The (Un)making of a Man: Aleksandr Aleksandrov/Nadezhda Durova

Abstract

Aleksandr Aleksandrov, more commonly known under his feminine birthname Nadezhda Durova, is commonly portrayed one of Russian literature's most curious figures. Born female, Aleksandrov-Durova lived, dressed, and identified as male for most of his life, served in the Russian military during the Napoleonic Wars, given a legally-binding name change by Tsar Alexander I in recognition of combat heroism, and became a popular memoirist and fiction writer. My paper seeks to challenge and reevaluate the dominant narrative of Nadezhda Durova—that she was a woman who joined the army out of a sense of patriotism—by focusing instead on the fact that the author's narrative of masculine self has been subverted by publishers and scholars projecting their own interpretations on Aleksandrov's masculinity.