From Black Death to COVID-19, Pandemics Push People to Honor Death and Celebrate Life

[niyad]

From Black Death to COVID-19, Pandemics Push People to Honor Death and Celebrate Life
10/27/2022 by Nükhet Varlik
No one yet knows how the COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered. But for the moment, Halloween is the perfect occasion to play with the lesson to simultaneously celebrate life and contemplate death.



Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death, circa 1562.

This story was originally published on The Conversation.

The last couple of Halloweens were plagued by doubt and worry, thanks to a global pandemic with no clear end in sight—so Halloween 2022 may feel especially exciting for those ready to celebrate it. Thanks to ongoing vigilance and continuing vaccination efforts, many in the U.S. are now fortunate enough to feel cautiously optimistic after all those awful months that have passed since March 2020.

I am a historian of pandemics. And yes, Halloween is my favorite holiday because I get to wear my plague doctor costume, complete with a beaked mask.But Halloween opens a little window of freedom for all ages. It lets people move beyond their ordinary social roles, identities and appearances. It is spooky and morbid, yet playful. Even though death is symbolically very much present in Halloween, it’s also a time to celebrate life. The holiday draws from mixed emotions that resonate even more than usual during the COVID-19 era.Looking at the ways survivors of past pandemics tried to celebrate the triumph of life amid widespread death can add context to the present-day experience. Consider the Black Death—the mother of all pandemics.

Black Death Birthed a New Death Culture

The Black Death was a pandemic of plague, the infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Between 1346 and 1353, plague rampaged across Afro-Eurasia and killed an estimated 40 to 60 percent of the population. The Black Death ended, but plague carried on, making periodic return visits through the centuries. The catastrophic effects of plague and its relentless recurrences changed life in every possible way. One aspect was attitudes toward death. In Europe, high levels of mortality caused by the Black Death and its recurrent outbreaks made death even more visible and tangible than ever before. The ubiquity of death contributed to the making of a new death culture, which found an expression in art. For example, images of the dance of death or “danse macabre” showed the dead and the living coming together.



Everyone from the poor to the powerful will eventually dance with death. Etching attributed to J.-A. Chovin, 1720-1776, after the Basel dance of death. (Wellcome Collection / Creative Commons)
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Paul Fürst, engraving, c. 1721, of a plague doctor of Marseilles, introduced as ‘Dr Beaky of Rome.’ His nose-case is filled with herbal material to keep off the plague.
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Triumph of Death or Celebration of Life?

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No one yet knows how the COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered. But for the moment, Halloween is the perfect occasion to play with the pandemic lesson to simultaneously celebrate life and contemplate death. As you dress up in spooky costumes or decorate your home with plastic skeletons to celebrate this late capitalist holiday—yes, Halloween is now a thriving US$10 billion industry annually—you may find comfort thinking about how the way you feel about life and death connects you to those who survived past pandemics.

https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/27/black-death-covid-pandemic-death-halloween/

[3Hotdogs]

1. I wonder if Dr. Beaky's mask served the same purpose as covid masks?