I remember this from 19th century novel "The Captain's Daughter" by Alexander Pushkin[0]. While the book is fiction, the practice isn't presented as something extraordinary for the mid-18th century and may very well be true. I haven't looked for non-fictional sources.…
普希金的《上尉的女儿》开篇有段非常有意思：“母亲怀我的时候，多亏近亲近卫军少校 V. 公爵的关照，我就已经被登记进了谢苗诺夫斯基军团当军士……”……
In Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" there is a very nice piece in the very beginning: "Матушка была еще мною брюхата, как уже я был записан в Семеновский полк сержантом, по милости майора гвардии князя В., близкого нашего родственника."…
BTW, calling that an epic novel is a stretch. Actually great Russian writers like Gogol (surprisingly, Dead Souls is a poem, in prose) and Pushkin (Captain's Daughter is neither novella or novel) had difficulties fitting into Western genres of fiction. I'm sure there are more examples.
我记得这是 19 世纪亚历山大·普希金的小说《上尉的女儿》[0] 里的情节。虽然这本书是虚构的，但在 18 世纪中叶，这种做法并没有被描写成什么稀奇事，很可能真有其事。我还没去找过非虚构的史料……
I remember this from 19th century novel "The Captain's Daughter" by Alexander Pushkin[0]. While the book is fiction, the practice isn't presented as something extraordinary for the mid-18th century and may very well be true. I haven't looked for non-fictional sources.…
普希金的《上尉的女儿》开篇有段非常有意思：“母亲怀我的时候，多亏近亲近卫军少校 V. 公爵的关照，我就已经被登记进了谢苗诺夫斯基军团当军士……”……
In Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter" there is a very nice piece in the very beginning: "Матушка была еще мною брюхата, как уже я был записан в Семеновский полк сержантом, по милости майора гвардии князя В., близкого нашего родственника."…
顺便说一句，把那玩意儿称为史诗级长篇小说（epic novel）有点牵强了。其实像果戈理（让人意外的是，《死魂灵》是一部散文诗）和普希金（《上尉的女儿》既不算中篇也不算长篇）这样的俄国文学巨匠，都很难塞进西方的虚构文类分类里。我相信还有更多类似的例子。
BTW, calling that an epic novel is a stretch. Actually great Russian writers like Gogol (surprisingly, Dead Souls is a poem, in prose) and Pushkin (Captain's Daughter is neither novella or novel) had difficulties fitting into Western genres of fiction. I'm sure there are more examples.