„Тагиевското“ училище – първото в Баку и на Кавказ светско мюсюлманско женско училище /1896 – 1918 г./
Tagiev’s school – the first in Baku secular Muslim female school /1896 – 1918 г./

Summary/Abstract: In the paper we tried to follow the prehistory and the history of the first in the Muslim world on Caucasus secular school for Muslim girls in the context of the colonial Russian policy by that time. After continuous wars of Russia against the local Tatar khans, Iran and Ottoman empire the North Azerbaijan was annexed by Russia. The Turkmenchay peace treaty (1828) led to the division of Azerbaijan between Russia and Iran. In this context it is interesting to research how and where from the idea of educating Muslim girls originated; who, why and how realized in practice this idea. The founder, donor and trustee of the school was the prominent citizen of Baku the petrol industrialist Gadzhi Zejnal Tagiev (1838 – 1924) who by the school granted the Azerbaijan people with female intelligentsia and initiated the female education in the country. To analyze the history of the school we used published archive documents, materials from the press and the memoirs of contemporaries. We research the period from 1896 when the idea of opening of the school originated to 1918 when the Bolsheviks’ atrocities in Baku led to instability and closing of the school. After 1920 when the Bolshevik power was established in Azerbaijan the name and the charity activities of Tagiev were falsified and doomed to oblivion since he was considered “capitalist” and ‘enemy of people’ by the new Soviet ideology. We analyzed the difficulties and the obstacles which were to be overcome by the founders of the school during its opening and functioning and commented the fact that still in the independent Azerbaijan Tagiev’s contribution to the Azerbaijan nation are not fully acknowledged.

• Details
• Contents