Vasily Matveevich Cherniayev was born in Kalitva (Voronezh province, Russia) in 1793. At father's request V.M. Cherniayev began to study at Voronezh Theological Seminary. But the career of priest did not attract him. That is why he gave up study at the seminary. Most of all V.M. Cherniayev was interested in natural sciences and in 1813 he entered the Medical Faculty of Kharkov University. In 1817 he graduated from the University with status of Candidate of Medicine and continued working there as a custodian of zoological laboratory. V.M. Cherniayev travelled much, studying the flora and fauna in vicinity of Kharkov. And just at that time Cherniayev's keenness on botany was formed. It was noticed at the University and V.M. Cherniayev was offered to begin a postgraduate study on botany after which he received the rank of adjunct professor. The council of Kharkov University assigned means for V.M. Cherniayev's official trip abroad in order to raise the level of his skills in sciences and to replenish the collection of botanical laboratory. The path to Paris ran along whole Europe and V.M. Cherniayev had an opportunity to stay in different countries to collect material. In Vienna he resided for 2 months. V.M. Cherniayev walked much in outskirts of the city collecting fungi, lichens and moulds, which were at that time united in a group of "cryptogam vegetative". V.M. Cherniayev became extremely interested in fungi and he continued to collect them in outskirts of Munich and Paris. In Paris V.M. Cherniayev acquainted with outstanding mycologist C.H. Persoon, who wanted to sell his mycological herbarium at that time. Since V.M. Cherniayev was going to study fungi, he asked the administration of Kharkov University to assign means for buying this herbarium. The Council did not support this petition, but did supply him by means to prolong the terms of his official journey in order to visit England and Germany, where the famous mycologists of that time worked.

In 1824-1825 V.M. Cherniayev took the course on cryptogamous, which read the Professor of Berlin University G. Link. In 1825 V.M. Cherniayev returned to Kharkov, and since 1826 during 30 years lectured botany at the University, paid the special attention to keeping the herbarium founded by him (about 7 thousands of plant species). Although V.M. Cherniayev did not have a rank of Doctor of Sciences, in 1829 he was confirmed as an ordinary professor at the Chair of Natural History and Botany and after establishment of new University's regulations in 1835 - as a professor of the Chair of Botany of Kharkov University. At that time vascular plants held dominant position at lecture courses and practical works. In this connexion, V.M. Cherniayev paid them a great deal of attention. But he did not lose touch with mycological objects. The documentary evidence of this is presented in Cherniayev's letter to professor of Moscow University I.A. Shikhovskoy. In 1836 Cherniayev let him know, that he occupied with definition of fungi Angiogastres lycoperdini Fr., and description of new gasteromycetes genera, which he dedicated to his teacher, professor F.A. Deliavin' (Delavignia sycomorpha). It is evident, that V.M. Cherniayev strongly was interested in gasteromycetes at that time. In his another letter he reported about the new species of genus Geaster found in the vicinity of Kharkov, which he supposed to describe as G. polystomus. There is one more species of gasteromycetes described for the first time by V.M. Cherniayev - Trichaster melanocephalus, which was consequently removed to genus Geastrum as G. melanocephalum (Czern.) V.J. Stan(k.

In 1838 V.M. Cherniayev along with two students carried out the mycological investigation of Kharkov province and adjacent territories, collecting more then 900 specimens of fungi. On the basis of these materials he wrote an article "Nouveaux Cryptogames de l'Ucraine et quelques mots sur la flore de ce pays", which was published in 1845 in "The Bulletin of Moscow Society of Nature Explorers" and contained the descriptions of some new fungi genera and species. To test the accurasy of new taxa descriptions, in 1839 V.M. Cherniayev visited Uppsala (Sweden), where he consulted the noted Swedish mycologist E.M. Fries. The presence among the newly described fungi of parasitic ones the scientist's biographer, professor Y.N. Prokudin, to regard V.M. Cherniayev as one of the founders of Ukrainian plant pathology.

Mycological interests of V.M. Cherniayev were not restricted to the scientific work only, but were shown in popularization of little-known edible fungi of genus Auricularia and Morchella. In 1859 V.M. Cherniayev retired. But he continued to go to scientific expeditions (the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus in 1865, the Don-river basin in 1870), collecting vascular plants mainly. V.M. Cherniayev died in February 1871 at the age of 77.

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