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“informants” while becoming part of the Synagogue in Prague. Cantor Ladislav researcher’s life, can even enter reseacher’s Moshe Blum, Personal Recordings 1978– dreams with vivid and vibrant sounds. 1983. Praha: Jewish Museum in Prague with Phonogrammarchiv, Austrian Acad- The fascinating textual mosaic of the emy of Sciences. book is thoughtfully intertwined with the Shmotkin, Dov, Amit Shrira, Shira Gold- author’s enigmatic black-and-white photo- berg, and Yuval Palgi. 2011. “Resilience graphs. While focusing on the impondera- and Vulnerability Among Aging Holocaust bilia of everyday (Jewish) life among the Survivors and Their Families: An Inter- decaying buildings of 1970s Budapest, the generational Overview”. Journal of Inter images metaphorically communicate the generational Relationships 9 (1): 7–21. meanings in Niran Frigyesi’s work, high- https://doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2011.5 liting its gentle, intimate and somewhat 44202. Stoller, Paul. 2007. “Ethnography/Memoir/ mystical feeling. As such, the book is a sort Imagination/Story.” Anthropology and of a play of different types of unrivaled Humanism 32 (2): 178–91. https://doi. verbal and visual representations. I have to org/10.1525/ahu.2007.32.2.178. admit that for me, personally, it represents the single most important title on Jewish music I have ever read, and a reminder of why I actually practice ethnomusicology in Maria Sonevytsky the first place. Wild Music: Sound and Veronika Seidlová Sovereignty in Ukraine (Charles University) Wesleyan University Press, 2019 References Frigyesi, Judit Niran. 2001. “Orality as Reli- Maria Sonevytsky’s book Wild Music: gious Ideal –The Music of East-European Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine is a dis- Jewish Prayer”. Yuval – Studies in Honor of tinguished achievement of contemporary Israel Adler (7): 113–53. ethnomusicological scholarship. It deals ———. 2002. “The Jewish Service in Commu- nist Hungary: A Personal Journey”. British ethnographically with various Ukrainian Journal of Ethnomusicology 11 (1): 141–57. “ethno-music” (etno-muzyka) phenomena https://doi.org/10.1080/09681220208567332. that can be considered borderline, not ———. 2007. “The ‘Ugliness’ of Jewish Prayer only in their geographic and cultural – Voice Quality as the Expression of Iden- designation (Hutsul and Crimean Tatar), tity”. Musicology (An International Journal but also in their conceptual and political of the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian characterization. Namely, Sonevytsky Academy of Sciences and Arts) (7): 99–118. is predominantly interested in analysing Niran, Judit. 2014. Jelek a vízen. Budapest: the ambiguous terrain that exists in the Libri. Seidlová, Veronika, and Alexander Knapp. space between concepts and orientations 2008. Zapomenutý Hlas Pražské Jeru such as nationalism/anti-nationalism, zalémské Synagogy: Kantor Ladislav Moše exoticization/empowerment, femininity/ Blum, Osobní Nahrávky z Let 1978–1983 feminism, apolitical/political, rural/ / The Forgotten Voice of the Jeruzalémská urban, pro-Russian/pro-European, and
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East/West. She therefore follows Alexei one book is to discuss the interrelatedness Yurchak’s maxim to “refuse all reduction- of two concepts crucial for understanding ist diagnoses of the current situation, the current Ukrainian political situation, whichever side they come from” (72), which are also two common denomina- and in this way refrains from succumbing tors of all the given examples listed above: to any simplistic binary interpretations, Wildness discourse and the notion of which too often take a leading position in political sovereignty. both popular and academic discourses. With Wildness, Sonevytsky refers to Instead, Sonevytsky offers a nuanced practices of exoticization and stereotyping and multidimensional glimpse into the in music and performance that represent complexities and contradictions of the Ukraine or its constituent people (Hut- Ukrainian cultural and political landscape suls, Crimean Tatars, rural Ukrainians, of the last two decades, which she analyses or Ukrainians in general) as exotic, wild, through the lenses of various musical and uncivilized. However, these same exoticiz- “sounding” phenomena. The result is both ing and self-exoticizing tropes are often ethnographically rich and theoretically also used by various Ukrainian musicians compelling, and exceedingly timely and as tools for self-empowerment (i.e., Wild- relevant in its thematic and conceptual ness refashioned as local epistemology), delineation. but in a way, as Sonevytsky argues, that Maria Sonevytsky, a Ukrainian-Ame does not neatly or inherently resolve the rican scholar with a PhD in ethnomusicol- problematic aspects of such approaches. ogy from Columbia University, and now The author of the book in this way ties an assistant professor at the University the notion of Wildness to the concept of of California, Berkeley, scrutinizes in political sovereignty, as it is often through her book a variety of musical examples practices of musical and artistic (self-) from Ukraine that are in one way or exoticization that many Ukrainian musi- another related to West Ukrainian Hut- cians construct and imagine new cultural sul, rural Ukrainian, or Crimean Tatar and political alliances, and new political people, identities, and sounds: music possibilities that could potentially liberate performances at protests (Orange Revo- Ukraine from its problems and failures. lution, Maidan Revolution), songs and Sonevytsky herself articulates these goals performances from the Eurovision Song in the following way: Contest, festival performances (ArtPole, Dreamland), radio soundings (Radio My aim in this book has been to center Meydan from Crimea), the Voice of the various local Ukrainian epistemologies Nation (Holos kraïny) singing competi- through various iterations of “wild music”, to witness how Ukrainian musicians and tion, the Ukrainian avtentyka movement, audiences strategically remediate tropes and singers and artists such as Ruslana, of exoticism in order to imagine the future Dakh Daughters, DakhaBrakha, Oleksij of sovereignty in Ukraine. Wildness rebels Zajets, Suzanna Karpenko, Jamala, and against the constraints – both musical and DJ Bebek. Sonevytsky’s main goal in political – imposed on it, but is nonethe- bringing all these disparate examples into less articulated within these constraints,
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at times at the risk of reinscribing forms Sonevytsky’s principal chapters, where of essentialism, exoticism, or national- she elaborates most succinctly and com- ism. Unable to break its frame, Wildness pellingly on the issues of Wildness and nonetheless consistently operates as a tech- sovereignty, are Chapters One through nology of escape, as a future-orientated promise that might finally release an Four. In Chapter One, the author examines imperilled state such as Ukraine from the Ukrainian ethno-pop star Ruslana, and her “colonial matrix of power” that situates diverse uses of Hutsul sounds and images it on the perpetual limen of either the in music videos at different points in her authoritarian East or the liberal democratic career. Sonevytsky in this way demon- West (177). strates the singer’s move away from her early ethno-nationalist leanings (“Znaiu In the main chapters of the book, So Ya,” or “I Know”), through her auto-exot- nevytsky analyses multiple manifestations icism phase (“Wild Dances”), and finally and uses of “wild music”, as she attempts to her eco-activist stage of “pragmatic to interpret them through various overlap- patriotism” (“Wild Energy”). Sonevytsky ping and sometimes conflicting – mainly argues in this way about Ruslana’s poten- local and occasionally non-local – per- tially empowering and supposedly non- spectives gathered through ethnographic binary (pro-EU/pro-Russian) expressive research. In this way, she is able to unearth strategies (although the non-binary part is multiple layers of signification behind not among the strongest arguments in the each specific instance of “wild music” – book), while she simultaneously critiques a method reminiscent of Geertz’s thick Ruslana’s (self-)exoticizing and self- description (1973), but which she actually eroticizing gestures. Particularly valuable calls “interpretive moves” (borrowed in this chapter are the author’s interviews from Steven Feld, 1984), an approach with Hutsul villagers, who comment on particularly suited to analysing musical Ruslana’s representations of them as texts and performances. In this way, she “wild” people, many feeling “shame” in compares and juxtaposes statements by this regard, but some also “pride” (44–48). musicians, managers, festival organizers, Sonevytsky proceeds in Chapter Two to radio owners, journalists, music audi- a discussion of Ukrainian “freak cabaret” ences, Western commentators, Ukrainian group Dakh Daughters, and their uses of ethnomusicology students, villagers, Hutsul sounds and narratives in their 2013 urban cosmopolitans, and intellectual Maidan performance in Kyiv. The author’s elites, all of them coming from various rich textual and ethnographic analysis in regions, classes, ethnicities, genders, and this chapter deftly demonstrates that the religions. In addition, Sonevytsky skilfully group’s incorporation of Hutsul elements interweaves most of the chapters with as sounds and images of Wildness and rich and telling ethnographic vignettes sovereignty cannot be pinned down to that bestow the whole book with a sense simplistic and binary interpretations of grounded and experiential immediacy, of Dakh Daughters’s music and perfor- and in this way they successfully tie theory mance. For example, some of their mem- with practice. bers stated they imagine Ukraine’s future
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not in binary terms, as either Western well incorporated or marginalized they or Russian, but as something else (60). are in general (because the Voice of the Furthermore, the chapter also offers an Nation competition is mainly dedicated to important and multi-layered examination pop, and not to etno-muzyka or avtentyka of the status and role of political art in performers, who might instead find more a post-socialist and revolutionary context, welcoming space in some other Ukrainian as it shows how Dakh Daughter’s videos TV or radio shows). and performances from before until after Chapter Four switches to yet another the Maidan Revolution advanced from marginalized and minority group, Crimean “a privileged stance of political ambiva- Tatars, and to their sounds of Wildness lence to a position of ambivalence as and sovereignty. This chapter also brings political conviction” (82). a nuanced and multidimensional discus- Chapter Three then moves away from sion of layers of meaning behind the con- the examination of Hutsul sounds (in cept of “Eastern” sounds, which Crimean Chapters One and Two) as sounds of Tatar musicians and radio personnel often Wildness and sovereignty to a delibera- use in their self-designation, and are often tion in this regard of Ukrainian rural vocal simultaneously read as either “validat- timbres, as presented in the Voice of the ing” or “intrusive” by different actors in Nation (Holos kraïny) competition / TV the Crimean public space. Moreover, the reality show (for example, by singers “Eastern” designation can similarly often Oleksij Zajets and Suzanna Karpenko). connote (self-)exoticizing or threatening These “wild” timbres, often described by “wildness”. By analysing different “East- their practitioners as sounds of “bloating ern” sounds and public soundings coming goats”, and “on the border of yelling”, and from the Crimean Tatar Radio Meydan nourished through the Ukrainian avtentyka (which existed until 2015), or through movement, are usually rejected from the the music of singer Jamala or DJ Bebek, competition, and therefore from being the the author astutely shows how the trope “voice of the nation”, but their failure, as of “Eastern” can signify a multiplicity of Sonevytsky argues, is a productive one. intersecting meanings: exotic otherness, With their performances of rural sover- counterpublicness, indigenous sovereignty, eignty, singers like Zajets and Karpenko sonorous capitalism, and/or aesthetic establish a critique of a restricted model of cosmopolitanism. Sonevytsky extends the the “nation” as advocated through these analysis of the Crimean Tatar sound sov- kinds of competitions and TV shows, ereignties and Crimean Tatar-Ukrainian and call for a more heterogeneous and music solidarities also to most of the other inclusive one that would give space to chapters in the book (Introduction, Chap- disenfranchised rural voices. It would be ter Two, Chapter Five, and Conclusion). relevant in this regard, if the author would This also corroborates her main arguments also show how much space these kinds of about the future of Ukrainian sovereignty, rural voices and constituencies are allo- which should be based on heterogeneous cated in a broader Ukrainian media space civic publics (a point to which I will return (national and private), and therefore how at the end of the review). Chapter Five,
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about the Ukrainian “ethno-chaos” group Susanna Trnka DakhaBrakha, is the least engaging chap- Traversing: Embodied ter, as it offers very thin and monologic tex- Lifeworlds in the Czech Republic tual and cultural interpretations, without Cornell University Press, 2020 giving much attention to the ethnographic multiplicity of local meanings that are otherwise so well elucidated in previous Traversing: Embodied Lifeworlds in the chapters. Czech Republic is the title of the recently Nevertheless, the book as a whole published book written by an anthro - makes an important contribution to the pologist Susanna Trnka (of Czech origin, contemporary ethnomusicological schol- currently based in New Zealand). This arship, and it does so in many senses: impressive monograph provides the reader ethnographically, theoretically, topically. with fresh, and for many, also unexpected, Moreover, it provides a compelling exami- perspectives to contemporary Czech nation of the current Ukrainian cultural society as well as to Czech history, with and political situation, as well as the a focus on the construction of national related questions of nationalism, patriot- identity. Traversing is based on thirty ism, imperialism, and the role of minority years of anthropological/ethnographic and marginalized groups in the shaping of research in the Czech Republic (and the future Ukrainian sovereignty. The only the former Czechoslovakia). Moreover, issue that could further solidify Sonevyt- Trnka’s overall theoretical approach in the sky’s main arguments in the book would book is interdisciplinary. She masterfully be a discussion of other important Ukrain- combines anthropological knowledge with ian minorities and their music and cultural philosophy. This makes her work genuinely expressions (e.g., Russian ethnic and exceptional, and her book is a significant language groups, Roma people), which contribution to both disciplines. would – together with Hutsul, rural, and As the title suggests, the key concept Crimean Tatar constituencies – probably that Trnka’s book introduces is “travers- be pivotal for any deliberation of a viable ing” – “ways of seeing, experiencing, and Ukrainian civic state. moving through the world and the kinds of persons we become through them” David Verbuč (3). Trnka coins the term “traversing” to (Charles University) expand on the philosophical thought of References Martin Heidegger and Jan Patočka, and to thus emphasise and examine embodi- Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of ment as crucial to our understanding of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. being-in-the-world. In particular, Trnka Feld, Steven. 1984. “Communication, Music, and Speech About Music”. Yearbook for pays attention to three movements that Traditional Music 16: 1–18. we make as embodied actors in the world: (1) how we move through time and space, (2) how we move toward and away from one another, and, finally, (3) how we move
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