A Country of Immigrants
<p>My ancestors come from Teberda, a village in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia. Small and isolated, Teberda had existed for hundreds of years on the slopes of Mount Elbrus, the highest mountain in Eastern Europe. A hundred years ago, in that isolated village, Muslims, Russian Orthodox Christians, and Jews coexisted, along with a few other ethnic and religious minorities. In those times, religion represented not only the structure of one’s theological faith — its ethnic bonds constituted the framework around which people coalesced. But since this village was so isolated, the separations normally expected between Muslim, Jew, and Christian were not as defined. People were unified by necessity against more essential common enemies, which in their case precipitated danger everywhere — especially those incited by nature’s rains, floods, and droughts. There were also those fomented by the Cossacks, the legitimate government, and the semi-hostile countries all around them — Teberda being close to the borders with Turkey and Armenia.</p>
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