I, Vera

The unlikely story of a brilliant, rebellious princess who blazed a path for women surgeons and revolutionized battlefield medicine.

Born in 1870, Vera Gedroits was the gender-free and rebellious child of a Lithuanian prince and a Russo-German mother. She rejected women’s clothes, used masculine pronouns, and became the world’s first female professor of surgery. I, Vera brings this inspiring—at times infuriating—and unforgettable princess back to life. Acclaimed biographer Miranda Seymour tracks Vera’s career as a fearless battlefield surgeon; tutor to women of the Romanov court; devoted partner to another woman after the Russian Revolution; and celebrated writer of prose. Seymour follows Vera—who positioned herself as an intrepid heroine, crossdresser, and champion of workers’ rights—until, after being imprisoned and dismissed under Stalin’s rule, she died penniless in 1932. From Russian wars, royal courts, and operating rooms across Europe, I, Vera restores an unforgettable, almost novelistic story of an extraordinary surgeon and storyteller.