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Nadezhda Andreyevna Durova (russian: Наде́жда Андре́евна Ду́рова) (September 17, 1783 – March 21, 1866), also known as Alexander Durov, Alexander Sokolov and Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov, was a woman who, while disguised as a man, became a decorated soldier in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars. She was one of the first known female officer in the Russian military. Her memoir, ''The Cavalry Maiden'', is a significant document of its era because few junior officers of the Napoleonic Wars published their experiences, and because it is one of the earliest autobiographies in the
Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...
.


Early biography

Nadezhda Durova was born in an army camp at Voznesenskoe as the daughter of a Russian
major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
. Her father placed her in the care of his soldiers after an incident that nearly killed her in infancy when her abusive mother threw her out the window of a moving carriage. As a small child, Durova learned all the standard marching commands and her favorite toy was an unloaded gun. After her father retired from service, she continued playing with broken sabers and frightened her family by secretly taming a stallion that they considered unbreakable. In 1801 she married a Sarapul judge, V. S. Chernov, and gave birth to a son in 1803. Some accounts claim that she ran away from her home with a
Cossack The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
officer in 1805. In 1807, at the age of twenty-four, she disguised herself as a boy, deserted her son and husband, and enlisted in the Polish Horse Regiment (later classified as uhlans) under the alias ''Alexander Sokolov''. Fiercely patriotic, Durova regarded army life as freedom. She enjoyed animals and the outdoors, but felt she had little talent for traditional women's work. In her memoirs she describes an unhappy relationship with her mother, warmth toward her father, and nothing at all about her own married life.


Military service and later life

She fought in the major Russian engagements of the 1806-1807 Prussian campaign. During two of those battles, she saved the lives of two fellow Russian soldiers. The first was an enlisted man who fell off his horse on the battlefield and suffered a concussion. She gave him first aid under heavy fire and brought him to safety as the army retreated around them. The second was an officer, unhorsed but uninjured. Three French
dragoon Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat w ...
s were closing on him. She couched her lance and scattered the enemy. Then, against regulations, she let the officer borrow her own horse to hasten his retreat, which left her more vulnerable to attack. During the campaign, she wrote a letter to her family explaining her disappearance. They used their connections in a desperate attempt to locate her. The rumor of an amazon in the army reached Tsar Alexander I, who took a personal interest. Durova's chain of command reported that her courage was peerless. Summoned to the palace at St. Petersburg, she impressed the
Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
so much that he awarded Durova the Cross of St. George and promoted her to lieutenant in a
hussar A hussar ( , ; hu, huszár, pl, husarz, sh, husar / ) was a member of a class of light cavalry, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely ...
unit ( Mariupol Hussar Regiment). The story that there was the heroine in the army with the name Alexander Sokolov had become well-known by that time. So the Tsar awarded her a new pseudonym, ''Alexandrov'', based on his own name. Durova's youthful appearance hurt her chances for promotion. In an era when Russian officers were expected to grow a mustache she looked like a boy of sixteen. She transferred away from the hussars to the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment in order to avoid the colonel's daughter who had fallen in love with her. Durova saw action again during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. She fought in the Battle of Smolensk. During the
Battle of Borodino The Battle of Borodino (). took place near the village of Borodino on during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The ' won the battle against the Imperial Russian Army but failed to gain a decisive victory and suffered tremendous losses. Napoleon ...
a cannonball wounded her in the leg, yet she continued serving full duty for several days afterward until her command ordered her away to recuperate. She retired from the army in 1816 with the rank of stabs-rotmistr, the equivalent of captain-lieutenant. A chance meeting introduced her to
Aleksandr Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
some twenty years later. When he learned that she had kept a journal during her army service he encouraged her to publish it as a memoir. She added background about her early childhood but changed her age by seven years and eliminated all reference to her marriage. Durova published this as ''The Cavalry Maiden'' in 1836. Durova also wrote five other novels. Durova continued to wear male clothing for the rest of her life, continued to use her male alias, and spoke using masculine grammar. She died in Yelabuga and was buried with full military honors. Her son, Ivan Durov, had died 10 years prior.


Durova's gender identity

There has been a debate over whether Durova could be labelled as a
transgender man A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that inclu ...
. Much of the scholarship concerning Durova treats her as a cross-dressing woman, however, Durova in her personal life rejected femininity(even expressing an aversion to the female sex) and behaved as a man. In ''The Cavalry Maiden'', Durova describes herself with terms of androgyny, describing herself both as a bogatyr and as an
Amazon warrior In Greek mythology, the Amazons ( Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Herc ...
. Durova was also a writer of prose, and one of her stories, ''Nurmeka'', revolves around a male who cross-dresses as a female, leading to speculation that this was an expression of Durova's transgender identity. Terms relating to non-standard gender identity such as transvestite (1910), transsexual (1949), and transgender (1971) were coined long after Durova's death, so she could not have used the modern label of transgender; despite this, modern scholarship has increasingly adopted the view that Durova was an example of a transgender individual.


Legacy

Besides being a rare example of a female soldier's military memoir, ''The Cavalry Maiden'' is one of the few sustained accounts of the Napoleonic wars to describe events from the perspective of a junior officer and one of the earliest autobiographical works in
Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
. Durova became a figure of some cultural interest in Eastern Europe but remained largely unknown to the English-speaking world until Mary Fleming Zirin's translation of ''The Cavalry Maiden'' in 1988. Durova is now a subject of university syllabi and scholarly publications in comparative literature and
Russian history The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start-date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in 862, ruled by Varangians. Staraya Ladoga and Veli ...
.


Artistic works about Nadezhda Durova

*''Nadezhda Durova'', an opera by
Anatoly Bogatyrev Anatoly Vasilyevich Bogatyrev ( be, Анатоль Васільевіч Багатыроў, russian: Анатолий Васильевич Богатырё́в; – 19 September 2003) was a Soviet and Belarusian composer and music teacher, seen ...
. *''A Long Time Ago'', a play by
Alexander Gladkov Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
. *''Hussar Ballad'', an operetta by Tikhon Khrennikov *'' Hussar Ballad'', a film directed by Eldar Ryazanov. *''The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire'', a novel by Linda Lafferty


Bibliography

*Durova, Nadezhda, ''The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars''. Mary Fleming Zirin.
Indiana University Press Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes 140 ...
, 1989. (see book reviews o
Amazon.com
.


See also

* Battle of Eylau * Battle of Friedland * Battle of Jena-Auerstedt *
History of Russia (1796–1855) The period from 1796 to 1855 in Russian history (covering the reigns of Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I) saw the Napoleonic Wars, government reform, political reorganization, and economic growth. War and peace, 1796–1825 Catherine II died i ...
*
List of wartime cross-dressers Wartime may refer to: * Wartime, Saskatchewan, a small community in Saskatchewan, Canada * Wartime, a formal state of war, as opposed to peacetime * ''Wartime'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film spin-off of the TV series ''Doctor Who'' * ''Wart ...
* Women in the military


Notes


References

* *Barta, Peter I., "Gender Trial and Gothic Trill: Nadezhda Durova's Subversive Self-Exploration" by Amdreas Schonle in ''Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization'', 2001.


External links

*
History Net
summary of Durova's life. *

account of Durova. *
brief excerpt
from Durova's experiences during the retreat to Moscow in 1812. * Th

in Moscow, a surviving legacy of the Durov clan.



in the
Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary The ''Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary'' (Russian: Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона, abbr. ЭСБЕ, tr. ; 35 volumes, small; 86 volumes, large) is a comprehensive multi-volume ...
- *
Biography of Durova
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durova, Nadezhda 1783 births 1866 deaths Female wartime cross-dressers Military personnel from Kyiv Memoirists from the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Russian people of the Napoleonic Wars Russian nobility Women in the Imperial Russian military 18th-century military personnel 19th-century military personnel