Vladimir Ivanovich Dal was a Russian writer, ethnographer, lexicographer, collector of folklore, and military physician. His magnum opus was the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” which took him 53 years to complete.
In 1833, Vladimir Dal married Yulia Yegorovna Andre. That same year, he was transferred to Orenburg as an official for special missions under the military governor Vasily Alekseyevich Perovsky. He held this position for about eight years.
During his time in the Southern Urals, Vladimir Dal traveled a lot around the counties, collected folklore, and studied natural sciences. For his work on the flora and fauna of the Orenburg region, he was elected a corresponding member of the Physics and Mathematics Division of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1838.
The materials collected by the famous ethnographer were dedicated to the folklore and ethnography of various nationalities, including the Bashkirs, Kazakhs, and Russians. He transformed his studies into various works, including “Hunting for Wolves” (the 1830s), “The Bashkir Mermaid” (a retelling of the Bashkir epic “Zayatulyak and Khyukhylu”, 1843), “Maina” (1846), “The Stiffness” (1861), and “The Bashkirs. An Ethnographic Feature. Their Characteristics and Way of Life” (1862).
In addition to Russian, Vladimir Dal had an excellent command of at least 12 other languages. He was very well acquainted with the Turkic languages and collected Turkic manuscripts in Orenburg. He became one of the first Turkologists in Russia.
In September 1833, Vladimir Dal accompanied the poet Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin to the places associated with Yemelyan Pugachev in the Orenburg region. It was Pushkin who told him the tale of George the Brave and the wolf. Together with Vladimir Dal, the poet visited all the most significant places associated with these historical events. As a token of gratitude, Alexander Pushkin sent him a copy of “The History of Pugachev” in 1835.
In 1835, Vladimir Dal became a corresponding member of the first Ufa Governorate Statistical Committee. He continued his literary activities and actively collaborated with the “Rural Reading” magazine. From 1833 to 1839, he also published “The Stories of Kazak Lugansky”.
In 1839–1840, Vladimir Dal participated in the Khivan campaign. It was led by the military governor, Vasily Perovsky, who aimed to stop the attacks by the people of Khiva and to free Russian captives. These events were described in Dal’s memoirs, “The Don Cavalry Artillery” and “Letters to Friends from the Expedition to Khiva”.
