[1] According to the Velvet Book of Russian genealogy, the Aksakovs trace their male line to Šimon, a Varangian nephew of Haakon the Old, who settled in Novgorod in 1027.

His family crest was based on the Polish Przyjaciel coat of arms (also known as Aksak) which is considered to be of Tatar origin in Poland (the word «oksak» means «lame» in Turkic languages).

[4] Aksakov enlisted in the militia and took part in the Campaign of 1812; afterwards he settled for the quiet life of a sporting country squire at his estate of Aksakovo in Orenburg guberniya, where he stayed from 1816 until 1826, after which he was usually in Moscow.

Their "limpid style and concrete content," which were "almost unique in Russian literature," were appreciated by contemporaries;[8] Ivan Turgenev reviewed them enthusiastically, and Gogol wrote Aksakov, "Your birds and fishes are more alive than my men and women.

"[9] In 1843 Aksakov settled in the village of Abramtsevo, near Moscow, where he entertained writers including Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy and which was also frequented by his Slavophile sons, Konstantin and Ivan.

Among Aksakov's other works are The History of My Acquaintance with Gogol (Istoriya moego znakomstva s Gogolem, published 1890 [written in 1830s and 1840s]); Memoirs (Vospominaniya, 1856, translated as A Russian Schoolboy), and Collecting Butterflies (Sobiranie babochek, 1858).

Aksakov married Olga Semyonovna Zaplatina who was the daughter of Major General Semyon Grigorievich Zaplatin and a captured Turkish woman.