Vladimir Dal's father was a Danish physician named Johan Christian von Dahl (1764 – October 21, 1821), a linguist versed in the German, English, French, Russian, Yiddish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages.
His mother, Julia Adelaide Freytag, was of German and probably French (Huguenot) descent.
She spoke at least five languages and came from a family of scholars.

The prospective lexicographer was born in the town of Lugansky Zavod, in Novorossiya under the jurisdiction of Yekaterinoslav Governorate, part of the Russian Empire (present-day Luhansk, Ukraine).
The settlement of Lugansky Zavod had been established in 1795.

 
Novorossiya, colonized by the Russian Empire in the 18th century, had Russian imposed as a common language in cities, but Ukrainian remained prevalent in smaller towns, villages, and rural areas outside the immediate control of colonization.
On the outskirts, the ethnic composition varied and included such nationalities as Ukrainians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, Tatars, and many others.
Dal grew up under the influence of this varied ethnic mixture of people and cultures.

Dal served in the  Russian Navy from 1814 to 1826, graduating from the Saint Petersburg Naval Cadet School in 1819.
In 1826 he began studying medicine at  Dorpat University and participated as a military doctor in the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829) and in the  campaign against Poland in 1831–1832.
Following disagreement with his superiors, he resigned from the Military Hospital in Saint Petersburg and took an administrative position with the Ministry of the Interior in Orenburg Governorate in 1833.
He took part in General  Perovsky's  military expedition against Khiva of 1839-1840.

Dal then served in administrative positions in Saint Petersburg (1841-1849) and in Nizhny Novgorod (1849- ) before his retirement in 1859.

Dal had an interest in language and folklore from his early years.
He started traveling by foot through the countryside, collecting sayings and fairy tales in various Slavic languages from the region.
He published his first collection of  fairy-tales (Russian: Русские сказки, romanized: Russkie skazki) in 1832.
Some others, yet unpublished, were put in verse by his friend Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) and have become some of the most familiar texts in the Russian language.
After Pushkin's fatal duel in January 1837, Dal was summoned to his deathbed and looked after the great poet during the last hours of his life.
In 1838 Dal was elected to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Vladimir Dal's father was a Danish physician named Johan Christian von Dahl (1764 – October 21, 1821), a linguist versed in the German, English, French, Russian, Yiddish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages. His mother, Julia Adelaide Freytag, was of German and probably French (Huguenot) descent. She spoke at least five languages and came from a family of scholars.
The prospective lexicographer was born in the town of Lugansky Zavod, in Novorossiya under the jurisdiction of Yekaterinoslav Governorate, part of the Russian Empire (present-day Luhansk, Ukraine). The settlement of Lugansky Zavod had been established in 1795.
 
Novorossiya, colonized by the Russian Empire in the 18th century, had Russian imposed as a common language in cities, but Ukrainian remained prevalent in smaller towns, villages, and rural areas outside the immediate control of colonization. On the outskirts, the ethnic composition varied and included such nationalities as Ukrainians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, Tatars, and many others. Dal grew up under the influence of this varied ethnic mixture of people and cultures.
Dal served in the  Russian Navy from 1814 to 1826, graduating from the Saint Petersburg Naval Cadet School in 1819. In 1826 he began studying medicine at  Dorpat University and participated as a military doctor in the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829) and in the  campaign against Poland in 1831–1832. Following disagreement with his superiors, he resigned from the Military Hospital in Saint Petersburg and took an administrative position with the Ministry of the Interior in Orenburg Governorate in 1833. He took part in General  Perovsky's  military expedition against Khiva of 1839-1840.
Dal then served in administrative positions in Saint Petersburg (1841-1849) and in Nizhny Novgorod (1849- ) before his retirement in 1859.
Dal had an interest in language and folklore from his early years. He started traveling by foot through the countryside, collecting sayings and fairy tales in various Slavic languages from the region. He published his first collection of  fairy-tales (Russian: Русские сказки, romanized: Russkie skazki) in 1832. Some others, yet unpublished, were put in verse by his friend Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) and have become some of the most familiar texts in the Russian language. After Pushkin's fatal duel in January 1837, Dal was summoned to his deathbed and looked after the great poet during the last hours of his life. In 1838 Dal was elected to the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Vladimir Dal