2 Hryvni Nizhyn Mykola Gogol State University

Mykola Hohol — known in the West almost exclusively under the Russified form of his name, Gogol — was born in Sorochyntsi in the Poltava region in 1809 and studied at the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, the institution that would eventually become the university this coin commemorates. His years there were famously miserable; he considered himself academically mediocre and his classmates largely agreed. The 2020 issue marks the 210th anniversary of his birth, part of Ukraine's sustained effort to reclaim him as a Ukrainian literary figure rather than a pillar of Russian imperial culture — a designation the two countries have contested with increasing sharpness.