Was born in Moscow. He studied in the Tambov and 1-St Moscow gymnasium, then at Moscow University, but never finished it.
While still a student he began to publish his poems in the journal "Moskvityanin". N. In. Berg worked as a teacher at the Moscow school of painting and sculpture. Participated in the Crimean war of 1853-1856. As the correspondent of magazine "Russian Herald", was with Garibaldi. During the Polish uprising of 1861-1863 years he was in Poland, the correspondent of the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti". Known as a translator from Bulgarian, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian languages. His book "Songs of different peoples" got a good review N.. Nekrasov and N. G. Chernyshevskogo.
He is the author of "memoirs of the siege of Sevastopol" in two volumes and the book "My wanderings in the wide world" is a travelogue of visiting Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Palestine, Egypt. He owns one of the first works by Pushkin places "the Village of Zakharovo". This village, where he spent his childhood A. Pushkin.
(Korolev Yu Outstanding people of the Tambov region. Biographical directory. Tambov, 1995.)
... Nikolai Berg (1823-1884). A descendant of the Russified Livonian nobleman known to the literary world as a poet, translator, journalist and artist. This year marks 180 years since his birth. The first years of his life he spent in Moscow, then in Siberia, where his father was Chairman of the Tobolsk provincial government. In the 30-ies of the XIX century parents acquired a small estate in Kirsanov uyezd in the village of Semenivka. A few years Nikolai Berg studied at the Tambov school, then - in Moscow. Not completing a University course, Berg went to travel to different countries Europe and the Middle East. The poems and translations of Berg published in many Metropolitan journals of that time.
In the period of the Sevastopol battles N. In. Berg served in the army and left to posterity "Notes on the siege of Sevastopol" with "Sevastopol album" with his own drawings of the author as a witness of the events.
In early 1863, when unrest broke out in Poland, Nikolai Vasilyevich went to Warsaw, Krakow and Lviv. He watched the developing events and to publish the corresponding notes on the movement of the poles in St. Petersburg news. At the end of 1864 the Viceroy of the Polish Kingdom Graf F. F. Berg asked him to gather material for the history of the Polish uprising. His "Notes on the Polish conspiracies and revolts 1831-1862 years" was illegal based on the literature and previously unpublished documents of the official archives. A separate book of "Notes" was published in 1873. To the subject N. In. Berg repeatedly addressed in the last years of his life. These years, writer and poet lived in Warsaw and was buried in the Volsk Orthodox cemetery. According to Boris Aleshina, N. In. Berg bequeathed to bury her ashes in the village cemetery of Semyonovka, near the estate of their parents. When the reburial is unknown as unknown and the executors of the estate of Berg. Instead of a headstone on his grave was laid a cast-iron plate with the simple inscription "Nikolai Berg".
Genealogy of the Berg in the Annex to the Tambov edge not yet explored, not explored and the history of the estate of Berga, in the Kirsanov district. Their economy was two miles from the Trinity Church in the village of Semyonovka and 3-4 miles from the river Crows. By 1911 in the village of Berg was just 17 yards and a little more than 100 people. How interrelated were the owners of savings and rural residents through the reform of 1861 and after it, is unknown. No material evidence on the state of the tiny possessions of Berg after 1917 was not discovered, but remains the memory of an outstanding man, who has chosen for eternal rest this - Tambov - corner of the earth.
(Kuchenkova V. A. Russian estates. Tambov, 2003.)
From "Russian biographical dictionary" of A. A. Polovtsev:
Berg, Nikolai, writer, born. 24 Mar 1823 in Moscow, mind. 16 Jun 1884 in Warsaw. The name of the Lake comes from Livonia, but the writer's grandfather, Vladimir, was Orthodox, served in the artillery, performed under the command of Suvorov several campaigns, under Silistria was wounded and died in the rank of bayonet-cadets. Father Nikolai, Vasiliy, wrote and published poetry and prose when I was single and served in Irkutsk, placing their works in the "Herald of Europe" (1820-ies, signed "Irkutsk"). He especially loved Derzhavin and forced his son to memorize his poems.
The first seven years, Nikolai lived in Moscow, and then, with his parents, moved to Siberia, where his father got the post of the Chairman of the Tobolsk provincial government (in 1830). Eight years, the boy himself began to write poetry, knowing many passages from different od Derzhavin. In the early 30-ies of the father Berg settled in the Tambov province in his estate, and gave his son in the Tambov gymnasium, and in 1838 moving to Moscow, transferred to the I-th Moscow gymnasium, in which he graduated in 1843 and entered the historical-philological faculty of Moscow University. At the Moscow school, especially Berg became friends with a school friend A. N. Ostrovsky, with whom all his life maintained the most cordial relations. As a student, Berg published his first poem in the "Moskvityanin" (translated from the Swedish poet Runeberg: "Complaint of the virgin").
The first poetic experiments were approved by M. P. Pogodin, who sent Berg to the study of West European and Slavic folk poetry. Then, he began to publish in other journals of poems and translations from Mickiewicz, Byron, Schiller, Goethe, Czech, Serbian, Bulgarian. In 1846 Berg translated "Kralodvorska manuscript" and was published in "the Moscow collection" Panova (this translation is reprinted in "Translations and imitations" of 1860), and in 1847 - "Serbian song". Translation of "Kralodvorska the manuscript, like the Czechs, that they reprinted it in Prague a few times. Leaving the University but never finished it, Berg continued Slavic dialects, devoting most of the time literature. However, he some time, until 1849, was a teacher at the Moscow school of painting and sculpture, and from there, moved to the Moscow office of the state Bank, where until 1853 he was first Secretary and then as an assistant accountant.
In 1853 Berg translated a number of plays with 28 languages, ranging from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Basque to French and Slavic dialects. These translations came out in 1854, under the title: "Songs of different peoples".
Leaving in 1853 service at the Bank, Berg turns into a tourist. The ensuing hostilities led him to the southern army, then in Crimea, in Sevastopol, where he served first in the 4th Department of the Treasury, he is in charge of awards, and then was a translator at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, participated in the battle on the Black river, alive and on the bastions during the siege. All this Berg described in "Notes on the siege of Sevastopol", with "Sevastopol album", which appeared in 1858.
After the surrender of Sebastopol and the transition of the chief of staff of the Crimean army in Odessa, Berg left the service, and until 1868 was not employed at all, leading the life of a tourist. The war of 1859 between Italy and Austria drew Berg in Lombardy, where he was at different headquarters of the French, Italian and at the end of Garibaldi, the detachment of Alpine rifles, wrote a number of correspondences in the "Russian Gazette" in 1859 the Movement in 1860, in the Lebanese mountains between Druze and Maronites drew Berg to the East. He lived in Beirut, Damascus, visited Jerusalem, said, Alexandria. Cairo, pyramids and Keepaway left an inscription, then the first in the Russian language. The fruit of these wanderings there were a few articles in Moscow and St. Petersburg editions and book "Guide to Jerusalem and its surroundings" (1863). During this trip, Berg studied the Bedouin life, which wandered in the wilderness. In 1861 he returned to Russia and has translated a significant part of "pan Tadeusz" (printed in "Domestic. Notes" 1862). Then again, Berg went to the East, lived again in Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem, and printed about this trip in several articles in "Fatherlands. Notes", "Russian Gazette", "Our time" and SPb. Statements".
In the fall of 1862, Berg returned to Russia, lived in Moscow, in Petersburg and here, at the beginning of 1863, just when the Polish uprising broke out, went to Warsaw, then to Krakow and Lviv. He kept notes on the movement of the poles in all these places and printed them in the "SPb. Statements." and in the "Library for Reading" (1864). In late 1864 he received the invitation of the Viceroy in the Kingdom of Poland, count F. F. Berg, to collect material for the history of the last Polish uprising, and was executed. Some interesting materials collected by them were only partly published in "Russian Archive" (1870) and was subsequently published in 1873 as a separate publication, under the title: "Notes on the Polish conspiracies and revolts 1831-1862.". The second and most extensive part of the work of Berg about the Polish troubles of 1863-1864 printed in the "Russian antiquities", 1879, vols. XXIV-XXVI. In 1865 in Warsaw, came translations of Berg of Mickiewicz, and a few before (in 1860) Gerbeleu published "Translations and imitations". This included all translations from the Czech, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Polish, not included in the book "Songs of different peoples". Between 1865-1872. Berg finished the translation of "pan Tadeusz", 1868, since the opening of the main school in Warsaw, Berg was invited there as a teacher of Russian grammar to students of younger courses, and until his death remained in the post of lecturer in Russian language at Warsaw University, which arose subsequently from the main school. In addition, from 1874 to 1877 Berg edited the newspaper "the Warsaw Diary".
In the last decade of his life he published his work in the "Russian antiquities" and the "Historical journal". Of the things placed in the first magazine, the most curious biographical sketches: "Graf F. F. Berg (1881, vol. XXXI), "Count M. N. Muravyov-Vilensky (1883, vol. XXXVIII). Also, very interesting to characterize some of our actors and artists (Sadovsky, Gorbunova, Ramazanova and others) "Moscow memoirs" Berg, published in "Russian antiquities", 1884, vols. XLII and XLIV; for the biography of the Berg is very important to his "suicide note", which began publishing in 1890, book 2 and continued in 1891 Articles of Berg, housed in 1880-84. in the "Historical journal", is a Supplement to the history of the Polish troubles of the 60-ies. These articles are named in the "Systematic index of the contents of the "Historical Bulletin" for the years 1880-1889, p. 14-15. Buried Berg Volsk on the Orthodox cemetery.
