This episode’s guest is Professor Philip Ross Bullock, who is professor of Russian literature and music at the University of Oxford. Philip’s areas of expertise include theories of gender and sexuality, interdisciplinary approaches to the relationship between literature and the other arts, and the study of translation, reception and cultural exchange. His books include The Feminine in the Prose of Andrey Platonov and Rosa Newmarch and Russian Music in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century England, both published by Routledge.

We spoke to Philip about his 2016 biography of Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Philip touched on a variety of topics, including the sifting through of a plethora of historical sources, Tchaikovsky’s unique relationship with his private patron, as well as the differences between Russian and Western European perceptions of Tchaikovsky’s music and sexuality.