In the fall of 1806, the daughter of the Sarapul mayor, Nadezhda Durova, secretly left home, changed into a man's dress and, under the name of Alexander Sokolov, entered military service. In 1807, she already took part in battles. Durova's secret was known only to a few people, but the rumor that a woman served in the Russian cavalry nevertheless spread throughout the army, acquired legendary details, and Durova herself heard fantastic stories about herself. Thus began the legend about the brave cavalry maiden, a legend that still arouses unflagging interest and grateful admiration, inspiring poets, artists, and musicians.
This legend, as befits a legend, does not exactly follow the facts and circumstances of the event it narrates, but retains its main meaning, its general idea, moral and universal meaning, and therefore resonates in the minds and hearts of a long series of subsequent generations. The idea of the legend about Nadezhda Durova is victory in the struggle for freedom, for personal freedom and for the freedom of the Fatherland. The legend speaks about this; the life and work of Nadezhda Andreevna Durova, a richly and versatilely gifted person who had the courage, rare in people, to transgress the prejudices of her time, a brave warrior, and a talented writer, were dedicated to this.
Nadezhda Andreevna Durova was born in September 1783. She herself did not know her birthday. “My father doesn’t have this written down anywhere,” she tells the historian who was compiling her biography. “Yes, it seems there is no need for this. You can set the day you want.”
Her father, Andrei Vasilyevich Durov, is a hussar officer, the owner of a single small village in the Sarapul district of the Vyatka province (now the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), her mother, Nadezhda Ivanovna, is a beauty, “one of the most beautiful girls in Little Russia,” Durova says about her, - came from a family of wealthy Ukrainian landowners, the Aleksandrovichs. Nadezhda Ivanovna's parents were against this marriage. The newlyweds were married by "carrying away". Durova described in detail both the passionate romantic love of her parents and her mother’s romantic flight from home with the poor hussar. Apparently, the mother often recalled and told these episodes because they were the only bright and happy pages of her marriage; the following years turned out to be a chain of disappointments and suffering. Despite the fact that after the wedding Nadezhda Ivanovna asked her father for forgiveness for violating his ban, her father did not forgive her and abandoned her. In her parents' house she was the darling of the family, knew no worries and certainly no material deprivations; Having become the wife of a low-ranking combat officer (Durov then had the rank of captain), who also lived only on his salary, she found herself in completely different conditions. She had to limit herself in everything, camp life was difficult and tiring, all this - and much more - was completely different from the idea of life that she had formed under the influence of reading idyllic novels. “The torments that preceded my birth,” writes Durova, “surprised my mother in the most unpleasant way; they had no place in her dreams and made the first impression on her that was unfavorable for me.” Nadezhda Ivanovna was expecting her son, thinking that for the sake of her grandson her father would forgive her, but a girl was born. The mother still received the desired forgiveness, but her hostility towards her daughter remained.
Durova says that once on a hike her mother, tired and irritated by her screaming, threw her, a baby, out of the carriage window in a nervous fit, and then the father instructed the flank hussar Astakhov to nurse his daughter. “My teacher Astakhov,” recalls Durova, “carried me in his arms all day long, went with me to the squadron stable, put me on horses, let me play with a pistol, waved a saber.” But when the mother decided to take care of her daughter herself, who by that time was already six years old, she was faced with the fact that the upbringing of Hussar Astakhov had taken ineradicable roots. “Having taken me from Astakhov’s hands, my mother could no longer be calm or cheerful for a single minute; every day I angered her with strange antics and my knightly spirit; I knew all the command words firmly, I loved horses madly, and when my mother wanted to force me to knit a lace, then I asked with tears that she would give me a pistol, as I said, to click; in a word, I took the best advantage of the education given to me by Astakhov! Every day my warlike inclinations intensified, and every day more mother did not love me. I did not forget anything of what I learned while constantly with the hussars; I ran and jumped around the room in all directions, shouting at the top of my voice: “Squadron! go right! from place! march-march!" My aunts laughed, and my mother, who was driven into despair by all this, knew no bounds to her annoyance, took me into her room, put me in a corner and made me cry bitterly with abuse and threats."
Meanwhile, a tragedy was unfolding in the Durov family: Andrei Vasilyevich, who in 1789 left military service due to the growth of his family - besides Nadezhda, he had two more daughters and a son - and had secured the position of mayor in Sarapul, began to cheat on his wife, Nadezhda Ivanovna had a hard time experiencing the betrayal husband, her health deteriorated.
Nadezhda Durova in her youth
The difficult atmosphere in the house and the mother’s constant complaints about fate made a deep impression on N. A. Durova and gave direction to thoughts that later determined her entire life path. “Perhaps I would have finally forgotten all my hussar habits and become an ordinary girl, like everyone else, if my mother had not imagined the fate of a woman in the most bleak form. She spoke to me in the most offensive terms about the fate of this sex: a woman, according to in her opinion, she must be born, live and die in slavery; that eternal bondage, painful dependence and all kinds of oppression are her lot from cradle to grave; that she is full of weaknesses, deprived of all perfections and incapable of anything; that, in a word, "A woman is the most unfortunate, the most insignificant and the most despicable creature in the world! My head was spinning from this description; I decided, even if it cost me my life, to separate myself from Iol, who, as I thought, was under the curse of God."
Durova suffered because her mother, in her desire to subjugate her daughter and break her will, forced her to do things for which the girl felt disgust, humiliated her with reproaches and ridicule, and took away everything she was attached to. Over the years, the mother's supervision became more petty and burdensome. “She continued to keep me locked up,” says Durova, “and not allow me a single youthful joy. I was silent and submitted; but oppression gave maturity to my mind. I made a firm intention to overthrow the painful yoke.”
At that time, the only exemption from parental authority for a girl was marriage, which is why, probably, eighteen-year-old Nadezhda Durova willingly agreed when the assessor of the Sarapul Zemstvo Court, an official of the 14th grade, Chernov, proposed to her. In 1803 she gave birth to a son, Ivan. But her marriage turned out to be unsuccessful; she soon left her husband, who was transferred to serve in Irbit. and returned to her parents' house. What caused this is unknown; Subsequently, Durova, describing her life, did not mention a word about marriage or her son and did not maintain any relationship with him or her husband. One can only assume that some features of her own married life and the fate of her mother were reflected in the story “The Game of Fate, or Illegal Love.” Of course, neither she herself nor her mother have anything in common with the main character of the story, Elena G*** - a weak, characterless nature, just as the events described in her cannot be correlated with the actual events in the Durov family, but The idea consistently pursued in the story that the behavior of her husband is to blame for Elena’s death makes one think that here Durova was thinking about herself, and if in the story she, with the help of fantasy, brought the logical development of events to a tragic end, then in reality she interrupted it at the initial stage.
Liberation through marriage failed.
The home situation became more and more difficult every day. The mother no longer hoped for anything, “continuous annoyance spoiled her already naturally hot-tempered disposition and made it cruel,” she, “oppressed by grief, now described the fate of women in even more terrible colors.” The idea of the fatal slavery of women caused Durova “disgust for her life” and forced her “with firmness and constancy” to engage in “contemplation of a plan to leave the environment assigned by nature and customs to the female sex.”
It is not known how long Durova spent in her parents’ house after leaving her husband, but, apparently, quite a long time - a year or two. It was a time of serious reflection about life, about oneself, about one’s future, a time of persistent self-education. Elena G***, the heroine of the story “The Game of Fate”, abandoned by her husband, reasons: “What am I in the world?.. a wife without a husband... was I given an upbringing?.. Why didn’t they teach me anything!.. why I don’t know what the local colonel knows; the mayor; even old R***: I would cry, playing my fantasies on the piano or the harp... I would draw... if only they would instill in me a desire to read; maybe Perhaps the judgments, instructions, examples that I could find in books gave me strength of character, spiritual strength!..” Of course, this reflected Durova’s own thoughts about the poverty of her own education. Showing extraordinary willpower, she began to replenish it on her own. At the same time, she begins to write, and her first literary experience is the story about the fate of Elena G***, a story about the fate of a woman in modern society. Subsequently, this story was repeatedly revised, and now it is impossible to separate the original text from the later revisions, but, apparently, the plot line and its main ideas remained the same as in the original version.
Having confirmed her intention to “leave the sphere assigned by nature,” Durova naturally comes to the idea of posing as a man, and just as naturally for herself - as a man, she represents the only type of activity - military service in the cavalry, she simply had no idea about any other. Of course, patriotic impulses, family traditions, and character traits played a role here.
The year was 1806. Napoleon, having defeated the troops of the Russian-Austrian coalition in the campaign of 1805, was preparing to conquer Russia. In Russia they understood the inevitability of a war with Napoleon and also prepared for it: reforms were carried out in the army, weapons were improved, especially artillery, and patriotic sentiments intensified in society.
Both her childhood years, spent under the supervision of Hussar Astakhov and remembered as the happiest in her life, and her father’s approving reviews of her ability to ride a horse - everything forced Durova to think in one direction: “A warlike heat flared with incredible force in my soul; dreams took root in mind, and I actively began to find ways to put into action my previous intention - to become a warrior, to be a son for my father and to forever separate from the sex, whose fate and eternal dependence began to frighten me."
On September 17 (29 according to the new style), Durova, having changed into a men's Cossack suit, left home at night and, posing as a nobleman who wanted to enter military service against the will of her parents, joined the Cossack regiment in order to reach the place of deployment with him regular troops. She called herself Alexander Vasilyevich Sokolov. Under this name, having reached Grodno with the Cossacks, she was recruited as a “comrade,” that is, an ordinary nobleman, into the Konnopol Uhlan Regiment.
“So, I am free! free! independent! I took what belonged to me, my freedom: freedom! the precious gift of heaven, which inalienably belongs to every person! I knew how to take it, protect it from all claims for the future, and from now on until the grave it will be and my inheritance and reward!" - this is how Durova conveys her first thoughts that night when she took a decisive step, left the house and rode on horseback through the forest, catching up with the Cossack regiment. “Will”, “freedom” - words often found in Durova: “Will - precious will! - spins my head with delight from early morning to late evening”; on the most difficult days, when she falls down from exhaustion from military drill (after all, she is an ordinary soldier), when every minute she must submit to harsh military discipline, she still repeats with delight: “Freedom, the precious gift of heaven, has finally become the lot of mine forever! I breathe it, I enjoy it, I feel it in my soul, in my heart!" “Will” and “freedom” are broad, multi-valued concepts, but for Durova they have a completely definite and unambiguous meaning: she understands by “will” and “freedom” the right of a person to choose his own path in life; she chose military service, thereby realizing, as she herself says, “the inalienable right of a person to control his own will,” therefore, for her, soldiering is a will, despite the fact that for others this same soldiering is the most indisputable expression of bondage.
Until the end of her days, Durova recalled her first year of military service with particular warmth. “I will never be erased from my memory,” she writes, “this first year of my entry into the military field; this year of happiness, complete freedom, complete independence, all the more precious to me because I myself, alone, without the help of an outsider, knew how to acquire them ".
Durova joined the Konnopol regiment on March 9, 1807; in early May, the regiment set out on a campaign to join the Russian army, already fighting Napoleonic troops in Prussia.
Before setting out on the campaign, Durova wrote a letter to her father, in which she reported where she was and under what name she was, and begged him to forgive the escape, “to give a blessing and allow me to follow the path necessary for my happiness.”
Durova's service in the Konnopol Regiment and her participation in the hostilities of 1807 are recorded in the formal list - the main official document of each serviceman. We present it in full because it wonderfully conveys the flavor of the time and, moreover, is the only documentary source of this period of Durova’s biography.
"Formular list
Comrade Sokolov's Polish Horse Regiment
November 6th, 1807.
Names. Comrade Alexander Vasiliev son of Sokolov.
How old are you? 17.
By measure. 2 arshins 5 vershoks.
What signs does it have? His face is dark, pockmarked, his hair is brown, his eyes are brown.
From what state? From the Russian nobles of the Perm province, the same district. He has no peasants and has not provided proof of nobility.
During the entire service, where and when he was on campaigns and in action against the enemy. In Prussia and in actual battles with French troops, 1807 May 24 near the city of Gutstatt, 25 in pursuit of the enemy to the Pasarzhi River, 26 and 27 in a shootout and skirmishes at the Pasarzhi River - well, 28 at the cover of the rearguard March and with strong reflection the enemy at the crossing near the city of Gutstatt, 29 near the city of Gelzberkh, June 2 near Frindland, from May 30 to June 7 at the cover of the rearguard March to the town of Tylzeta in an incessant firefight and when the enemy advanced in strong reflections of Onago.
Did you go on home leave and when and did you show up on time? I haven't been.
Whether he was fined in court or without court, when and for what exactly. I haven't been.
Single or married, has children. Single.
Included or on top and where is it located. Included with the shelf."
Durova's father, having received his daughter's letter, submitted, through his brother living in St. Petersburg, a petition to the Tsar with a request to find his “daughter Nadezhda, by her husband Chernov, who, due to family disagreements, was forced to hide from home and... registering under the name of Alexander Vasilyev, Sokolov’s son, Polish cavalry regiment, serves as a comrade" and return "this unfortunate woman" to her parents' home. A.V. Durov showed particular persistence in this matter, not only because he loved his daughter, but also because Nadezhda Ivanovna died in the spring of 1807 and he, experiencing later repentance, grieved the loss and felt lonely.
Durov, “by the highest order,” without revealing her incognito, was taken to St. Petersburg by a special courier. Attached to her form list was a report from Commander-in-Chief Buxhoeveden: “His excellent behavior, Sokolov, and the zealous performance of his position from the very moment he entered the service acquired him from everyone, both his superiors and his comrades, complete affection and attention. The chief of the regiment himself, General -Major Kakhovsky, praising his service, the zeal and efficiency with which he always carried out everything entrusted in many battles with the French troops, convincingly asks to leave him in his regiment as such a non-commissioned officer who absolutely gives hope of being very good over time officer, and he himself, Sokolov, has an indispensable desire to always remain in the service."
The Tsar, who initially had the intention, as Durova herself reports, to “reward” her and “return her with honor to her father’s house,” after her request allowed her to remain in the army, ordered to be called by her name Alexandrov, which in itself, but according to the concepts of that time, meant a great degree of favor, and ordered her to be enlisted in the aristocratic Mariupol Hussar Regiment. Having learned that Durova saved the life of an officer on the battlefield (she herself did not tell him about this), the Tsar presented her with the Cross of St. George, which, he explained, was due to her for this act according to the statute of the order.
Nadezhda Durova saves a wounded officer
From the day of the royal reception - December 31, 1807 - Durova, now called Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov, the name she bore until her death, was enlisted as a cornet in the Mariupol Hussar Regiment.
In St. Petersburg, Durova learned about the death of her mother. Since her mother died shortly after receiving her letter from Grodno, Durova blames herself for the fact that her letter upset her mother and, perhaps, hastened her death. The Tsar instructed the head of his chancellery, Lieven, to bring to his attention the requests of Cornet Alexandrov; Durova asked for protection for her father, which she informed her father about. Soon Lieven received a letter from old man Durov that was in no way consistent with the royal command. Later, Andrei Vasilyevich would be proud of his “senior lancer,” but now he was surprised, outraged, and worried. “On the notice of my daughter, who lives in St. Petersburg under the name Alexander Sokolov,” he writes, “but unfortunately, who served as a comrade in the Konnopolsky regiment, who writes that I should directly address you, which I fulfill, I humbly ask the first to accept me into your patronage and my entire poor family, and therefore my unfortunate friend Sokolov, or, I don’t know what name he goes by now. I ask Your Excellency to listen to the voice of nature and feel sorry for the unfortunate father, who served in the army for too twenty years as an officer, and then continued to serve as a civilian I also served for more than twenty years, having lost my wife, or, better said, my best friend, and having hope in Sokolov that, at least, he would delight my old age and bring peace to the depths of my family; but everything turned out the opposite: he writes, that she is going to serve in the regiment, where without explaining in her letter. Is it possible to do the favor of notifying me with your most respectable notice, where and in what regiment, and can I hope to soon have her as a mistress of the house? This kindness of yours will increase my patience, and I take the courage to ask Sometimes I’ll write to Sokolov; he assured me that you would deliver my letters to him. Oh, how I, my father, will be grateful to you for this, and then honor me with your gracious answer! " Apparently, when Durov wrote this letter, he did not yet know that his daughter’s military service was sanctioned by the tsar; subsequently he did not repeat his request.
Durova served in the hussars for just over three years, then, at her request, she was transferred to the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment. In "Notes" she explains that she transferred because the daughter of the colonel of their regiment fell in love with her and she did not want to put the girl in an awkward position. But the same “Notes” say that there was another reason: service in the hussars required significant funds; for the life that hussar officers traditionally led, their salaries could not be enough, which many did not care about at all, since they were rich and received income from their estates, Durova had no income other than her salary, and, naturally, she did not feel particularly comfortable among her fellow soldiers. Uhlan officers lived more modestly.
Information about Durova’s further service is contained in the formal list compiled for her upon resignation. To what was contained in the form of “comrade” Sokolov, it added that “in Prussia against French troops in battles” “for excellence he was awarded the insignia of the Military Order of St. George, 5th class.” She met the Patriotic War of 1812 already as a second lieutenant of the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment, and with the regiment she went the entire route of the Russian army from the border to Tarutino. “1812 against French troops in the Russian borders in various actual battles,” the formal list reports, “June 27th near the town of Mir, July 2nd near the town of Romanov, 16th and 17th near the village of Dashkovka, August 4- on the 1st and 5th near the city of Smolensk, on the 15th near the village of Luzhki, on the 20th near the city of Rzhatskaya Pier, on the 23rd near the Kolotsky Monastery, on the 24th near the village of Borodino, where he received a concussion in the leg from a cannonball.”
On August 29, Durova was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After leaving Moscow, she served for a short time as M. I. Kutuzov’s adjutant.
The contusion she received under Borodin turned out to be more serious than first thought, and Durova was forced to take leave for treatment. She spent her vacation at her parents' house in Sarapul, and in the spring of 1813 she returned to the army, which by that time was already abroad. During the campaign abroad, the Lithuanian regiment took part in battles in Poland and Germany.
In 1816, after serving for a total of ten years, Durova retired with the rank of captain. Official documents say that Lieutenant Alexandrov was “dismissed from service due to illness,” she herself writes in a short autobiography: “In 1816, at the request of my father, I retired, although with great reluctance I left my brilliant career,” a contemporary reports , that “Alexandrov refused to serve as an offended person: they sent him a captain to head him,” that is, instead of appointing her squadron commander, as should have been the case, according to seniority, they appointed someone else. It is the third version that is most likely: Durova, in a temper, submitted her resignation letter, but soon regretted it, wrote a request to be re-entered into service, but, as noted in the official certificate, “the highest permission was not given” to her request.
Durova lived for several years in St. Petersburg with her uncle, for a year in Ukraine with her relatives, then returned to Sarapul to live with her father, who held the position of mayor. After the death of A.V. Durov in the mid-1820s, his position was taken by his son, Vasily Andreevich, who was soon transferred to the same position in Yelabuga; together with her brother she moved to Elabuga and N. A. Durova.
In Yelabuga, “having nothing to do,” Durova writes in her autobiography, “I decided to review and read various scraps of my Notes that had survived from various upheavals of a not always peaceful life. This activity, which revived the past in my memory and in my soul, gave me the idea to collect these scraps and put them together into something whole, print it.”
From the few incidental remarks and details contained in Durova’s works, it is clear that she was engaged in literary work a lot and constantly. In the story “Literary Inventions,” which describes the events of the end of 1811, she reports: “In my suitcase there were many sheets of paper written on,” including “a description of Elena G.” - future story "The Game of Fate"; describing an episode that happened to her in Germany in 1814, when she and a friend, having set off on a journey and being left without all the things and money stolen from them, while the upset friend went to bed, went to persuade the hostess to “light a candle for nothing” and After the candle was received, she “wrote two pages.” From this we can conclude that the manuscript was always with her and daily literary work became a custom and habit for her.
Durova's works reveal a good knowledge of Russian and foreign literature. When characterizing someone she knows, she often resorts to comparing him with a literary character; in the same story “Literary Inventions” she expresses the idea that the main condition for creating a real literary work is the writer’s talent - a simple truth, but difficult to grasp for those who have free time and have paper and a pen at hand: "...the title of poet, in my opinion, can be given to anyone who just puts together rhymes, even if there is no spark of human meaning in them; but only someone who has received from nature this elegant gift, which does not depend on skill, can be a poet , nor from the sciences."
Durova doubted whether she had this gift, since only in 1835 she decided to take the first steps towards publishing her literary works - “Notes”, as she called them.
Nadezhda Durova at Kutuzov's
Durova's brother Vasily Andreevich accidentally met A.S. Pushkin in 1829; in 1835 he convinced his sister to send her works to Pushkin and undertook to be an intermediary. To V. A. Durov’s letter, Pushkin replied: “If the author of the Notes agrees to entrust them to me, then I will willingly undertake to work on their publication. If he thinks of selling them in manuscript, then let him set the price for them himself. If the booksellers do not agree, then, I'll probably buy them. It seems we can guarantee success. The author's fate is so curious, so famous and so mysterious that the solution to the riddle should make a strong overall impression. As for the syllable, the simpler it is, the better. The main thing: truth, sincerity. The subject in itself is so entertaining that it does not require any decorations. They would even harm it."
Despite the fact that rumors about a girl fighting in the ranks of the Russian army spread quite widely during the Patriotic War of 1812, only a few knew the truth. The low degree of awareness of contemporaries is characterized by Denis Davydov’s answer to Pushkin’s question about Durova: “I knew Durova because I served with her in the rearguard, throughout our retreat from Neman to Borodino. The regiment in which she served was always in the rearguard, together with our Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment. I remember that then they said that Alexandrov was a woman, but so, slightly. She was very secluded and avoided society, as much as you can avoid it in bivouacs. I happened to once at a halt enter a hut together with the officer of the regiment in which Alexandrov served, namely with Volkov. We wanted to drink milk in the hut... There we found a young Uhlan officer who had just seen me, stood up, bowed, took his shako and went out. Volkov told me; “This is Alexandrov, who, they say, is a woman.” I rushed to the porch, but he was already galloping far away. Subsequently, I saw her at the front...”
When a year later, Pushkin published an excerpt from Durova’s “Notes” in Sovremennik, he prefaced it with a preface in which he writes about what exactly aroused the curiosity of society: “What reasons forced a young girl, of a good noble family, to leave her father’s house, to renounce of her sex, to take on labors and responsibilities that frighten even men, and to appear on the battlefield - and what other ones? Napoleonic! What prompted her? Secret family grief? A fevered imagination? An innate, indomitable inclination? Love?.. These are the questions now forgotten, but which at that time greatly occupied society."
Doubting her literary talent, Durova’s writings sometimes seemed “insignificant.” When sending “Notes” to Pushkin, she did not at first intend them for publication, but saw in them only material on the basis of which a literary work could be created. “Your wonderful pen,” she wrote to Pushkin in her first letter, “can make something very entertaining out of them for our compatriots.” Pushkin’s enthusiastic review: “I just read the rewritten Notes: charming, lively, original, beautiful style. The success is undoubted,” made Durova happy, thanks to him she believed in her literary talent.
It was initially assumed that Pushkin would be the publisher of Durova's Notes. She came to St. Petersburg with their complete manuscript. Durova described her meetings with Pushkin in the story “A Year of Life in St. Petersburg, or the Disadvantages of the Third Visit,” but in the end she entrusted the publication of “Notes” not to Pushkin, but to her cousin Ivan Grigorievich Butovsky, a military writer, translator, author of the books “On the Discovery of monument to Emperor Alexander I", "Field Marshal Prince Kutuzov-Smolensky at the end and beginning of his military career", translator of "History of the Crusades" by Michaud, "Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead" by Fontenelle. Subsequently, Durova regretted that, as she herself writes, “I was stupid to deprive my Notes of their most brilliant decoration, their high glory - the name of the immortal poet!”
Correspondence with Pushkin and memories make it possible to imagine the essence of what happened. She hurried with the publication, but Pushkin patiently explained: “The troubles of a writer are incomprehensible to you. It is impossible to publish a book in one week; it takes at least two months”; demanded that Pushkin go to the Tsar, who was also at the maneuvers, and present him with the manuscript for censorship (before this, Pushkin told Durova that his works must undergo the Tsar’s censorship), he answered her: “It is impossible for me to go to the Tsar for the maneuvers because many reasons. I even thought of turning to him as a last resort, if the censorship did not let your Notes through. I will explain this to you when I have the good fortune to see you in person"; disagreements arose between them over the title of the book: Durova wanted to title it “The Handmade Innuendo of the Russian Amazon, Known as Alexandrov,” Pushkin objected to her: “The Innuendo of the Amazon” was somehow too elegant, mannered, reminiscent of German novels. “Notes of N. A. Durova” - simple, sincere and noble”; Durova’s displeasure was also caused by the fact that Pushkin in the magazine called her N. A. Durova, and not Alexandrov.
But the main reason for Durova’s break with Pushkin was probably that, when publishing an excerpt from her notes in Sovremennik, he, perceiving them as a historical documentary source, edited it accordingly and shortened the fictional pieces. Durova was writing a work of fiction, that is, a work of a different genre, and therefore, quite naturally for the author, she reacted painfully to the distortion of her plan. She does not write about her indignation at Pushkin’s editing, but her statement about the author’s will in the story “A Year of Life in St. Petersburg” is directly related to this issue: “Today I read that there are a lot of Gallicisms in my Notes. This could easily be because I I have no idea what Gallicism is. They accuse the publisher, why didn’t he correct them? I couldn’t! I absolutely couldn’t, I had neither the right nor the power to do so. During the author’s lifetime, the publisher is neither the master nor the owner of the published work and must comply with the will of the present his ruler. Not only did I make it an indispensable condition for my relative not to correct anything in my Notes, but I also vigilantly guarded against this happening. So, everything that is good in them is mine and everything that is bad is also mine. There is no not a single word of someone else’s, that is, not actually mine.” Confirmation of the same is the preface “From the Publisher” preceding the publication of her book: “The author of the Notes offered here, my cousin, instructed me to publish them without the slightest change. I willingly fulfill her wish.”
When editing Durova's text, Pushkin had at his disposal a small excerpt of her Notes, which did not give an idea of the nature of the entire manuscript or the author's intention. After the release of the first volume, when the peculiarity of Durova’s works became clear to Pushkin, he no longer makes the same demands on it as a historical document, but evaluates it as a remarkable literary work.
Durova's "Notes" were published as a separate book in the fall of 1836 under the title "Cavalry Maiden. Incident in Russia." As Pushkin predicted, they were a great success and revived the former interest in their author. Durova receives invitations to aristocratic houses, fashion appears for her, she described all this in the story “A Year of Life in St. Petersburg,” depicting the curious world in satirical colors. The fashion for Durova in aristocratic drawing rooms soon passed, but an interesting, original and talented writer came to Russian literature with the book “The Cavalry Maiden”.
Nadezhda Durova 1837
The most profound and accurate description of Durova the writer was given by V. G. Belinsky. He also responded to the publication of an excerpt in Sovremennik in a review article dedicated to this issue of the magazine: “Here is a wonderful article “Notes of N. A. Durova, published by A. Pushkin.” If this is a hoax, then, we admit, it is very masterful; if genuine notes, then entertaining and fascinating to the point of incredibleness. It is only strange that in 1812 they could write in such good language, and who else? a woman; however, perhaps they have been corrected by the author at the present time. Be that as it may, we really wish so that these interesting notes continue to be published." In 1839, in a review of the new book “Aleksandrov’s Notes. Addition to the Maid of the Cavalry,” Belinsky writes about Durova as an undeniable talent, notes that from her first appearance in Sovremennik, “the literary name of the Maid of the Cavalry was consolidated”; the following year he places Durova's name on the list of names of "more or less brilliant and strong talents" along with Karamzin, Baratynsky, Delvig, Denis Davydov, Polezhaev, Dahl, Zagoskin.
Belinsky drew attention to the main thing that, in fact, constitutes the essence of both “The Cavalry Maiden” and “Aleksandrov’s Notes”: “...my God, what a wonderful, what a wondrous phenomenon of the moral world the heroine of these notes.” At the same time, he notes her literary skill: “And what a language, what a style the Cavalry Maiden has! It seems that Pushkin himself gave her his prose pen, and it is to him that she owes this courageous firmness and strength, this bright expressiveness of her style, this the picturesque fascination of his story, always complete, imbued with some hidden thought."
Many contemporaries expected to find in Durova's Notes a disclosure of secret circumstances, some sensational revelations, others were looking for accurate historical information about the era of the Napoleonic wars - both of them were quite disappointed: the book turned out to be devoid of a taste of scandal, it did not contain new information about major historical figures.
The subtlety and insight of Belinsky’s assessment was determined by the fact that he read Durova’s “Notes” without a biased look and saw in them what they contained, and did not demand what they did not contain.
Durova's "Notes" are not memoirs in the generally accepted sense, but a literary and artistic work. The main thing in them is not the chain of events, not the series of historical figures passing through their pages. Although Durova has vivid descriptions of historical episodes and characteristics of historical figures, and the characteristics are interesting, for example, she portrays the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Miloradovich, not as most of his contemporaries saw him, but similar to the views that historians have come to, who also know what was hidden from contemporaries, the main thing in Durova’s “Notes” is the image of their author, “a wondrous phenomenon of the moral world.”
The image of Durova appears to the reader in development, year after year, step by step, the writer depicts how it develops, under what influence, she analyzes her actions, psychology, identifying the main thing. That is why this image is so convincing.
The formation of the image occurs throughout the entire book, from the first to the last page, gradually and sequentially, therefore Durova’s book is unusually holistic, it cannot be divided into fragments, excerpts (excluding sometimes only inserted short stories - stories heard by the author from different people), in There is no complete image in a separate passage.
Durova in life created her own destiny, her “Notes” are a literary parallel to the same creative process: just as in life she swept away what was unnecessary to her, so in the book she removed what was unnecessary, distorting the idea of developing the image. Therefore, in “Notes” there is no story about marriage, the generally accepted emphasis on historical events is rearranged, the chronology is disrupted, and first of all the chronology of her own life, she consistently reduced her age, eliminating from her own life the years from getting married to joining the army.
Despite the exceptional fate of her literary counterpart, Durova created an artistic, typical image of her contemporary. What she decided to do in life worried the minds of her contemporaries, it was their secret dream. She knew this and in the book she addressed them directly: “Freedom, the precious gift of heaven, has finally become my destiny forever! I breathe it, I enjoy it, I feel it in my soul, in my heart! My existence is permeated with it, it enlivens it! To you, young people "My peers, you alone understand my admiration! You alone can know the price of my happiness!"
Durova's literary work is also a literary phenomenon. “It’s only strange that in 1812 they could write in such good language,” Belinsky marvels. Indeed, in terms of age, according to the models on which she cultivated her literary taste, Durova belongs to the pre-Pushkin period of literature; she is older than the most significant prose writers of the 1830s, Zagoskin, Lazhechnikov, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, but her prose is often less archaic than theirs. .
Following "The Cavalry Maiden", Durova published a number of books: the stories "A Year of Life in St. Petersburg", "Pavilion" and "Sulfur Spring" (positively assessed by Belinsky), "An Angle", "Treasure", the novels "Gudishki" and "Yarchuk" . Dog-spirit", her "Tales and Stories" are published in four volumes. Strictly speaking, all of Durova’s literary works constitute a kind of single organism, the unifying principle of which is her autobiographical narrative, and everything else branches off from it. The form in which this happens is always the same: “Pavilion”, and “Sulfur Spring”, and “Gudishki”, and other works are built according to the same model - someone tells the author some story, and the author, in turn, , retells it to the reader.
Among Durova's stories, V. G. Belinsky especially highlights the story "Pavilion", he calls it "beautiful" and in a review dedicated to it, reveals the deep moral meaning contained in it and penetration into the recesses of human psychology, which makes it possible for a philosophical comparative description of love and passions.
Nadezhda Durova
“This story makes a deep and sharp impression,” writes Belinsky, “with the exception of the excessive abundance of details and some prolixity, so energetically and with such art presented!.. This reckless father, who arbitrarily assigned his son a field that is contrary to his spirit and for that curses him a corpse for a terrible crime; this young priest, with his deep soul and volcanic passions, strengthened by upbringing and solitary life, passions that, without this, perhaps would have been imbued with the light of thought and would have been kindled with the gentle fire of feeling, and a powerful will would have rushed to good and in good activity would have yielded fruit a hundredfold: what two terrible lessons!.. Doesn’t the first prove that the moral freedom of man is sacred: Valerian’s father doomed him to serve the altar as a child, but God did not accept the vows uttered by unconscious and dissatisfied obedience to someone else will, and not by one’s own desire to fulfill the needs of one’s spirit and in this fulfillment to find one’s bliss!.. Doesn’t the second prove that only feeling is true and worthy of a person; but that every passion is a lie, delusion, sin?.. Feeling does not allow murder, blood, violence, villainy; but all this is the necessary result of passion. What was Valerian's love? - the passion of a mighty soul and, like any passion, a mistake, deception, delusion. Love is the harmony of two souls, and the lover, lost in the beloved object, finds himself in it and if, deceived by appearance, considers himself not loved, then he walks away with quiet sadness, with some kind of painful bliss in his soul, but not with despair, not with the thought of revenge and blood, about all this that humiliates the divine nature of man. Passion expresses the will of a person, striving, contrary to the definitions of eternal reason and divine necessity, to fulfill the claims of his pride, the dreams of his imagination or the impulses of his boiling blood!..
Yes, let us repeat once again: the story “Pavilion” presents excellent content, fascinating and powerful, although in places it is drawn out; exposes a strong, masculine hand."
Of course, Durova’s entire work belongs entirely to the era of romanticism, such are the subjects she chooses, strange incidents, and affected passions. In the forties, such romanticism became a hopelessly outdated phenomenon in Russian literature. Reviews of Durova's new works are becoming cooler; critics still note the entertaining nature of her narrative, but at the same time write about the strangeness of the choice of topics and the outdatedness of literary techniques. Durova stops publishing.
She leaves for Yelabuga and lives there forever, intercedes with local authorities for everyone who turns to her for help, turns her house into a shelter for abandoned and crippled animals.
They asked her why she didn’t write anything anymore, to which she answered: “... because now I can’t write the way I wrote before, and I don’t want to appear in the world with anything.” But, probably, she still wrote, but was not published, as she had not been published before until 1836, although she had been writing for two decades.
A literary work lives two lives: one - with its contemporaries and the second - in the perception of subsequent generations. Over time, the merits of Durova’s works, and above all her “Notes”, noted by A. S. Pushkin and V. G. Belinsky, become increasingly clear, and what contemporaries blamed on her as shortcomings seems increasingly insignificant; the image created by her acquires greater depth and is revealed more fully: contemporaries saw in him only a portrait of a specific person, we now see in him a typical character, a portrait of the era. And it is easier for us than for her contemporaries to understand the depth of the content of her work and perceive the artistic perfection - “it seems that Pushkin himself gave her his prose pen” - of her prose.
Now Durova’s works are perceived completely differently than they were perceived by her contemporaries: now in their perception the element of the acuteness of the knowable mystery has weakened significantly, because it has long been no secret to anyone that a woman was hiding under the name of Ulan Alexandrov, although, it must be said, this ancient event continues also interest readers of the last quarter of the 20th century. But if earlier readers were eager to know how it all happened, now they want to know why it happened.
It is significant that Pushkin, among the reasons that, in the opinion of society, could prompt Durova to put on a military uniform - “secret family sorrows”, “inflamed imagination”, “innate, indomitable inclination”, “love” - does not name the true one that guided her and directly named in the “Notes”: the desire for freedom, for the implementation of the inalienable right of man to control his own will, although this was the main one.
Contemporaries, trying to explain Durova’s act to themselves, went through all the reasons listed by Pushkin and paid special attention to the “innate, indomitable inclination”:
Clutching the hilt of the saber in his hand,
Bellona looked stern.
Flies towards the enemy army, -
This is how the poet of the 1820s - 1840s A. N. Glebov described it. She was also portrayed as Bellona, the Roman goddess of war, in some other poems and prose works. Such an interpretation simplifies and distorts the idea of Durova's Notes and the image of their heroine.
In Durova’s life, military service occupied such a significant place that it was in relation to it that her personality manifested itself especially clearly and fully.
Durova grew up in a military environment, military life was dear and close to her. It is also very important that this was a time when the army was entrusted with the high mission of defending the fatherland, which ennobled and gave the highest purpose to military service. Durova was admired by the courage of the Russian soldier, she was able to be carried away by the excitement of the attack, the desire for glory, and finally, she was subjugated by the mighty beauty of the moving troops, but she by no means possessed that “indomitable inclination” for war that was attributed to her.
Monument to Nadezhda Durova in Yelabuga
“I love a bloody battle,” D. Davydov sang. Durova does not try to poeticize the war. About the fierce battle of Heilsberg, she writes: “Ah, man is terrible in his frenzy! All the properties of a wild beast are then united in him!” they groan and crawl across the so-called field of honor!” She sees the battles as a series of “terrible, bloody scenes.” Durova galloped into attacks, was in danger of being killed, showed great personal courage, but in her “Notes” a generally insignificant episode is told, one phrase was dropped about it, but in its light the image of Durova-Bellona takes on a completely different color. In this episode, Durova talks about how she fulfilled the captain’s request to get a goose for dinner: “Oh, how ashamed I am to write this! How ashamed to admit such inhumanity! With my noble saber I cut off the head of an innocent bird!!! This was the first blood, which I have shed throughout my entire life. Although this is the blood of a bird, believe me, you who will someday read my Notes, that the memory of it weighs on my conscience!.."
Having put on men's clothes and legally adopted a man's name, she did not cease to be a woman - not in the sense that from time to time she remembered that her female body was weaker than a male one and less adapted to military service, which, comparing herself with male colleagues, she noticed : “...everything that is ordinary for them is very unusual for me,” but the fact is that, despite the circumstances, the creative principle, stronger in a woman than in a man, constantly manifested itself in her. The remark thrown as if in passing is significant here: “Great God! What strange activities has my fate condemned me to! Should I scream in a wild voice, and in such a way that even a mad horse was pacified!.. I was angry with myself for my forced feat: for the insult inflicted on the tenderness of the female organ by my heroic exclamation!
The “compulsion” of a consciously accomplished feat in no way detracts from its significance and greatness; moreover, it makes it even more significant and majestic, it naturally reveals the depth and richness of the nature of Durova who accomplished this feat.
Durov’s creative work is placed on a par with the defense of the fatherland. Seeing that Cossack officers are working in the fields on the Don, she finds this “the most noble”: “With what respect, I say, I watched how they themselves cultivated this land: they themselves mowed the grass of their fields, they themselves swept it into haystacks!.. How nobly they use their time of rest from the occupations of a warrior!..” Respect for the working man, the peasant, was also dictated by her reasoning about one of the villages through which she passed with the regiment: “... this village is poor, bad and ruined, it must think about the exorbitant demands of her landowner." The humanistic direction of Durova’s thinking was, as they liked to determine trends in political and social development at the beginning of the 19th century, in the “spirit of the times”; this was the atmosphere in which Decembrism arose and developed. Respect for the human person, protest against corporal punishment, so common in the army - all this allows us to consider Durova among the leading people of her time.
Humanity, kindness, and endless love for all living things were evident in Durova and in her attitude towards animals. Belinsky also specifically drew attention to those pages of her “Notes” in which she writes about this. Perhaps what speaks most clearly about her attitude towards animals is a small reflection about one of the properties of her own character: “Nature has given me a strange and restless quality: I love, get used to, become attached with all my heart to the apartments where I live; to the horse I ride; to a dog, which I will take to myself out of regret; even to a duck, a chicken, which I buy for the table, I will immediately feel sorry for using them for what they were bought for, and they live with me until they accidentally disappear somewhere.” Durova's love for animals was combined with an intuitive insight into the psychology of the animal; in her Notes she describes many subtle and interesting observations of animals. Of course, this trait was inherited by her cousin, the famous trainer V.L. Durov, with his system of “painless training” - training animals with affection.
Until old age, Durova retained clarity of mind and sensitivity and understanding of the demands of modern times, rare in an elderly person. A researcher of her life and work, B. Smirensky, discovered in the archive her article written in 1858, on the eve of reforms, in which the statements of seventy-five-year-old Durova sound surprisingly fresh and modern: “In our time, a woman is bored, unable to find something to do, tired of inaction, such a woman is more inappropriate than ever! Now, more than ever, Russian society needs active, working women, intelligently sympathetic to the great events that are happening around them, and capable of making their contribution to the building of the public good and order that is being built by common efforts."
Photo of Nadezhda Durova (1860-1865)
N.A. Durova died in 1866. She bequeathed to call herself Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov during the funeral service, a name that she achieved for herself and under which she lived her life. The priest did not dare to break the rules of religion and in the funeral service he called her God’s servant Nadezhda.
She went down in history under her real name with a definition indicating her life’s feat - cavalry maiden Nadezhda Durova.
Durova was buried with military honors. In front of her coffin, an officer of the local garrison carried her St. George Cross on a velvet pillow - the first and only St. George Cross since the establishment of this main military order of Russia in the mid-18th century - given to a woman
Nadezhda Andreevna Durova is Russia’s first female officer, a Russian Amazon, a talented writer, a mysterious person living under a man’s name.
She was born on September 17, 1783 in Kyiv in the family of retired hussar captain Andrei Vasilyevich Durov and Nadezhda Ivanovna Durova, who, having run away from home, married her groom secretly from her parents, for which she was cursed by her father.
Nadezhda Ivanovna was disappointed by the birth of a daughter instead of a son; the son was the only hope for forgiveness from her parents. Andrei Vasilyevich commanded a squadron in a hussar regiment. One day during a trip, driven to the extreme by her daughter’s crying, the mother threw the poor child out of the carriage. The child crashed but survived. The father took action, and from that day on the girl was taken care of by a flank hussar, who carried her in his arms.
A.V. Durov retired and settled in Sarapul. The mother began to raise her daughter. The girl was a true tomboy, she did not want to weave lace and embroider, she was entitled to a spanking for spoiled needlework, but she climbed trees like a cat, shot with a bow and tried to invent a projectile. She dreamed of learning to wield weapons, horse riding and dreamed of military service.
Hussar Astakhov began to look after the girl, who instilled in her a love of military affairs. Nadezhda Durova wrote: “My teacher, Astakhov, carried me in his arms for whole days, went with me to the squadron stable, put me on horses, let me play with a pistol, wave a saber.”
When she grew up, her father gave her a Circassian horse, Alcis, riding which soon became her favorite pastime.
Having married Vasily Chernov, an official of the Sarapul Zemstvo Court, at the age of 18, she gave birth to a son a year later. The boy was baptized in the Ascension Cathedral and named Ivan. N. Durova left her husband and returned with the child to her parents’ home (this is not mentioned in Durova’s “Notes”). Thus, by the time of her military service, she was not a “maid,” but a wife and mother. In her parental home, her mother, Nadezhda Ivanovna, according to Durova, still “constantly complained about the fate of the sex, which is under the curse of God, and described the fate of women in terrible colors,” which is why Nadezhda developed “aversion to her own sex.”
In 1806, Nadezhda Durova went swimming on her name day, taking old Cossack clothes. She changed into it and left the dress on the shore. The parents decided that their daughter had drowned, and she, in a man’s dress, joined the Don Cossack regiment heading to war with the French. Durova passed herself off as “the landowner’s son Alexander Sokolov.”
Ivan, Durova’s son, remained in his grandfather’s family and was later enrolled in the Imperial Military Orphanage, which existed as a cadet corps. The sons of officers who died in the war or were on active military service enjoyed preferential enlistment rights. Ivan’s father was not able to provide him with this advantage, but his mother was able to do the impossible for her son. Having given him a capital education, Durova subsequently did not leave her son unattended. The “Cavalry Maiden,” using old connections and acquaintances, provided Ivan Vasilyevich Chernov with a certain degree of independence and a strong position in society.
Ivan Vasilyevich Chernov married, presumably in 1834, Anna Mikhailovna Belskaya, the daughter of a titular councilor. She died in 1848 at the age of 37. That year, a cholera epidemic broke out in the capital, and it may have been the cause of her death. Chernov never remarried. He died on January 13, 1856, at the age of 53, with the rank of collegiate councilor, a rank equivalent to an army colonel. He and his wife rest in the Mitrofanovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg. The “cavalry maiden” outlived her son by 10 years.
In 1807, she was accepted as a “comrade” (an ordinary member of the nobility) in the Konnopol Uhlan Regiment. At the end of March, the regiment was sent to Prussia, from where Durova wrote a letter to her father, asking for forgiveness for her action and demanding “to be allowed to follow the path necessary for happiness.” Durova's father sent a petition to Emperor Alexander I asking him to find his daughter. By the greatest command, Durov, without revealing her incognito, was sent to St. Petersburg with a special courier. There it was decided to leave Nadezhda in the service, assign the name Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov (she bore it until her death), and enlist as a cornet in the Mariupol Hussar Regiment.
Partisan and poet Denis Davydov, in a letter to A. S. Pushkin, recalled his meetings with N. A. Durova during the war: “I knew Durova because I served with her in the rearguard, during the entire time of our retreat from the Neman to Borodino ... I remember that they said then that Alexandrov was a woman, but only slightly. She was very secluded, avoided society, as much as you could avoid it in bivouacs. One day, at a rest stop, I happened to enter a hut together with an officer of the regiment in which Alexandrov served, namely Volkov. We wanted to drink milk in the hut... There we found a young Ulan officer who had just seen me, stood up, bowed, took his shako and went out. Volkov told me: “This is Alexandrov, who, they say, is a woman.” I rushed to the porch, but he was already galloping far away. Subsequently I saw her at the front...”
For participation in battles and for saving the life of an officer in 1807, Durova was awarded the soldier's St. George Cross. During her many years of campaigns, Durova kept notes, which later became the basis for her literary works. “The sacred duty to the Fatherland,” she said, “makes a simple soldier fearlessly face death, courageously endure suffering and calmly part with life.”
In 1811, Durova joined the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment, in which she took part in the fighting of the Patriotic War, received a shell shock in the Battle of Borodino and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. She was an adjutant to Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov, and went with him to Tarutino. She took part in the campaigns of 1813–1814, distinguished herself during the siege of the Modlin fortress, and in the battles of Hamburg. She received several awards for her bravery. After serving for about ten years, she retired in 1816 with the rank of headquarters captain. After her resignation, Durova lived for several years in St. Petersburg with her uncle, and from there she left for Yelabuga.
Many of our contemporaries know more or less about the military exploits of Nadezhda Andreevna Durova. But few know that she also accomplished a heroic feat in the field of Russian literature - her literary activity was blessed by A.S. Pushkin, and enlightened Russia of the thirties and forties of the 19th century was engrossed in her works.
In 1835–1836, Nadezhda Durova’s formation as a writer took place. Her difficult financial situation played some role in this. She lived on a small pension from the military department - one thousand rubles a year. Her literary activity is all the more surprising because she never studied anywhere. The publication in the Sovremennik magazine of an excerpt from her memoirs dedicated to 1812 created a real sensation among her contemporaries, and the Patriotic War acquired another hero, or rather, heroine.
Pushkin provided the passage with the following preface: “With inexplicable sympathy we read the confession of a woman so extraordinary; We were amazed to see that the gentle fingers that once gripped the bloody hilt of a Uhlan saber also wielded a fast, picturesque and fiery pen.”
In life, Nadezhda Durova was a violator of the canons: she wore a man's suit, smoked, cut her hair short, crossed her legs and rested her hand on her side when talking, and referred to herself in the masculine gender.
In recent years, Durova lived in Yelabuga, in a small house, completely alone, surrounded by her many four-legged pets. These were cats and dogs. Love for animals has always been in the Durov family. Durova's descendants - Vladimir, Anatoly and Natalya Durov - became a world-famous family of circus trainers.
Cavalry maiden
Literary activity
Offspring
(also known as Alexandra Andreevich Alexandrov; September 17, 1783 - March 21 (April 2), 1866) - the first female officer in the Russian army (known as cavalry maiden) and writer.
It is believed that Nadezhda Durova served as the prototype for Shurochka Azarova, the heroine of Alexander Gladkov’s play “A Long Time Ago” and Eldar Ryazanov’s film “The Hussar Ballad”. However, the author himself refutes this (see "A long time ago")
Biography
She was born on September 17, 1783 (and not in 1789 or 1790, which is usually indicated by her biographers, based on her “Notes”) in Kiev from the marriage of the hussar captain Durov with the daughter of the Little Russian landowner Alexandrovich, who married him against the will of her parents.
From the first days, the Durovs had to lead a wandering regimental life. The mother, who passionately wanted to have a son, hated her daughter, and the latter’s upbringing was almost entirely entrusted to Hussar Astakhov. "Saddle,- says Durova, - was my first cradle; horse, weapons and regimental music were the first children's toys and amusements". In such an environment, the child grew up to the age of 5 and acquired the habits and inclinations of a playful boy.
In 1789, my father entered the city of Sarapul, Vyatka province, as mayor. Her mother began to teach her to do needlework and housekeeping, but her daughter did not like either one or the other, and she secretly continued to do “military things.” When she grew up, her father gave her a Circassian horse, Alcis, riding which soon became her favorite pastime.
At the age of eighteen she was married off, and a year later her son was born (this is not mentioned in Durova’s “Notes”). Thus, by the time of her military service, she was not a “maid,” but a wife and mother. The silence about this is perhaps due to the desire to stylize oneself as the archetype of a warrior maiden (such as Pallas Athena or Joan of Arc).
Cavalry maiden
She became close to the captain of the Cossack detachment stationed in Sarapul; Family troubles arose, and she decided to fulfill her long-standing dream - to enter military service.
Taking advantage of the departure of the detachment on a campaign in 1806, she changed into a Cossack dress and rode on her Alkida behind the detachment. Having caught up with him, she identified herself as Alexander Sokolov, the son of a landowner, received permission to follow the Cossacks and entered the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment in Grodno.
She took part in the battles of Gutshadt, Heilsberg, Friedland, and showed courage everywhere. For saving a wounded officer in the midst of a battle, she was awarded the soldier's St. George's Cross and promoted to officer with transfer to the Mariupol Hussar Regiment.
What gave her away was her letter to her father, written before the battle, in which she asked for forgiveness for the pain she had caused. An uncle who lived in the capital showed this letter to a general he knew, and soon rumors about the cavalry girl reached Alexander I. She was deprived of weapons and freedom of movement and sent with an escort to St. Petersburg.
The emperor, struck by the woman’s selfless desire to serve her homeland in the military field, allowed her to remain in the army with the rank of cornet of the hussar regiment under the name of Alexander Andreevich Alexandrov, derived from his own, and also to contact him with requests.
Soon after this, Durova went to Sarapul to visit her father, lived there for more than two years, and at the beginning of 1811 she again reported to the regiment (Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment).
During the Patriotic War, she took part in the battles of Smolensk, the Kolotsky Monastery, and Borodino, where she was shell-shocked in the leg by a cannonball, and went to Sarapul for treatment. Later she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and served as an orderly under Kutuzov.
In May 1813, she again appeared in the active army and took part in the war for the liberation of Germany, distinguishing herself during the blockade of the Modlin fortress and the cities of Hamburg and Harburg.
Only in 1816, yielding to her father’s requests, she retired with the rank of headquarters captain and a pension and lived either in Sarapul or in Yelabuga. She always wore a man's suit, signed all her letters with the surname Alexandrov, got angry when people addressed her as a woman, and was generally distinguished, from the point of view of her time, by great oddities.
Addresses
- Elabuga - The only museum-estate in Russia of the cavalry maiden Nadezhda Durova.
- 1836 - St. Petersburg, hotel "Demut" - embankment of the Moika River, 40.
Literary activity
Her memoirs were published in Sovremennik (1836, No. 2) (later included in her Notes). Pushkin became deeply interested in Durova’s personality, wrote laudatory, enthusiastic reviews about her on the pages of his magazine and encouraged her to become a writer. In the same year (1836) they appeared in 2 parts of “Notes” under the title “Cavalryman-Maiden”. An addition to them (“Notes”) was published in 1839. They were a great success, prompting Durova to write stories and novels. Since 1840, she began to publish her works in Sovremennik, Library for Reading, Otechestvennye Zapiski and other magazines; then they appeared separately (“Gudishki”, “Tales and Stories”, “Angle”, “Treasure”). In 1840, a collection of works was published in four volumes.
One of the main themes of her works is the emancipation of women, overcoming the difference between the social status of women and men. All of them were read at one time, even aroused praise from critics, but they have no literary significance and attract attention only with their simple and expressive language.
Durova spent the rest of her life in a small house in the city of Elabuga, surrounded only by her numerous dogs and cats she had once picked up. Nadezhda Andreevna died on March 21 (April 2), 1866 in Yelabuga, Vyatka province, at the age of 82, and was buried at the Trinity Cemetery. At burial she was given military honors.
Offspring
Entries in the metric books of the Ascension Cathedral in the city of Sarapul preserved evidence of her wedding and the baptism of her son. Employees of the Museum-Estate N.A. Durova established connections with the direct descendants of her brother Vasily living in France. Durova's son, Ivan Chernov, was assigned to study at the Imperial Military Orphanage, from where he was released with the rank of 14th grade at the age of 16 due to health reasons. Later, he sent his mother a letter asking for her blessing for the marriage. Collegiate adviser Ivan Vasilyevich Chernov was buried at the Mitrofanyevskoe cemetery in 1856 - he died 10 years earlier than his mother at the age of 53. His wife was probably Anna Mikhailovna, née Belskaya, who died in 1848 at the age of 37.
Editions
- Nadezhda Durova. Notes from a cavalry maiden. Preparation of text and notes. B.V. Smirensky, Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, 1966.
- N. A. Durova. Selected works of a cavalry maiden. Comp., will join. Art. and note. Vl. Muravyova, Moscow: Moscow Worker, 1983.
- N. A. Durova. Selected works of a cavalry maiden. Comp., will join. Art. and note. Vl. B. Muravyova, Moscow: Moscow Worker, 1988 (Moscow Worker Library).
- Nadezhda Durova. Cavalry Maiden. Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars. Translated by Mary Fleming Zirin. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.
- Nadeschda Durowa. : Die Offizierin. Das ungewöhnliche Leben der Kavalleristin Nadeschda Durowa, erzählt von ihr selbst. Aus dem Russischen von Rainer Schwarz. Mit einer biographischen Notiz von Viktor Afanasjew, übersetzt von Hannelore Umbreit. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer-Verlag, 1994.
There are many examples in Russian history when women, on an equal footing with men, defended Russia from enemy hordes with weapons in their hands.
We will talk about a simple Russian woman - Nadezhda Andreevna Durova, who dedicated her life to serving the Motherland.
The name of Nadezhda Durova is also reflected in art. In the film “The Hussar Ballad” there is a heroine Shura Azarova, who with the beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812 went to fight the French. The image of Shura was copied from Durova.
Nadezhda Andreevna was born in 1783 in Kyiv. Her father, Andrei Durov, was an officer in the Russian army.
Mother Anastasia Alexandrovna was the daughter of a Ukrainian landowner. When she was 16, she fell madly in love with Durov, and without her parents' permission she married the officer.
She really wanted a child, spent long evenings dreaming about a son, and even came up with a name for the unborn child - Modest. Soon Anastasia became pregnant and gave birth to a girl within the prescribed period.
The mother was very disappointed, and the birth was very difficult for her. The girl born was named Nadya.
The girl was born strong, and as they say, already in childhood she roared in a deep voice. Her first toy was a pistol, then she became addicted to a saber.
As a child, Nadezhda Andreevna loved to shoot a bow, climb trees with the boys, ride a horse and, waving a saber, shout out various army commands.
Soon the mother took over raising her daughter; she was horrified by her hobbies. Anastasia wanted to raise her daughter as a noblewoman and tried to teach her handicrafts and literacy.
There were great excesses in the mother's educational process. Nadezhda was not interested in her mother’s efforts, and her supervision oppressed her more and more. At the age of 18, Nadezhda Andreevna married Vasily Chernov in order to move out of her parents’ house. The marriage was unsuccessful, and soon she returned to her parents, receiving even more reproaches and teachings.
In the fall of 1806, Durova runs away from home. She put on a Cossack uniform and soon reached the Cossack unit. To the unit commander, Nadezhda identified herself as a nobleman, Alexander Durov, who had fled home to go to war.
She was not accepted into the Cossack regiment, but they promised to bring her to the city of Grodno, where the formation of an army for the campaign against Napoleon was in full swing. Once in Grodno, Nadezhda Durova was enrolled in the Polish cavalry regiment. Her joy knew no bounds.
The service was not easy: difficult training, scolding of commanders, but, despite all the difficulties, Durova was glad that she was a soldier in the active Russian army.
Soon the Polish Horse Regiment went to fight the French. Before going on a hike, she wrote a letter home to her father, asking her to forgive and bless her for her actions. Nadezhda Durova took part in the battles of Friedlan and the battle of Heilsberg.
In May 1807, a battle took place between Russian and French troops near the city of Gutstadt. During this battle, she showed fantastic courage and saved officer Panin from death.
Nadezhda Durova, until a certain point, successfully managed to hide her gender. But the letter she wrote to her father gave her away. The uncle told a general he knew about his niece, and soon Emperor Alexander I himself learned about the soldier. She was taken to the capital of the Russian Empire.
Alexander I wished to meet the courageous woman in person. Their meeting took place in December 1807. The Emperor presented Durova with the St. George Cross, and everyone was amazed at the bravery and courage of her interlocutor.
Alexander I intended to send her to her parents’ house, but she snapped: “I want to be a warrior!” The emperor was amazed, and left the brave woman in the Russian army, transferred her to the Mariupol regiment and allowed her to introduce herself by her last name - Alexandrova, in honor of the emperor.
Meanwhile, the foreign campaigns of the Russian army came to an end. Nadezhda Andreevna took the opportunity and visited her parents’ house. At home she learned about her mother's death. This event was a shock for her. After staying at home for a short time, she went to the active army, to her new regiment.
Soon the thunder of the Patriotic War of 1812 struck. Nadezhda Durova began the war with the rank of second lieutenant of the Uhlan regiment. Durova took part in many battles of that war. There was Nadezhda near Smolensk, Mir, Dashkovka, and she was also on the Borodino field.
During the Battle of Borodino, Durova was on the front line, was wounded, but remained in service.
In September 1812, Durova was sent to serve at Kutuzov’s headquarters. Mikhail Illarionovich would later say that he had never had such an intelligent orderly.
The wounds of the Battle of Borodino constantly worried Nadezhda and prevented her from serving. Durova takes six months off for treatment and spends it at her home. After the end of her vacation, she and her regiment participate in foreign campaigns of the Russian army.
In 1816, Nadezhda Andreevna retired. In the subsequent years of her life, she tried to engage in literary creativity, and quite successfully. I talked with Pushkin. Her main literary work was “Notes of a Cavalry Maiden.”
Nadezhda Durova was dearly loved by Russian society; many knew and respected her. She was lonely until the end of her life. In 1841 she moved to Elabuga. Here she will spend the next years of her life. She lived modestly, ate ordinary food, doused herself with ice water in the morning, and loved to play cards.
Nadezhda Andreevna died on March 21, 1866, she was 83 years old. The “cavalry maiden” was buried with full military honors.
In the history of the Russian state there are many heroic examples when women, along with men, defended their Fatherland with weapons in their hands. The life of one of them, a native of the city of Sarapul, cavalry maiden Nadezhda Andreevna Durova, is a true example of service to Russia.
What a strange and unusual fate befell our compatriot!
Everyone who watched the good old film “The Hussar Ballad” remembers young Shurochka Azarova, who fled from home in a hussar uniform to fight Napoleon. The prototype of Shurochka was the cavalry maiden Nadezhda Durova, driven by love for her Fatherland.
DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT
Nadya's father, the gallant officer Andrei Durov, once met the daughter of the landowner Alexandrovich in Ukraine, at the estate. Having fallen madly in love, 16-year-old Anastasia ran away from home and married Durov without her parents' permission. She dreamed of a charming son, for whom she had already come up with a name - Modest. But in September 1783, at one of the rest stops, a girl was born - strong, with thick black hair. In addition, the baby roared in a deep voice. Anastasia Ivanovna, exhausted by difficult childbirth, was disappointed. One day, tired and irritated by the baby’s screams, she threw her out of the carriage window in a nervous fit.
The role of nanny was entrusted to the father's orderly Astakhov. He fed the girl milk from a bottle, and the “daughter of the regiment,” tugging at the veteran’s mustache, laughed joyfully. A saber and a pistol, a gold embroidered dolman and a tall shako with a plume of feathers became little Nadya’s first toys. She shot with a bow, climbed trees, furiously waved a wooden saber and dashingly shouted cavalry commands, rushing headlong on the dashing stallion Alkida (father's gift) through the fields and forests. Father, who loved his daughter immensely, admired Nadenka’s playfulness. They were both united by dreams of freedom and glory on the battlefield.
But after several happy years, the girl’s life changed dramatically. My father retired and received the position of mayor in the provincial city of Sarapul. The girl now spent more time with her mother. Anastasia Ivanovna was horrified by Astakhov’s upbringing. They began to raise a noblewoman from a daredevil, teaching her literacy and handicrafts. But in vain: Nadya did not want to do work decent for the female sex. Mother's supervision was oppressive and hateful.
In an effort to free herself from tyranny, 18-year-old Nadezhda willingly agreed to marry the first person she met. The provincial assessor of the Sarapul Zemstvo Court, Vasily Chernov, was a good man, but very boring. He lived according to a once and for all established schedule and expected the same from his wife. The birth of a son never brought the couple closer. Nadezhda returned to her parents' house. Reproaches rained down from the mother and her relatives, and her beloved father could do nothing to help.
“FREE! INDEPENDENT!”
After painful deliberation, a solution was found.
On September 17, 1806, on her name day, taking her faithful Alkid with her, Durova secretly runs away from home, dressed in a Cossack costume, and in order to lead her search to a dead end, she leaves her woman’s dress on the shore. Soon Nadezhda reached the Cossack unit. Nadezhda introduced herself to the regimental commander as nobleman Alexander Durov, who had run away from home to fight the enemy. This explanation was sufficient. True, they didn’t take her into the Cossack regiment, but they agreed to take her to Grodno, where an army was being formed for an overseas campaign. In March 1807, the imaginary Alexander Sokolov enlisted as a private in the Konnopol Uhlan Regiment.
Hope was filled with happiness: “So, I’m free! Free! Independent! I have found my freedom - a precious gift from heaven that inherently belongs to every person!” Army service turned out to be difficult: drill, constant exercises, abuse of commanders, hands ached from the heavy pike, which the lancer had to wield easily, like a cane. But even in the most difficult days, she repeats with delight: “Freedom, the precious gift of heaven, has finally become my destiny forever.”
After the exercises, the regiment was sent to fight Napoleon. Before leaving on the campaign, Durova wrote a letter to her father, in which she reported where she was and under what name she was, and begged him to forgive the escape, “to give a blessing and allow me to follow the path necessary for my happiness.”
The nobleman Sokolov fought bravely in the battles of Heilsberg and Friedland and was wounded twice. On May 24, 1807, in a battle near the city of Gutstadt, Nadezhda saved the life of the wounded officer Panin. Seeing that several enemy dragoons had surrounded one Russian officer and shot him down from a horse with a pistol shot, she rushed towards them, holding her pike at the ready. This extravagant courage forced the enemy to scatter, and Durova, at full gallop, picked up Panin in the saddle.
All this time, Durova managed to hide her gender. And yet the secret was revealed. Her father’s younger brother, Nikolai Vasilyevich, submitted a petition to Emperor Alexander I - he reported that a woman, Nadezhda Durova, was serving in His Majesty’s troops under the name of Alexander Sokolov, after Chernov’s husband, and asked the sovereign to return home “this unfortunate woman.” The Emperor wished to meet with Sokolov.
ENGAGED TO WAR
The meeting took place in December 1807 in the Winter Palace. Alexander I personally presented Nadezhda with the St. George Cross and praised her for her courage, but then sternly knitted his eyebrows: “Well, that’s it, my dear! We fought, now go back to your parents’ house.” Nadezhda fell with tears at the king's feet, begging him not to send her home. “What do you want?” - Alexander asked in bewilderment. “Be a warrior, wear a uniform!” - the cavalry maiden answered without hesitation. The Emperor was moved. He allowed her to remain in the army, appointed her to the elite Mariupol Hussar Regiment and ordered her to take the surname Alexandrov - in honor of the sovereign.
The foreign campaign was over by that time. Nadezhda decided to take advantage of the short respite and visit her home. It was with bitterness that she learned of her mother's death. But Nadezhda could not stay at home for long and hurried back to the army.
She served in the hussars for three years. She met the Patriotic War of 1812 with the rank of second lieutenant in the Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment, and soon she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. With the regiment she went the entire route of the Russian army from the border to Tarutino. Durova takes part in the battles of Mir, Romanov, Dashkovka, Smolensk. In the Battle of Borodino, Nadezhda was on the front line. The bullet grazed her side, and cannonball fragments grazed her leg. But, suffering from pain, she still remained in the saddle until the end of the battle.
In September, by order of Commander-in-Chief M.I. Kutuzov, Lieutenant Alexandrov serves at army headquarters. Several times a day, under enemy fire, he hurries with instructions to different commanders. Kutuzov said that such a sensible and. He didn’t yet have an efficient orderly.
The wound and concussion received at Borodino made themselves felt. Durova had to take leave for treatment, which she spent at her parents' house in Sarapul. However, just six months later, in the spring of 1813, she returned to the army, taking with her her brother Vasily, who was only 14 years old. Vasily remained at headquarters, and Nadezhda and her regiment went forward. The war ended in France.
In 1816, Nadezhda Durova retired. Her thoughts were sad: “What will I do at home? We must say goodbye to everything - to the bright sword, to the good horse, to friends, to a cheerful life!” But there was nothing to do - the old father needed care.
LONELINESS
In 1826, Andrei Vasilyevich died, and the position of mayor passed to his son Vasily, who was soon transferred to Elabuga. Nadezhda left with him and settled in the wing of an old noble estate. The rooms of her house were filled with books and stray animals - the owner collected dogs and cats throughout the city. Knowing this, the boys deliberately carried the puppies past her house - to “drown”. And the good lady bought animals from them - for ten kopecks each.
"NOTES OF A CAVALRY MAID"
In the evenings, Durova sat down at the table and sorted out her diaries: “Having nothing better to do, I decided to look over and read various scraps of my Notes that had survived from various upheavals of a not always peaceful life. This activity, which revived the past both in my memory and in my soul, gave me the idea of collecting these scraps and putting them together into something whole, printing it.”
Durova sent her “Notes” to Pushkin. The poet was delighted. “Be brave - enter the literary field as bravely as the one that glorified you. You can vouch for success,” he wrote. “The author’s fate is so curious, so well-known and so mysterious.” Durova came to St. Petersburg and met with the poet. Pushkin showered her with pleasantries and kissed her hand. Blushing deeply, Nadezhda exclaimed: “Why are you doing this? I’ve been out of the habit of this for so long!”
At the first opportunity, Pushkin published the first part of “Notes of a Cavalry Maiden” in the Sovremennik magazine in the fall of 1836, providing them with a preface. Soon they were published as a separate publication and immediately attracted the attention of readers and critics. It was an excited artistic story of an ordinary participant in historical events, which was based on a truly unusual fate. Durova colorfully and aptly characterizes outstanding commanders, vividly depicts military operations and does not forget to show the beauty of her native nature and the greatness of her beloved homeland. Durova's literary talent was admired by Gogol and Zhukovsky. Belinsky wrote: “And what kind of language, what kind of syllable does the Cavalry Maiden have? What a wonderful, what a wondrous phenomenon of the heroine’s moral world...” After “Notes” new stories and stories followed.
GLORY
Durova became a celebrity, she was vying with invitations to receptions, and two retired generals even proposed marriage to her. All this angered Nadezhda Andreevna, who was unaccustomed to fame. “They stare at me like I’m a trained monkey!” - she grumbled.
In 1841, Durova left the capital and returned to Elabuga. She remained alone until the end of her life. She lived like a soldier: she ate simple food, slept on a hard bed, and doused herself with cold water in the morning. Occasionally she visited the assembly of the nobility and played cards, which she became addicted to in the hussars.
She was buried with military honors: the St. George Cross was carried in front of the coffin on a velvet pillow; when the body was lowered into the grave, a rifle salvo rang out.
In the center of Sarapul, on Red Square, under a spreading linden tree there is a quadrangular marble stele. Let’s come up and read: “Here stood the house in which the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, orderly of Field Marshal M.I., lived for 18 years. Kutuzova, the first female officer of the Russian army, holder of the St. George Cross Nadezhda Andreevna Durova.” The Museum-Estate of Nadezhda Durova has been operating in Yelabuga since 1993. The woman warrior is also remembered in France, where her descendants live.
Welhelm Schwebel, a German thinker, is known to our contemporaries for the aphorism “People often put on uniforms that are too big for them.” N. Durova put on a man's uniform and did not disgrace him. She remained in our memory as a hero, soldier, patriot. Her battle path, her fate is not the result of random circumstances, but the result of a choice that she consciously made.
1. Durova N.A. Selected works of a cavalry maiden. - M., 1988.
2. Life and feat of N.A. Durova in the context of history and modernity: Materials of NPK. - Sarapul, 2003.
3. Oskin A.I. Nadezhda Durova - heroine of the Patriotic War of 1812. - M., 1962.
4. Oskin A.I. Nadezhda Durova - heroine of the Patriotic War of 1812. - M., 1962.
5. Pushkin V.A., Kostin B.A. Out of a single love for the Fatherland. - M., 1988.
6. Erlikhman V. Cavalry maiden // female. GEO/ - 2005. - No. 8. - P. 131-136.
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