they are used for the purpose of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. A network of paths makes it possible to mark out tourist routes, presenting the most beautiful fragments of the forest to the visitors. Moving around a nature reserve is allowed only along specified routes owing to the need to conserve the undergrowth as well as the understory, hence the ban on moving outside marked out trails. The paths are also used to transport wood out of the forest and bring in employees and equipment, animal feed etc. Very often they are used as bike lanes19.. These paths are so different from those described by Martin Heidegger: “In the wood there are paths, mostly overgrown, that come to an abrupt stop where the wood is untrodden. They are called Holzwege. Each goes its separate way, though within the same forest. It often appears as if one is identical to another. But it only appears to be the case”20.. Phot. 5. Information boards: Habitat variety, Regeneration – young generation forest. Educational trail, Świdnica Forest District (phot. Rafał Łapiński) 19 Text from an information board: Stop no. V – Functions of forest paths. Stefan Starzyński Kabaty Forest, Warsaw (2012). 20 M. Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, Cambridge University Press 2002, p. V.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 10. 2014-02-17 12:04:00.

(11) . Forest as a thematic park. 11. Starting out on an educational path means abandoning meaning-carrying symbolic images, an exercise in the ability to name, an erudite mnemonic juggling. This is a forest simulacrum, a copy without the original (for who could have spotted in that forest near Świeradów all the animals, birds and plants drawn and described in the Forest kindergarten: the common pipistrelle, yellow-necked mouse, hedgehog, brown hare, squirrel, badger, pine marten, stoat, fox, wild boar, deer, raven, nuthatch, brown owl, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, jay, stock dove, hoopoe, oriole and long-tailed tit?). Perhaps this thematically-ordered description is, therefore, a simulacrum, hiding the fact that nature does not exist? That we are only making its copies from old images and modern desires?. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Topp eng-korekta.indd 11. 2014-02-17 12:04:00.

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