The museum traditions of Nizhyn University begin in 1909, when due to the 100 anniversary of Gogol’s birth, Gogol room was made as the initial form of the future museum. The initiators of its creation were the professors of Bezborodko M. N. Institute of History and Philology Speranskyi M.N., Rezanov V.I., Zabolotskyi P.O. In this status the museum complex existed till the 60s of the ХХ century. In 1964, answering the demands of the society, the room was turned into a museum. In July, 7 1967 Culture Ministry Board of the Ukr.SSR awarded it with the title of National museum.
Till 2002 there was the process of saving, collecting and analyzing exhibits of the history of this higher education institution in Nizhyn and primary sources of information concerning M.Gogol’s personality. In 2002 two museums stood out and started to work parralel: The Museum of history of Nizhyn Higher School and the Gogol Museum, radically reorganized according to the objective – the best clarification and research of Nizhyn period in Gogol’s lifetime, connections of the writer with Chernigivschyna.
Among the original exhibits of the museum there are: textbooks and physical equipments dated the 1st half of the 19th century, one of the first while alive editions of «Evenings on a farmstead near Dikanka», interior items of the 19th century, performed in the spirit of the notorious cabinet maker André-Charles Boulle; one of the first copies of the writer’s death-mask. There are very interesting portraits of the writer’s father and mother and the portrait of 12-year-old Gogol (painter D. Varakuta), curricular and gymnasium programmes of that time, work-books and portraits of teachers and high-school students of Gogol lifetime.
