So many musicians, artists, friends, activists, and community leaders in L’viv, Kyiv, Simferopol, Bakhchisaray, and other villages throughout Ukraine opened doors for me, agreed to allow me to hang out for a while, and answered my pestering questions (sometimes years later). I thank especially Gulnara Abbasova, Alim Aliev, Abduraman Egiz, Marko Halanevych, Pavlo Hrytsak, Khalil Khalilov, Ruslana Khazipova, Ostap Kostiuk, the late Mykhailo Nechai, Roman Pechizhak, Marta Shvets’, Rolan Salimov, Tamila Tasheva, the Tafiychuk family, Zeyneb Temnenko, and others whose names I have withheld for reasons of confidentiality. The artful ways that Ukrainians have negotiated the hardships of everyday life in a volatile, precarious state has been one of the deepest lessons of my life. To all of the individuals who entrusted me with their words and experiences: дякую, сагъолыныз, спасибо, thank you.
Wide as the steppe is my gratitude to my network of colleagues and friends who offered feedback on various parts of this book. Tyler Bickford, Katherine Boivin, Farzaneh Hemmasi, and Olga Touloumi read most or all of the manuscript at various stages. All four of these brilliant scholars and friends allowed me to test out ideas without judgment, while pushing me to sharpen my claims and clarify my arguments. I continue to learn so much from our writerly exchanges. Larissa Babij, my friend on the ground in Kyiv, raised provocative questions and challenged me to elucidate crucial connections among my key terms. Marié Abe, Alexandre Benson, Andrea Bohlman, Delia Casadei, Adriana Helbig, Laura Kunreuther, Lauren Ninoshvili, and Emily Zazulia helped me think through the problems of specific chapters. Two anonymous reviewers provided instructive critique and helpful suggestions for the revision of this book. David Novak stepped in to offer immensely generous and generative feedback on the introduction during the end of my revisions.
This work began its life as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, where I was fortunate to work with Aaron A. Fox, who continues to invigorate my thinking whenever we talk. Tyler Bickford, with whom I entered graduate school, has taught me so much about collegiality, reciprocity, and ethical ways of being in the academy. He has restored my confidence when my own confidence was failing. A deep bow to my professors—especially Lila Ellen Gray, Ana Maria Ochoa, Vitaly Chernetsky, Timothy D. Taylor, Mark von Hagen, Frank Sysyn, Christopher Washburne, and the late Catherine Nepomnyashchy—who impacted me in lasting ways, many of which continue to reveal themselves to me. At Columbia, I was so lucky to be among an inspiring community of graduate students who shaped my thinking then and continue to do so now. Thanks especially to Tyler Bickford, Ryan Dohoney, Andrew Eisenberg, Shannon Garland, Adriana Helbig, Niko Higgins, Farzaneh Hemmasi, Brian Karl, Elizabeth Keenan, Toby King, Morgan Luker, Lauren Ninoshvili, Marti Newland, David Novak, Jason Lee Oakes, Matt Sakakeeny, Ryan Skinner, Anna Stirr, and Whitney Slaten.
I received support from various granting agencies at different stages of this work. The American Councils Foreign Language Training Grant supported my study of the Crimean Tatar language; the Social Science Research Council and the IREX Individual Advanced Research Opportunities Grant funded the bulk of my fieldwork; and the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and various small grants from the Harriman Institute of Columbia helped support the writing of this book.
Much of this book was written in between semesters during my four years at Bard College. The impact of the faculty who took part in the interdisciplinary Experimental Humanities “sound cluster” at Bard—Laura Kunreuther, Matthew Deady, Olga Touloumi, Alexandre Benson, Danielle Riou, Julianne Swartz, and Drew Thompson—cannot be underestimated. Thank you for modeling how to mix scholarship with innovative teaching, and for pushing me to think more critically about how sound and music relate. At Bard and beyond, I clarified my thoughts, vented my anxieties, and learned a lot about writing and music through conversations with Austin Charron, Nick Emlen, Rory Finnin, Kyle Gann, Sage Gray, Brent Green, Joe Hagan, Samantha Hunt, Adrian Ivakhiv, Alex Kahn, Thomas Keenan, Arseny Khakhalin, Peter Klein, Susan Merriam, Maia McAleavey, Sophia Micahelles, Greg Moynahan, Thomas Porcello, Tanya Richardson, Kate Ryan, Stephanie Savell, Alina Simone, Corinna Snyder, Elsa Stamatopolou, Yuka Suzuki, and Olga Voronina.
I am grateful to the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, where I spent a stimulating fall semester after completing my dissertation, and where I first started to conceive the shape of this book. Kay Kaufman Shelemay stepped in as a mentor during my time at Harvard, for which I remain so grateful. During a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto, I benefited from the meetings and moral support of the Ukrainian Research Group as we witnessed the Maidan Revolution from our screens. In Toronto, I was also lucky to have Joshua Pilzer and Farzaneh Hemmasi for ethnomusicological discussions.
Too many students to name have challenged, inspired, and educated me. Students in my “Musical Exoticisms” seminars at the University of Toronto and at Columbia University helped me think through a broad literature on Eastern European otherness. The advanced Bard College students in my “Contemporary Ethnographies of Music and Sound” offered productive feedback on an early version of my introduction.
Many versions of this work were presented at conferences, including the Society for Ethnomusicology; the International Association of Popular Music Studies; the International Council for Traditional Music; the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies; the Soyuz Symposium; the Danyliw Seminar; the Imperial Reverb: Exploring the Postcolonies of Communism conference at Princeton University; the Sonic Contestations of Nuclear Power conference also at Princeton University; the Experience Music Project Pop Conference. I am grateful to the colleagues who invited me to present portions of this work at Amherst College, Arizona State University, Boston University, Harvard University, McMaster University, University of Toronto, University of Cambridge, Wilfred Laurier University, and York University. An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared in the Journal of Popular Music Studies; it is reprinted here by permission of the copyright holder, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. A version of Chapter 4 was previously published in Public Culture; it is republished by permission of Duke University Press.
I revised this book after beginning a new position at the University of California, Berkeley, where I have been welcomed into an extraordinary community of scholars. I am grateful to my colleagues in ethnomusicology, Jocelyne Guilbault, Ben Brinner, T. Carlis Roberts, and Bonnie Wade, for their encouragement. Mary Ann Smart has been a wonderful supporter in navigating my new institutional terrain. Delia Casadei and Emily Zazulia quickly became friends who patiently endured me as I brought this book to completion. On walks along the shoreline, I benefited greatly from dialogues with Richard Taruskin. Over meals, I have gained from conversations with Daniel Fisher, Marika Kuzma, and Alexei Yurchak. Charles Briggs offered a crucial suggestion and then allowed me to run with it. My wonderful seminar of graduate students at Berkeley read the close-to-final version of the introduction and encouraged me to finally send it off.
Marla Zubel acquired this book for Wesleyan University Press; Suzanna Tamminen and Mary Garrett kindly shepherded it through to publication. I thank the editorial board of the Music/Culture series—Sherri Tucker, Jeremy Wallach, and Deborah Wong—for supporting this project from the outset. Sashko Danylenko generously agreed to conceive the art that decorates the cover of this book.
In ways big and small, many others have supported this project over the years. In particular, I acknowledge Alison Cartwright Ketz; Julian Kytasty; Ethel Raim and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance; Mariana Sadovska; Yuri Shevchuk; Marta Soniewicka; Genevieve Smith; Virlana Tkacz of the Yara Arts Group; Morgan Williams; Ihor Poshyvailo and the