Vernadsky was born in
Saint Petersburg,
Russian Empire, on in the family of the native
Kyiv residents Russian Imperial economist Ivan Vernadsky and Anna Konstantinovich, who came from an old Russian noble family. According to family legend, his father's ancestors were
Zaporozhian Cossacks. Ivan Vernadsky had been a professor of
political economy in
Kyiv at the
St. Vladimir University before moving to Saint Petersburg; then he was an
Active State Councillor and worked in the
Governing Senate in St. Petersburg. He was also an editor of a liberal journal which opposed censorship and serfdom. Anna Konstantinovich was a music instructor of Ukrainian Cossack descent. In 1868 his family relocated to
Kharkiv, where he continued his education, and in 1873 he entered the Kharkiv provincial
gymnasium. His father gifted scientific books that included
On the Origin of Species by
Charles Darwin and Cosmos by
Alexander Humboldt, which was his introduction to early evolutionary theory in relation to nature. Along with the books, his uncle Evgraf Korolenko, a retired civil servant, mentored Vernadsky, taking him on long walks under the stars to discuss the earth and the cosmos. This introduction turned Vernadsky's attention from humanities to science. Vernadsky graduated from
Saint Petersburg State University in 1885. As the position of
mineralogist in
Saint Petersburg State University was vacant, and
Vasily Dokuchaev, a soil scientist, and
Alexey Pavlov, a geologist, had been teaching Mineralogy for a while, Vernadsky chose to enter Mineralogy. Vernadsky chose it because of the proximity to his childhood home, which allowed him to care for his recently widowed mother. Vernadsky went on to study as faculty at
Saint Petersburg State University in the Physics-Mathematics program where he specialized in
crystallography and
mineralogy. In 1886, Vernadsky married Natalya E. Staritskaya. studying in Germany, France, England, Switzerland, and Italy, the museums of Paris and London, and worked in Munich and Paris. While abroad, he studied under
Henry Le Chatelier,
Paul Von Groth, and
Ferdinand André Fouqué, supporting his decision to focus his studies in crystallography and mineralogy. In 1889, when
Dokuchaev declined to attend, Vernadsky took over the World Exhibition in Paris on his behalf. His exhibit featured a display on Russian soils where he earned a gold medal for his organization and presentation. In St. Petersburg, a 15-year-old boy noted in his diary on 29 March 1878: ==Political activities==