History of Mycological Research at Odesa (Novorossia) University (1865–1890)

Introduction. The development of mycological research in the south of Ukraine in the mid-nineteenth century was caused by a number of factors: the emergence of mycology as a scientific field, the growth of the population, for which the medical aspects of studying fungi causing dangerous diseases of humans and animals were relevant; active development of agriculture, which was significantly damaged by fungal diseases of cultivated plants. With the opening of Novorossiysk University, its biologists began to pay attention to these problems. There are only fragmentary facts about their research in the literature, scattered in different sources, so we also considered it necessary to present the materials we found from their personal biographies. The aim of our work was to study the history of mycological research at Odesa (Novorossiysk) University in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Research methods. We studied the minutes of the meetings of the Academic Council of the Imperial Novorossiysk University (INU), the Novorossiysk Society of Naturalists (NNS), the Society of Agriculture of Southern Russia (SSAR), and the Odesa Branch of the Imperial Russian Society of Horticulture (OVIRTS); we studied the scientific publications of these institutions and societies; and we clarified the biographical data of little-known scientists from the documents of various institutions. In order to create a single holistic picture of the development of mycological research in the second half of the nineteenth century, the chronology of the accumulation of new knowledge in this field was studied. Main results. At the initial stage of mycological research at Odesa University (in the second half of the nineteenth century) in the south of Ukraine, the attention of scientists (M. K. Sredynskyi, I. F. Koshchuk, V. F. Khmelevskyi) was focused on the study of mycological diversity in the region. They studied (I. F. Koshchug, V. F. Khmelevskyi, I. M. Krasylshchyk) diseases of agricultural plants caused by parasitic fungi and methods of controlling them, the biology of individual pathogens of these diseases (L. S. Tsenkovskyi, Y. Y. Valts, L. A. Rishavi). For the first time in the south of Ukraine, fungi-parasites of harmful insects (bread beetle and beet weevil) were studied and the method of their reproduction and use in biological control of these insects was introduced (I. I. Mechnikov, I. M. Krasylshyk, V. I. Shmankevych, O. O. Yanovych, O. I. Pohibko and E. L. Rekalo).