The Museum exhibition shows the role of university in social life and politics of the country. From the very beginning Kazan University was one of the centers of democracy. Suspect students, exiled to Kazan from western universities promoted the dissemination of democratic views.

Let us remind you their names. There were Poles from Vilene University O.Kovalevsky, I.Vernikovsky and F.Kolakovsky; A.G.Stanislavsky and his comrades from Kiev University; brothers Andrey and Nikolay Beketovs, active members of Petrashev Revolutionary Group from St. Petersburg University (future famous scientists); students P.P.Pekarsky (future historian and literary critic) and V.V.Bervi-Flerovsky (sociologist, publicist and fiction writer); members of secret Kirill-and-Mefody Society, T.G.Shevchenko's comrades-in-arms I.Ya.Pasyada and G.L.Andruzsky from Kiev.

It was not occasional that next to the first page of the Candidate's Thesis of I.Ya.Pasyada, which he defended in Kazan, there are drawings by Taras Shevchenko - two outlines of Kazan city, made by the poet during the steamer mooring when he was returning from exile in 1857. The copies of drawings were presented by T.G.Shevchenko Museum in Kiev). The poet visited the University in hope to meet his friends. 

The Lawyer D.I.Meyer, historian A.P.Shchapov, physician P.F.Leshaft and others also played a great role in forming democratic world-outlook of students. 

"Kurtin Service for the Dead" is the name of the picture, painted by artist V.Fyodorov by museum order. It depicts professor A.P.Shchapov giving a speech in Kurtin Church at Arskoe cemetery during the requiem for "peasants killed in Bezdna Village" in 1861. It was the first political protest of students of the University and Kazan Theological Seminary.