[1] Afanasyev was born in village Iskovtsy, Lubensky region, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, now Ukraine.

He made his debut as a published poet in 1837 ("The Ring", Кольцо, Sovremennik); his first Ukrainian poem came out in 1841 (Saint Petersburg almanac Ластівка, Swallow).

His Ukrainian poems were collected in From My Heart (Що було на серці) and published in 1855.

[1] Afanasyev-Chuzhbinsky's two-volume ethnographic work, A Journey to the Southern Russia (Поездка в Южную Россию, Saint Petersburg, 1861) came as a result of his 1856 journey to Pridneprovye (Dnieper River region) which he made as part of an ambitious Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich-an inspired ethnographical campaign which involved several major Russian authors, including Alexander Ostrovsky and Alexey Pisemsky.

[1] He took part in compiling the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language (Словарь малорусского наречия, А – З; 1855) which was endorsed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, even if criticized by several Ukrainian language scholars.