War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

This second episode on the Calvary Maiden takes you through some of the formative years of the author, Nadezhda Durova. Durova wrote briefly of her years growing up then focused on her time dressing as a man and serving for 10 years as a low-level officer in the Czar’s army, starting around 1806.Her journals were source material for Tolstoy as to the lives of those who served in the period War & Peace is set, 1805-1812.  It is presented to give you a glimpse into those frequently nameless and overlooked, who often gave their lives in the Napoleonic conflicts.Durova’s story brings up still-relevant issues of identify, in terms how some who grew up in modern-day Ukraine or partitioned Poland, had different ties, (some to Polish nobility, others to Cossacks, some to Turks, others to runaway serfs), identified themselves.  A number, like Durova, graciously accepted a life of service to the Czar. Others, like the former serf, Taras Shevchenko, or the Polish Diplomat, Adam Czartoryski, advanced the idea of nati