In this episode, Kamyar and Rustin interview Armenian-American composer and performer Joseph Bohigian about his latest musical composition, “The Water Has Found Its Crack” (2020), which explores concepts of displacement, dispersion, and cultural preservation in Armenian music. The composition’s title refers to an anecdote shared by Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink about a French-Armenian woman who died while visiting the village of her youth in Turkey. When the question of where she should be buried arose, a man from the village responded “Let her be buried here...the water has found its crack.” It is a story of Armenians longing to be reunited with their indigenous land, not to take it but, in Dink’s words, “to come and be buried under it.” The discussion begins with Bohighian’s reflections about his family’s displacement during the 1915 Armenian Genocide, his upbringing in the diaspora, and his nine-month stay in Yerevan during which he wrote “The Water Has Found Its Crack.” The conversation then turns to the Armenian music theories and folk songs that influenced the piece, specifically the works of the Komitas (1869-1935), a Kütahya-born priest and musicologist widely known for documenting rural songs of the Armenian countryside. Finally, Bohigian takes us through the composition, highlighting various sections and reciting lyrics sung throughout. Visit Joseph's [Soundcloud to listen to "the Water Has Found Its Crack."](https://soundcloud.com/joey-bohigian/the-water-has-found-its-crack) ...
Central Asianists rejoice! In this episode, Rustin speaks with Scott Levi, Professor and Chair of History at Ohio State University. He is the author of [The Rise and Fall of Khoqand, 1709-1876: Central Asia in the Global Age (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017)](https://www.upress.pitt.edu/books/9780822965060/) Dr. Levi gives an overview of the history of the Khoqand Khanate, a dynastic polity centered around the Ferghana Valley in the heart of Central Asia. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Uzbek Ming rulers extended their rule across and beyond the fertile valley, establishing important political and economic linkages with Imperial China, Russia, and the Indian Subcontinent. Throughout the discussion, Dr. Levi stresses the importance of "connected history" and highlights how globalizing forces, environmental changes, and demographic shifts brought about the rise and fall of the Khoqand Khanate. Rustin closes out the episode with one of his favorite Soviet-era Uzbek songs, [Bugmacha Bilagim by Rano Sabirova (1979)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awdWWNpqGio) ...
While Kamyar is traveling for work, Rustin is joined by guest co-host Yan Matusevich in Tbilisi, Georgia. Yan is a Vienna-based researcher and journalist focusing on issues of migration in the post-Soviet space. He is also the host of the [ZamZaman](https://cba.fro.at/series/zamzaman) podcast, which showcases music from Eastern Europe and Eurasia at large. Yan and Rustin talk to Mariana Irby, a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on nationalism, gender, and post-socialism in Tajikistan and Tajik migrant communities in Russia. She is also the author of a recent Ajam article, ["Dressing the Nation: Tajikistan’s Hijab Ban and the Politics of Fashion in Post-Soviet Central Asia" ](https://ajammc.com/2018/09/30/national-islamic-fashion-tajikistan/). In this episode, Mariana delves deeper into the interplay between gender, articulations of nationhood, and the Tajik labor economy. Yan closes out the episode with a track from the ZamZaman archive: ["Dilro Bubin," Makhfirat Hamroqulova & Gulshan (Tajikistan, 1985) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0122kn6fQ&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3m8n3d2oNh27w5S61YH8EZOxjmndOPHPRgLMv-oUht08D4erh6wLPOn_8) Related Readings: Madeleine Reeves, "[Clean fake:Authenticating documents and persons in migrant Moscow"](http://http://russianmodernisation.fi/material/living-with-risk/Further_readings_Aitamurto2.pdf) Nicholas Muller, ["Russia: New migrant registration rules threaten tenuous livelihoods"](https://eurasianet.org/russia-new-migrant-registration-rules-threaten-tenuous-livelihoods) ...
