He studied at the Saint Petersburg Military Academy, and became a junior lieutenant in the Russian army.

Aleksandr Pushkin lived in the Donici family house during his exile in 1820-1823.

After 1828, Donici assumed the duties of a civil servant in Chişinău, but later on he chose to resign and in 1835 settled in Iași, where most of his literary career unfolded.

His chief work, a two-volume book of fables titled Fabule ("Fables"), was published in Iaşi in 1840; it shows the strong influence of Ivan Krylov.

He translated the works of Aleksandr Pushkin and Antioch Kantemir.