I, Vera (The Unexpected Life of a Russian Princess)

Born in 1870, Vera Gedroits was the gender-free and rebellious child of a Russo-German mother and a Lithuanian prince. Vera was a radical from an early age: She rejected women’s clothes, used masculine pronouns, preferred billiards to embroidery, and was nicknamed, “The Whirlwind.” After working for César Roux at the renowned medical institute in Lausanne, she risked her life by representing overworked and underpaid factory workers, went to war as a battlefield surgeon, and became a medical tutor and friend to Tsarina Alexandra.

I, Vera brings this inspiring—at times infuriating—and unforgettable woman back to life. From Vera frogmarching an inquisitive Rasputin out of a ward for wounded officers to her publishing a celebrated series of memoirs during Russia’s troubled 1920s, acclaimed biographer Miranda Seymour captures the audacity and verve of the physician who performed true medical miracles. Seymour follows Vera out to the frontlines of the Russo-Japanese war and into the clinics of a rapidly annexed Ukraine.

After being imprisoned and dismissed under Stalin’s rule, Vera, the world’s first female professor of surgery, died penniless in 1932. Her name was removed from official Soviet medical records, and her tremendous contributions to wartime medicine as the first female battlefield surgeon were lost, together with her extraordinary memoirs. Now Seymour uncovers the riveting story of Russia’s Florence Nightingale: a daring and brilliant doctor, reformer, and administrator, adored by her friends and the patients who benefited from her pioneering achievements. From internecine wars, royal courts, and operating rooms across Europe, I, Vera unveils an unforgettable, almost novelistic story of an extraordinary surgeon and storyteller.