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The paper sheds light on Indie and Underground music scenes in Astana and Almaty based on the data collected through 56 in-depth interviews with musicians and music experts and 16 observations conducted from August 2024 until August 2025. Building on concepts of music fans as mediators (Arriagada and Cruz, 2014) and executive fans (Edlom and Karlsson, 2021), the work views local alternative musicians as musicians/music fans. It outlines the fusion of roles as an important characteristic of the music scene and acknowledges the role of fandom in developing the scene. The research outlines participatory and convergence culture (Jenkins, 2013) as facilitators that allowed musicians/music fans to create communities, independent organizations and micro labels. I demonstrate how local musicians are driven by the love for music and take on organizational responsibilities like opening venues, organizing concerts, music residencies, generating knowledge, and popularizing the scene among the audience. The work also outlines collaboration and relational labor (Baym, 2018) as strategies musicians use to enter the music scene and gain financial stability. It discusses the gender issues and power dynamics in the scene that create some challenges for female artists.

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Though the deportation of the Armenians of Julfa during the 1604 "Great Surgun" remains the most prominent example of forced displacement in the seventeenth-century Armenian experience, it represents but a single star in a broader constellation of razed cities along the Ottoman-Safavid frontier. This paper explores why Julfan memory remained uniquely resilient, arguing that its prominence was a deliberate construction of the Vardapetk’ (scholarly priests) of New Julfa. By establishing a scriptorium in the Isfahani suburb as early as 1607, these clerics functioned as a “memory factory,” utilizing the Ołb (city lament) genre to frame their exile in biblical terms—likening Julfa to a latter-day Jerusalem and the Julfans to the exiled Judeans. In doing so, the Julfan authors participated in a continuous literary tradition that had previously chronicled the falls of cities such as Jerusalem (1187), Edessa (1144), and Tabriz (1585). By consistently evoking the Book of Lamentations, the Ołb genre enabled the Vardapetk’ to interpret their communal plight through the framework of a “Chosen People” suffering from divine punishment. Furthermore, the model of the Judeans in Babylonian captivity provided a template for the Armenian community in exile to retain its distinct Apostolic faith and, by extension, its communal identity. Crucially, these writers were not exclusively Julfan; rather, the Diocese of New Julfa was a central hub for the clerical diaspora, which allowed for a broader Armenian identity to be subsumed under a centralized Julfan idiom. Through the analysis of works by scribes such as Hovhannes Makuetsi, Nerses of Bitlis, and Davit’ Gałametsi, I demonstrate how the Diocese utilized medieval themes of łaribut'iwn (exile) and pandxtut'iwn (uprootedness), to create a dialectic between displacement as a permanent historical condition and the sanctity of the homeland left behind. Ultimately, I also consider how this diocesan project reverberated beyond the page; by constructing churches that remapped the sacred topography of Old Julfa onto the Isfahani suburb, the Vardapetk’ effectively "imported Zion" to Safavid Iran.

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Abstract

Aitys is a very important part of Kazakh oral literature and culture, which has historically played a key role in expressing collective values, public opinion, and social critique. As a genre of improvised poetic competition accompanied by the dombra, it combines elements of rhetoric, satire, and performance, allowing aityskers to engage directly with social, political, and cultural realities. Their performances often address current issues, reflect moral values, and, importantly, provide space for both explicit and implicit critique of authority.

This research is aimed at analyzing the thematic transformation of aitys. Following Dubuisson (2010), this study approaches aitys as a space that is not fully controlled by dominant ideology, but rather one where performers retain a certain degree of agency and are able to negotiate, reinterpret, and sometimes challenge power structures through poetic expression.

The empirical basis of the study consists of a corpus of aitys texts drawn from the Anthology of Kazakh Art. The analysis combines thematic analysis with automated text analysis methods. By focusing on the quantitative dimension, this study seeks to complement existing research on aitys, which has been predominantly qualitative.

Through a comparative analysis of texts from different historical periods, the study examines how key themes, motives, and rhetorical strategies change depending on the socio-political context. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which akyns express identity, articulate social criticism, and adapt to ideological constraints. The findings are expected to demonstrate that aitys is not only a form of cultural heritage, but also a dynamic medium that reflects broader social transformations. The use of automated text analysis makes it possible to identify patterns and shifts in narratives that are less visible in traditional approaches, contributing to a deeper understanding of the evolution of aitys and its role in society.