Dmitry Grigorovich was born in Simbirsk to a family of the landed gentry.
His Russian father was a retired hussar officer, his French mother, Cydonia de Varmont, was a daughter of a royalist who perished on guillotine in the times of the Reign of Terror.
Having lost his father early in his life, Dmitry was brought up by his mother and grandmother, the two women who hardly spoke anything but French.
Up until the age of eight the boy had serious difficulties with his Russian. "
I was taking my lessons of Russian from servants, local peasants but mostly from my father's old kammerdiener Nikolai... For hours on end was he waiting for the moment I'd be let out to play and then he'd grab me by the hand and walk me through fields and groves, telling fairytales and all kinds of adventure stories.
Cast in coldness of my lonely childhood, I was thawing only when having these walks with Nikolai," Grigorovich remembered later.

In 1832 Grigorovich entered a German gymnasium, then was moved to the French Monighetty boarding school in Moscow.
In 1835 he enrolled at the Nikolayevsky Engineering Institute, where he made friends with his fellow student Fyodor Dostoyevsky who's got him interested in literature.
In 1840 Grigorovich quit the institute after the severe punishment he'd received for failing to formally greet the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, as the latter was passing by.
He joined the Imperial Academy of Arts where Taras Shevchenko was his close friend.
One of his first literary acquaintances was Nikolay Nekrasov whom he met while studying at the Academy studios.
Dmitry Grigorovich was born in Simbirsk to a family of the landed gentry. His Russian father was a retired hussar officer, his French mother, Cydonia de Varmont, was a daughter of a royalist who perished on guillotine in the times of the Reign of Terror. Having lost his father early in his life, Dmitry was brought up by his mother and grandmother, the two women who hardly spoke anything but French. Up until the age of eight the boy had serious difficulties with his Russian. "I was taking my lessons of Russian from servants, local peasants but mostly from my father's old kammerdiener Nikolai... For hours on end was he waiting for the moment I'd be let out to play and then he'd grab me by the hand and walk me through fields and groves, telling fairytales and all kinds of adventure stories. Cast in coldness of my lonely childhood, I was thawing only when having these walks with Nikolai," Grigorovich remembered later.
In 1832 Grigorovich entered a German gymnasium, then was moved to the French Monighetty boarding school in Moscow. In 1835 he enrolled at the Nikolayevsky Engineering Institute, where he made friends with his fellow student Fyodor Dostoyevsky who's got him interested in literature. In 1840 Grigorovich quit the institute after the severe punishment he'd received for failing to formally greet the Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, as the latter was passing by. He joined the Imperial Academy of Arts where Taras Shevchenko was his close friend. One of his first literary acquaintances was Nikolay Nekrasov whom he met while studying at the Academy studios.
Dmitry Grigorovich