The article attempts to form a collective portrait of the student body of the 1884 class of the Prince Bezborodko Historical and Philological Institute in Nizhyn as one of the most powerful higher educational institutions of the Left Bank of Ukraine, specialising in the training of teachers for gymnasiums and lower-level schools. The choice of studying the course of students of 1880-1884 is primarily due to the fact that among the graduates there are a number of scholars who made a significant contribution to the development of national pedagogy, ethnography, and linguistics, but, unfortunately, their names remain little known to this day. In addition, it was during this student course that the first enrolment to the Institute's History Department took place, so our task was to find out who the ‘first historians’ were who graduated from the Nizhyn Higher School. Based on the analysis of archival materials, we were able to identify the names of the graduates, their social background, the financial situation of their families, the peculiarities of their studies at the educational institution, the principles of their assignment to the service after graduation, and their further fate.

The authors conclude that the graduates of the Prince Bezborodko Nizhyn Institute of History and Philology in 1884 were only at first glance ordinary people of their time. Having different social backgrounds and material conditions, they all chose the difficult fate of teachers of a ‘provincial’ school for various personal or independent circumstances. They began their teaching career in the difficult 80s of the nineteenth century, when the course of counter-reforms launched by Tsar Alexander III led to the mental and moral degradation of provincial teachers. Some of them were unable to cope with the challenges of fate, giving up and looking for a way out in alcohol, which led to tragic consequences, while others, full of bubbling energy and zeal, although they suffered from the harsh blows of provincial everyday life, but thanks to their resilience, love of science and teaching, did not allow themselves to fade away either emotionally or physically. Most of the graduates proved to be conformists and were able to adapt to the difficult realities of life, achieving high imperial ranks, awards and positions. All of them were united by their chosen difficult teaching career and their hard daily work in the field of science in everyday school work, improving teaching and learning methods. Almost all of them made a personal contribution to the development of national science and education.

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