Background
Nikolai Alexandrovich Blagoveshchensky was born on the 19th of April 1837 in Moscow (Russain Empire, now Russian Federation). His father was a priest.
ethnographer journalist novelist writer
Nikolai Alexandrovich Blagoveshchensky was born on the 19th of April 1837 in Moscow (Russain Empire, now Russian Federation). His father was a priest.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Blagoveshchensky graduated from Alexander Nevsky religious school and from the Saint Petersburg Theological Seminary, where he befriended the future writer Nikolai Pomyalovsky.
After graduating from the seminary, Nikolai Alexandrovich was apprenticed to the Archimandrite Porfiry, a famous archaeologist, and orientalist, and went with him to Mount Athos and Jerusalem, where he stayed for nearly two years (1858-1859), recording his traveling experiences in notes and drawings. The first printed works of Nikolai Alexandrovich were stories written in the wake of the journey.
Upon his return to Russia in 1862, he began working for the journal Time edited by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and his brother Mikhail. Nikolai Alexandrovich became known through his essays about clerical life: Athos, 1864 and Among the Pilgrims, 1871. In 1866 the magazine was banned, and Nikolai Alexandrovich became the editor of the Women's Herald, along with Alexander Sheller, and later edited the journal The Week. At this time he published in Russian Word the novel Before the Dawn, which depicted the life of a raznochintsy democrat.
In 1869, Nikolai Alexandrovich was stricken by paralysis. After partially recovering, he went on with his literary work. Later, while being treated for his paralytic condition at the Caucasian Mineral Waters, he made friends with Count Loris-Melikov, at the invitation of whom he stayed in Vladikavkaz. Loris-Melikov gave Nikolai Alexandrovich the post of Secretary of the Terek Statistical Committee.
During his last years, he was engaged in writing descriptions and collecting statistics relating to the Terek region. In 1880-1889 he edited Terskiye Vedomosti, a Terek-based newspaper. He died in Vladikavkaz in 1889.