ABSTRACT
The Napoleonic Wars generated a wave of patriotic devotion that engulfed men and women alike. Many women sought to exercise as much impact as possible in serving their country, and some felt they had to leave the domestic sphere and follow the army to make a difference. Their motivations, which were often quite complex, could range from wholehearted commitment to public service, to a quest for adventure, to attachment to their husbands serving in the ranks, and to many other political, economical, or psychological pursuits. Some women dressed as men, others did not. Many of them remained anonymous, while a few subsequently publicized their experience in the male military world.1 Among the women engaged in the Russian army was Nadezhda Durova, the daughter of a retired hussar officer. She had fled her family in 1806, at the age of 23, when she was already a mother. By 1807 she was enlisted in a cavalry regiment, under the name of Sokolov, lighting on the front line. Rumours about the presence of a woman in the cavalry circulated in those years, but her life would have probably been consigned to oblivion, had she not written a somewhat fictionalized memoir. The Cavalry Maiden, in which she recounts her experience in the military. Pushkin conferred literary respectability to this vivid, well-written text when he published sections in the journal Sovremennik.2 A few months later, in the autumn of 1836, the entire memoir was published as a separate book, with great success.
