Spotprent nav de Tiende Nederlandsch Taal- en Letterkundig Congres te Den Haag, 1868 1867

This political cartoon was created by Johan Michaël Schmidt Crans, a commentary on the Tenth Dutch Language and Literature Congress in The Hague in 1868. Notice the pelicans nestled in a woven basket. The pelican is a complex symbol. In medieval Europe, it represented piety and charity, believed to wound its own breast to feed its young with its blood. Yet, in other contexts, it symbolizes greed. Here, the nest, usually a symbol of nurturing, appears to contain a stone inscribed with "Leuven," hinting at a potential relocation or shift in focus for the congress. These symbols are not static. Consider the caduceus, entwined snakes around a staff, from its associations with Hermes to modern medicine. Like the caduceus, the pelican's symbolic journey reflects our evolving understanding of sacrifice, care, and self-interest. Such shifts, seen through a psychoanalytic lens, reveal how collective memory and subconscious anxieties shape cultural symbols, creating layers of meaning that engage us on an emotional and psychological level. Symbols evolve and resurface, reflecting our changing world.