Erfahrungsberichte
Living Europe – A Wedding Speech
Dear bridal couple (Anja and Marinko), dear friends!
You know, it is the very essence of marriage to join what is different. Two individuals form a couple, from which will emerge new individuals, now with a new combination of attributes, of characters. So far everything is as usual. However this wedding is not quite as usual. Take a look around: Not only are there Germans from all over country; there are also many Croatians, your family, Marinko. There is the Andrew, a Brit, who is married to your sister, Anja, about to move to the US, their daughter, our granddaughter is growing up bilingual. – Furthermore there may also be some other foreigners: Bavarians…
It is this type of mixture that I want to talk about.
It starts with our own name: Toporski. This name, Marinko, is no more German than yours: Kalfic! The oldest ancestor of ours who I know of was called Klingbeil-Toporski, where Klingbeil was a slightly euphemistic translation of Toporski. He was a Pole, who, maybe in course of the historic Polish Divisions, voted for Germany and added that German part to his name. Furthermore there is a coat of arms listed in a book of old Polish arms. So there is no doubt about our Polish origin.
But also Anjas other grandparents: Their name is Welsch. This name also tells us something about their origin. “The Welsh” were people from southern countries, like Italy or France. And more: Among their ancestors we find the name “Bezani”, surely being Italian.
Then all of us are no Germans at all? – Quite the contrary, we are typical German! And also your marriage, Anja and Marinko, will be typical German. Because “German” has always been a ragbag of very different people. Were a single people who have not been living here at some point! There were the hunters in prehistoric times, squeezed by Celts and Slavs, then the Teutons came, the Romans fell in, the storm of the Huns passed. Later on there were the Swedes, the French, and in younger history Americans and Russians. And all of those have not just been smashing each others heads, there were – after the fighting was over – more pleasant things to do. And all this of course left its traces. The “German Race”? – Curs are more pure-bred!
But we are not just talking about genes; this is also about culture. The Romans left deep traces, as did the Irish, to whom we owe Christianisation, later on the French, the English. You only have to look at the German language to recognize how many different influences there have been. Germany has always been a country, whose culture has been entwined with that of the rest of Europe to a high degree. By the way: Have a look at the German cuisine: We very likely would still be eating Weißwurst mit Senf or Spätzle mit Kraut, had there not been the Italians, Chinese, Turks and all the others, who enriched our sense of taste. Not to forget the French and Spanish with their wonderful wines.
What has happened here, and is happening still, is a huge enrichment. It is the incorporation of a large variety of trends, which in its entirety would have been impossible to create by a single nation alone. And it is enrichment not only in the biological, but also in the cultural sense – even though the young Roman flirting with a Teutonic girl would not really have thought about that! All the abundance of our culture would not exist without those many “strangers”. They were strange when they came, but they became part of us by staying here or leaving behind their own skills.
The two of you are now continuing on this path. And not only the two of you, because all your Croatian siblings, Marinko, are married to Germans, and your two siblings, Anja, are now living in England with one of them married to an Englishman. A marriage is always about joining what is different. And that is also its opportunity: To create innovation from the diverse, to create something which previously did not exist, to create a whole which is more than the sum of its parts.
This “more than” is important. It is this type of gain, which cannot be expressed in numbers. Make the most of your North-South-European capital! Become, in that sense, as wealthy as you possibly can (of course also in terms of money!). And so I wish you that you will be swimming in your luck, like Uncle Scrooge in his gold.
All the best to you!
PS.: Many years later there are three girls in this family, two of them south-European dark and one north-European blond.
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