“This book engagingly describes how time and space, sound and belief, celebration and memory are negotiated by contemporary Kazakhstani citizens. It is a beautifully written work of cultural studies that provides both an overview for the novice and new insights for the expert.”—Laura Adams, Harvard University"In vigorous and accessible language, Steppe Dreams deftly illuminates post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s ubiquitous culture of public festivity, celebration, and pilgrimage as a window into the construction of Kazakhstani nationhood. Margarethe Adams is an insightful ethnographer and graceful writer whose broad knowledge of life in Kazakhstan comes alive on every page.”—Theodore Levin, Arthur R. Virgin Professor of Music, Dartmouth College"Margarethe Adams shows us that the Soviet past is never past, that time lingers in pools of memory, structures, habits, celebrations, the arts and politics. The legacies of a transformative empire endure even in the visions of an alternative future in what seems a precarious and unending pursuit of an elusive happiness. Based on extensive fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Adams explores the nationalizing processes in the independent post-Soviet republic -- the revival of Kazakh folk music, the calendar of holidays new and old – as well as the stubborn ideological reminders of the Soviet era. This is a masterwork of thick description of complex cultures in flux that speaks to larger theoretical issues of temporality, memory, and the affective affiliations to nation." —Ronald Grigor Suny, The University of Michigan
