Hasan bey Zardabi
Encyclopedia
Zardab
Zardab is a rayon in Azerbaijan; its capital is Zardab.-Overview:The regional name Zardab is mentioned in historical publication dating back to 16th century. As a raion, Zardab was established on February 5, 1935. Located in central Azerbaijan, the raion is 231 km to the east of capital Baku...
— 15 November 1907, Zardab
Zardab
Zardab is a rayon in Azerbaijan; its capital is Zardab.-Overview:The regional name Zardab is mentioned in historical publication dating back to 16th century. As a raion, Zardab was established on February 5, 1935. Located in central Azerbaijan, the raion is 231 km to the east of capital Baku...
), was an Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
i publicist, founder of the first Azeri
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
-language newspaper Akinchi
Akinchi
Akinchi , also transliterated as Ekinchi , was an Azeri-language newspaper, published in Baku between 1875 and 1877...
("The Ploughman") in 1875.
Early life
Zardabi was born in ZardabZardab
Zardab is a rayon in Azerbaijan; its capital is Zardab.-Overview:The regional name Zardab is mentioned in historical publication dating back to 16th century. As a raion, Zardab was established on February 5, 1935. Located in central Azerbaijan, the raion is 231 km to the east of capital Baku...
, then a small village on the Kura River
Kura River
Kura is a river, also known from the Greek as the Cyrus in the Caucasus Mountains. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea...
to the west of Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
. He had studied in the Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
school in the city of Shamakhi
Shamakhi
Shamakhi or Shamakhy is a rayon of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and a town in the rayon. It is the historical center of the region of Shirvan.The town is west of Baku. It has more than 20,000 inhabitants, among them Azerbaijanis and Russians...
and later (after receiving a government scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
) in Tiflis before being admitted to the department of mathematics and physics at Moscow University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
in the 1860s. Upon graduating he was appointed administrator in the Land Survey Administration in Tiflis and afterwards in the judiciary in Guba. He quit that position to become a science teacher at a secondary school in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
, where he established a benevolent society to help raise money to make it possible for Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
children to receive modern education at Russo-Muslim schools.
Contributions
Throughout his life, Zardabi fought for the enlightenment of Muslims in the CaucasusCaucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
. Zardabi was proponent of secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and education among Muslim population in the South Caucasus
South Caucasus
The South Caucasus is a geopolitical region located on the border of Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia also referred to as Transcaucasia, or The Trans-Caucasus...
.
Initially he supported the Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
n rule but later re-evaluated his estimation of Russia and the benefits of imperial rule. The emerging Azeri intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
regarded Russia as channel to the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, criticized Islamic practices, and promoted the use of Azeri as a vehicle of local cultural expression. In their struggle for change and transformation, as Audrey Altstadt explains, the Azerbaijani intelligentsia grew to understand that it need not, indeed could not, reject its own cultural heritage. Zardabi came to such a conclusion as a result of his long years in exile in the small village of Zardab.
In 1873 Zardabi with another intelligentsia activist Najaf bey Vazirov staged the first Azerbaijani theatrical production based on the play by Mirza Fatali Akhundov
Mirza Fatali Akhundov
Mirza Fatali Akhundov , former – Akhundzade , was a celebrated Azerbaijani author, playwright, philosopher, and founder of modern literary criticism, "who acquired fame primarily as the writer of European-inspired plays in the Azeri language"...
, The Adventure of a Miser.
In 1875 he founded Akinchi, the first independent newspaper to appear in Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani language
Azerbaijani or Azeri or Torki is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia by the Azerbaijani people, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
in the Russian Empire. Naming itself as Akinchi (ploughman) , this paper addressed itself primarily to the peasant reader in accordance with Zardabi's Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
(Populist) ideas, that was dominant in universities of Russia in that era .The preferred language of expression among literate people was Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and they reacted with hostility to using "unprintable idiom of common folk" (Azeri). The circle of its contributors consisted mainly of Sunnis
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
like Zardabi , whose innuendos that Persia was a backward and inhuman country provoked widespread indignation. This newspaper was shut down several times by the Russian authorities as "harmful and politically unreliable". "In Azerbaijan in the fall of 1877 the police were busy arresting a large number of educated "Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
" (Russian administration referred to Azeris as "Tatars") for such activities as forming circles and distributing anti-government propaganda." After the closure of Akinchi in 1877 Zardabi was exiled to his native village.
In 1905, however, he resumed his cultural activities by becoming a reporter for the progressive Hayat newspaper. In his articles, he called upon cultural unification of Muslims in Russia and the establishment of a unified Turkic language that will ensure progress and social development by helping Muslims move away from the tradition of writing in Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
which, in Zardabi's view, were used by the power-hungry Muslim clergy to spread reactionism and conservatism
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
.
Zardabi died in 1907 in his home town.
Today he is regarded as one of the founders of modern Azerbaijani journalism and theatre. Ganja State University
Ganja State University
Ganja State University is a public university located in Ganja, Azerbaijan.-History:According to the resolution of the Soviet of People's Commissars of Azerbaijan from April 14, 1938 a two year Pedagogical Institute named after Nadezhda Krupskaya was established in the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan...
was named after Hasan Bey Zardabi.