In 1807 Tsar Alexander I granted a commission to a young cavalryman who had shown valour in the campaign against the French. The Tsar knew - and some fellow officers soon guessed - that this brave soldier was a woman. Disguised as a man, Nadezhda Durova served nearly ten years in the Russian light cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars. Her campaign service included the Battle of Borodino in 1812. She wrote an account of her experiences in the 1830s, and Mary Fleming Zirin here accomplishes a modern and annotated translation.

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