Forests and their perception by the general public. On the analysis of a present-day cultural subject | Waldbewusstsein. Zur Analyse eines Kulturthemas in der Gegenwart

Present-day perception of forests by the general public is presented in this paper on the basis of a qualitative empirical study. The question raised by cultural anthropologists is not about the state of the forests but rather about people’s subjective thinking and experience of forests, how they wish forests to be, in what ways they make use of woods and which contemporary traditions (literature, arts, music etc.) form the basis of currently active cultural patterns.People’s emotions evoked by forests usually go back to childhood experience such as memories of family outings and early role models. Emotional bonds are usually related to specific kinds of forest, e. g. the spruce forests of the Harz. The general public’s idea of a beautiful forest is reflected in the subjectively modified cultural images created mainly during the 19ᵗʰ century Romantic period. By the end of the 19ᵗʰ century these cultural patterns had also reached the industrial working class. The study reveals a difference in landscape perception according to gender, men preferring the panoramic view in the tradition of trivialized landscape painting, whereas women tend to also concentrate on the microcosm of mosses and ground vegetation in the forest. In this day and age ecological concerns are superimposed on, and to some extent dominate, these aesthetic ideas.To this day, forests at night and even at mid-day have remained slightly frightening and mysterious. Traditions from “pre-modern” times, in particular fairy stories and legends, still have an impact on the present. In exemplary fashion these images, designed to create the illusion of harmony between mankind and the environment, are operating in the urban middle class and, in particular, in esoteric circles. However, even recent historical events such as Chernobyl and other post-World-War-II episodes are interpreted as “myths” according to the examples offered by the traditional forms of forest perception. The mass hysteria associated with the so-called “forest decline” in the 1980ies needs to be interpreted within the context of public forest perception as characterized by a romantic, holistic view of the world, traditional myths and anxieties.As a result of Germany’s political and cultural history, forests remain a highly sensitive cultural and political issue in German society. The political function of “the forest” as a national symbol, valid until about the middle of the 20ᵗʰ century, is steadily losing significance due to recent history and its “German forest ideology”.