Rutger Helmers (1980) is Assistant Professor of Musicology, specialized in nineteenth-century music history, Russian music, opera, and nationalism. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2012 at Utrecht University under the supervision of Emile Wennekes and Marina Frolova-Walker (Clare College, University of Cambridge), and, in addition to his position at the University of Amsterdam, has taught at the Musicology programme at Utrecht University and Literary and Cultural Studies at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. He has been an editor at the journal De Moderne Tijd (Modern Times: The Low Countries, 1780-1940) since 2015, and served as member the board of the KVNM (Royal Society for Music History of The Netherlands) from 2016 to 2019. His current research focuses on musicians' travels in the nineteenth century, and musical representations of Ukraine in nineteenth-century Russian music. In relation to the latter project, he will be a HURI Research Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University in 2021/22.