Michael Kretschmer, Berliner Zeitung:
Russland versteht nur eine Sprache, und das ist Stärke. Wenn wir uns in Deutschland militärisch, wirtschaftlich stark aufstellen, auch als Demokratie, sind wir ein Partner. Unsere Stärke kam ja auch daher, dass die russische Wirtschaft sehr auf Deutschland bezogen war. Man spricht nicht mit uns, den Deutschen, weil wir so nett sind oder weil der russische Präsident hier einen Teil seines Lebens verbracht hat, sondern weil man mit uns Geschäfte gemacht hat. Wenn wir da raus sind, gibt es keinen Grund mehr, mit uns zu reden. Dann redet Russland mit China, Vietnam oder Indien.
The interview with Kretschmer is mildly interesting for a number of reasons, but this passage really caught my eye, and I ended up reading the first sentence a number of times. It’s trite [now here do I mean abgedroschen oder wohlfeil? 🤔 to be honest I’m really not sure], and I have heard versions of it for half a century. Kretschmer says this knowing it is accepted wisdom, he is safe here, the BZ reporter is not going to begin to question him on this, nor are most BZ readers. But I thought to myself, what if – as an epistemological exercise say – I simply wanted to test its validity: how would I go about doing that? Or for that matter, if Kretschmer makes this observation about Russia in the aggregate he presumably means to contrast this description with that he might make about another land. How many languages does Deutschland understand? How many the US? How many do I? How much Russian do I understand? How would I determine this? Where would I start? On this matter it seemed perhaps wise to consult a voice of authority from childhood.
Feeling this seemed reasonable advice I downloaded the instructions for the telc Русский язык A1:
At this point I am unable to even begin reading the instructions. This seems to be an interesting data point, yielding a perspective which I personally find instructive.
Thinking about Stärke one thing led to another (you know how that goes) and I thought of another song from later in my childhood. Curiously (? 🤔) it, also, seems to fit.