Yulia Petrovna Vrevskaya

Yulia Petrovna Vrevskaya, born Varpakhovskaya, was a Russian baroness who served as a wartime nurse in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 to 1878. She was born in Lubny on 25 January 1838, the daughter of a general in the Imperial Russian Army, attended the Odessa Institute for Noble Maidens and in 1856 married the general and baron I. A. Vrevsky, who died of battle injuries in 1858. She then lived in Saint Petersburg as maid of honour to Empress Maria Alexandrovna. In the war she volunteered with the Holy Trinity Community, trained with the Red Cross for several months, treated the wounded in Iasi and at field hospitals, and sold her family estate to fund wartime nursing. She fell ill with typhus on 5 January 1878 and died on 24 January 1878 near Byala in Bulgaria, where she is buried and where a statue honors her.