The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars - Nadezhda Durova

[Luke]

The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars, Nadezhda Durova, translated from Russian by Mary Fleming Zirin, 1836, Russia, DIARY

"In the early nineteenth century, Naezhda Durova ran away from home dressed as a man and joined the Russian cavalry, where she maintained the secret of her gender and served with distinction as an officer for more than nine years...Yet you don't have to be from the nineteenth century to sympathize when she writes: "I jump for joy as I realize that I will never again in my entire life hear the words: You, girl, sit still! It's not proper for you to go wandering out alone."..."

(E.B., p. 230)