SUMMARY
The article examines the life path of Olena Oleksandrivna Levkovtseva, the first girl who was enrolled as a student of the Nizhyn Institute in 1919 and associated her fate with pedagogical activity in Nizhyn. Particular attention is paid to the beginning of women’s education at Nizhyn High School. The main source of evidence was the memories of Levkovtseva herself, written by her in 1968, the archival documents of the Nizhyn Institute and the secondary school ? 4 in Nizhyn, as well as the memories of local old-timers who remembered the woman. In fact, the first study of her life and activities was carried out. The most problematic issues of this woman’s biography are identified. The peculiarities and specifics of women’s education in the walls of Nizhyn’s high school in 1916–1923 are analyzed. A number of names of the first women who received higher education in this institution during that period are revealed. Theimportance of gender in historical studios and further perspectives of this topic are determined. The document is supplemented by documentary evidence proving the fact of the admission of Levkovtseva to the students of Prince Nizhyn Bezborodko’s Nizhyn Historical and Philological Institute at the end of 1919.