[4] In 1871, Fortunatov and Vsevolod Miller travelled to Suwałki Governorate, where they studied Lithuanian fairy tales and songs.

[4] While working at the Imperial Moscow University, Fortunatov became involved as a corresponding member in the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1895.

[3] In the final decades of his life, Fortunatov and his wife frequently spent their summers in their dacha in Kosalma [ru], a village about 40 km (25 mi) from Petrozavodsk.

On 3 October 1914,[9] after returning to his dacha from a short walk, Fortunatov fell ill on his bed and died several hours later.

[2] Fortunatov was the founder of the Moscow linguistic circle,[9] and the foremost representative of the Neogrammarian school in Russia.

[9] Through the Moscow linguistic circle, Fortunatov had immense influence on the subsequent generation of Russian and foreign linguists,[10] producing distinguished students like Aleksey Shakhmatov, Dmitry Ushakov, Nikolai Durnovo, Olaf Broch, Aleksandar Belić, Mikhail Pokrovsky, Johan August Lundell, Jiří Polívka and J. J.