The Unwomanly Face of War

The daughter of a Russian officer, Nadezhda Durova (1783–1866) disguised herself as a man and served in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars,

More than once I’ve realized: … our memory is far from an ideal instrument. It is not only arbitrary and capricious, it is also chained to time, like a dog. … we look at the past from today; we cannot look at it from anywhere else.

My goal first of all is to get at the truth of those years. Of those days. Without sham feelings. Just after the war this woman would have told of one war; after decades, of course, it changes somewhat, because she adds her whole life to this memory. Her whole self. How she lived those years, what she read, saw, whom she met. Finally, whether she i