NYEZHIN  or NEZHIN, a

town of Russia, in the government of Chernigov, 62 m. by rail S.E. of the town of Chernigov and 79 M . N.E. of Kiev, on the railway between Kursk and Kiev . The old town is built on the left bank of the (canalized) river Oster, and its suburbs, Novoye-Myesto and Magerki, on the right . It has an old cathedral, a technical school and a former high school (lyceum of Bezborodko, at which N . V . Gogol, the novelist, was a student), now transformed into a philological institute . The inhabitants (33,000), are mostly Little-Russians and Jews; there are also some Greeks, descendants of those who immigrated in the 17th century at the invitation of the Cossack chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki . Unyezh, which is supposed to have been the former name of Nyezhin, is mentioned as early as 1147 . At that time it belonged to the principality of Chernigov; afterwards it fell under the rule of Poland . It was ceded to Russia about 1500, but again became a Polish possession after the treaty of Deulina (1619) between Poland and Russia . In 1649, after the revolt of Little Russia and its liberation from the Polish rule, Nyezhin was the chief town of one of the most important Cossack regiments . It was annexed to Russia in 1664 .