The Making of a Man: Aleksandr Aleksandrov, Transsexuality, and Imperial Russia

Aleksandr Aleksandrov was an author and soldier in service of the Russian tsar, active in the Prussian theater of the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-7) and in the Napoleonic wars.In scholarship, he is better known by his birth name, Nadezhda Andreevna Durova, and often referred to with the female pronouns bestowed upon him at birth.In this first book-length study of Aleksandrov, Ruth Averbach argues that we should understand this celebrated figure of Imperial Russia, whose sex was legally changed by Tsar Aleksandr I, simply as a man, one whose masculinity was intimately connected to the imperialist cause and Russian nationalism. For the majority of his life, Aleksandrov lived, wrote, and fought as a man, and was recognized as such by most of his contemporaries.This contradicts the dominant position in especially Western feminist scholarship, which understands “Durova” either as a woman so patriotic that she dressed as a man to fight Russia’s wars or as a woman so frustrated by gende