Author(s)	Rancier, Megan
Title	Resurrecting the Nomads: Historical Nostalgia and Modern Nationalism in Contemporary Kazakh Popular Music Videos
Publication Type	Journal Article
Language	eng
Number of Pages	19
Location	Kazakhstan
Keywords	kmusical culture of Kazakhstan heritage reinterpretation traditional music popular music
Relevance to ICH Safeguarding	identification promotion transmission
ICH Genre	performing arts: music
Description	This article analyzes three recent music videos by several Kazakh popular musicians: the multinational artist , the ethno-pop band, and the young dombra (two-string lute) virtuoso Asylbek Engsepov. These videos, all produced since 2002, reflect varying degrees of historical nostalgia and nationalism through music and images of Kazakh traditional culture, creating powerful messages of Kazakh national identity for contemporary audiences in Kazakhstan. Drawing upon historian Ronald Gregor Suny's concept of a national "narrative" and notion of "restorative nostalgia," the article interrogates the types of images used and the reactions that they inspire in their audiences. The article examines not only issues of national identity construction and musical nation-building, but also probes the political motivations and implications of state involvement in the propagation of Kazakh musical nationalism in a multicultural, post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
Book/Journal Title	Popular Music and Society, July
Publisher	Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Place of Publication	New York, US
Date of Publication	2009
Volume	32
Issue	3
Pages	387–405
ISSN	ISSN 0300-7766 ISSNe 1740-1712
Academic Field	Traditional culture Cultural Studies
Contributor	Kazakhstan National Committee for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Active Contribution	Kazakhstan, FY 2023
Data Collection Project	Sustainable Research Data Collection for ICH Safeguarding: Focusing on Central Asia and Small Island Developing States