Cherniaev, Mikhail Grigorevich

Cherniaev, Mikhail Grigor’evich 

Born Oct. 22 (Nov. 3), 1828; died Aug. 4 (16), 1898, in the village of Tubyshki, in what is now Mogilev Oblast, Byelorussian SSR. Russian military and public figure; lieutenant general (1882).

The son of a nobleman, Cherniaev graduated from the Military Academy in 1853 and fought in the Crimean and Caucasian wars. In 1864 and 1865, as commander of a special Western Siberian detachment, Cherniaev occupied Aulie-Ata, Chimkent, and Tashkent in the Kokand Khanate and was appointed military governor of the newly formed Turkestan Oblast. He was forced to retire in 1866 for overstepping his authority.

From 1873 to 1878, Cherniaev and R. A. Fadeev, a military affairs writer, published the conservative, nationalist newspaper Russkii mir in St. Petersburg. Against the wishes of the Russian government, Cherniaev traveled secretly to Belgrade in 1876, after the Bosnia-Hercegovina Uprising of 1875–78 had begun. He was appointed commander of the Serbian Army, which was defeated during Serbia and Montenegro’s war with Turkey in 1876. When the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 began, Cherniaev enlisted for military service but was not taken into the active army. After serving as governor-general of Turkestan from 1882 to 1884, Cherniaev retired in 1886.