Durnovo was born into the Durnovo family. His father was also named Nikolai Nikolayevich Durnovo, and his paternal grandmother was a member of the noble House of Saltykov.^{[citation needed]}

Durnovo was a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1924) and the Belarusian Academy of Sciences and specialised in Russian language dialectology, the history of Russian and Slavic languages, Russian language morphology theory of grammar, as well as ancient literature. He created a classification of Russian dialects that served as a base for modern scientific linguistic nomenclature.^{[citation needed]}

During the Great Purge, Durnovo was shot and buried in a mass grave at Sandarmokh in Karelia (northwest Russia).^[1]