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Mammed Amin Rasulzade (Template:Lang-az; January 31, 1884, Novkhana, near Baku—March 6, 1955, Ankara) was an Azerbaijani statesman, scholar, public figure and one of the founding political leaders of Azerbaijan Republic (1918-1920).
Life
Mammad Amin Rasulzade received his education at the Russian-Muslim Secondary School and then at the Technical College (now Petroleum College) in Baku. In his years of study he created "Muslim Youth Organisation Musavat", first secret organisation in Azerbaijan's contemporary history, and beginning from 1903 Rasulzade began writing articles in various opposition magazines.At that time, his anti-monarchist platform and his demands for the national autonomy of Azerbaijan, aligned him with Social Democrats and future communists. In 1904 he founded the first muslim social-democrat organisation "Hummet" and became editor-in-chief of its newspapers, "Tekamül"(1906-1907) and "Yoldaş"(1907). Rasulzade and his co-workers were representatives of the Azerbaijani bourgeois intelligentsia. Most of them, including Rasulzade himself, had been members of the Baku organization of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Bolsheviks) in 1905. A photograph is extant in Soviet archives, showing Rasulzade with Japaridze and Azizbekov, Bolsheviks who later became famous as two of the twenty-six Baku Commissars shot during the civil war. Rasulzade also published many articles in non-partisan newspapers such as "Hayat", "Irshad" and also "Fuyuzat" journal. During the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907), Rasulzade actively participated in revolutionary developments. As the story goes, it was Rasulzade who saved young Joseph Stalin in 1905 in Baku, when police were searching for the latter as an active instigator of riots.Even after the First Revolution, Rasulzade continued journalistic activities. His first dramatic play entitled "The Lights in the Darkness," was staged in Baku in 1908.
In 1909, persecuted by Russian Administration, Rasulzade left for Persia to participate in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 against Muhammad Ali Shah. While in Persia, Rasulzade edited the newspaper "Iran-e-Azad". Rasulzade became one of the founders of the Democratic Party of Iran and began publishing its newspaper called "Iran-e Nou", which was the first modern-type newspaper in Iran's history . In 1911 he also published his book "Saadet-e bashar"(Happiness of mankind) in defense of revolution .
After Russian troops entered Iran in 1911 and put and end to Constitutional Revolution in a cooperation with British and Royal Court of Iran, Rasulzade fled to Istanbul, where he founded journal "Türk yurdu"(Land of turks), where published his famous article "Iranian Turks".
The Musavat Party and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
After the Amnesty Act of 1913, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Royal Romanov Dynasty. Rasulzade returned to Baku, left the Hummet party he was previously member of, and joined the then secret Musavat (Equality) party in 1913, established in 1911, which initially promoted pan-Islamist, pan-Turkist and Socialist ideas, or more precisely Pan-Islamism yet with affinity for greater cultural bonds with the Turkic world, and which eventually became Azerbaijani nationalist party, and quickly became its chief. In 1915 he started to publish party's newspaper "Açıq Söz" (Open word) which lasted till 1918. When February Revolution happened, Musavat together with other secret political parties in Russian Empire quickly legalized and became a leading party of Caucasian Muslims after it merged with Party of Turkish Federalists headed by Nasibbey Usubbeyli. October revolution in 1917 lead to secession of Transcaucasia from Russia and Rasulzade became head of Muslim faction in the Seym, parliament of Transcaucasian Federation. After the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation Muslim faction re-organized into Azerbaijani National Councill, whose head Rasulzade was unanimously elected in May 1918.
On May 28, 1918, the Azerbaijani National Council, headed by Rasulzade, declared an independent Azerbaijan Republic. And even though Rasulzade never held any governmental post in either of the Cabinets of Ministers, as an active member of the Parliament he remained a kind of ideological leader of the newly-formed state until its collapse in May 1920. Rasulzade also initiated the establishment of Baku State University together with Rashid khan Kaplanov, minister of education with the funding of oil baron H.Z.Taghiyev in 1919. Rasulzade himself taught Ottoman literature at the University.
After the collapse of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in April 1920, Rasulzade left Baku and went into hiding in the mountainous village of Lahij to direct the resistance to Sovietization, but in August 1920, after Soviet Russian army crashed the rebellions of Ganja, Karabakh, Zagatala and Lankaran, lead by ex-officers of the Azerbaijani army, Rasulzade was arrested and brought to Baku. It was only due to his earlier rescue of Joseph Stalin in 1905, that Rasulzade was released and transferred from Baku to Russia. For the next two years, Rasulzade worked as the press representative at the Commissariat on Nations in Moscow. He was seconded to St.Petersburg in 1922 from where escaped to Finland and never returned.
Exile
For the rest of his life, Rasulzade settled as an exile first in Turkey. However, the 1931 suppression of the emigre publications coincided with Rasulzade's expulsion from Turkey, and some saw it as the result of caving in to Soviet pressure. In reality, the reason went deep into the complex relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tensions had been growing toward the end of the decade, and by 1930, they had reached a boiling point. In reply to Turkish criticism that the Musavat was neglecting the cause of Turkic unity, Rasulzade published a pamphlet titled O Pantiurkizme v sviazii s kavkazskoi problemoi (Pan-Turkism with regard to the caucasian problem), in which he firmly stated his view: Pan-Turkism was a cultural movement rather than a political program. Thus, he went to Poland (1938), where he met his wife, Vanda, niece of Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski, then toRomania (1940) and finally, after World War II, back to Ankara, Turkey in 1947, where he participated in the politics of the marginal Pan Turkic movement. Due to sensitivity of his presence in either Turkey or Iran, and being often exiled, Rasulzade "cherished bad memories of both Iran and Turkey". According to Touraj Atabaki, it was in his exile that Rasulzade admitted in an article that he wrote that Albania (referring to Caucasian Azerbaijan) was different than Azerbaijan (referring to Iranian Azerbaijan) and declared his eagerness, in a private letter to an Iranian intellectual, to do "whatever is in his power to avoid any further discontent among Iranians". However in his appeal to Azerbaijani people in 1953 through Voice of America, he used "Azerbaijan" several times and at the end stressed his hope that one day it will become independent again. He died in 1955 and was buried in Esri cemetery in Ankara.
Major works
- "The Lights in the Darkness"(play)
- "Saadet-e Bashar"
- "Iranian Turks"
- "Caucasian Turks"
- "Sayavush of Our Century"
- "Political Situation in Russia"
- "Azerbaijani Poet Nezami"
- "Azerbaijan Republic: Formation, Past and Present"
- "Azerbaijan Republic"
References
- Firuz Kazemzadeh. The Struggle for Transcaucasia, New York Philosophical Library, 1951, p. 21
- M.D. Guseinov. Тюркская Демократическая Партия Федералистов "Мусават" в прошлом и настоящем. Baku, 1927, p. 9
- J. Castagne. Le Bolshevisme et l'Islam, v. I, Revue du Monde Mussulman, V 51., Paris, 1922, pp. 245-246.
- Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Azerbaijan Government 1918-1920. Baku, "Youth", 1990. page 25 lines 3-11 from above
- Pan-Turkism: From Irrendentism to Cooperation by Jacob M. Landau P.55
- On the Religious Frontier: Tsarist Russia and Islam in the Caucasus by Firouzeh Mostashari P. 144
- Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires by Aviel Roshwald, page 100
- Disaster and Developement: The politics of Humanitarian Aid by Neil Middleton and Phil O'keefe P. 132
- The Armenian-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications by Michael P. Croissant P. 14
- Prof. Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 52.
- Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 130.
- http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/73_folder/73_articles/73_rasulzade.html
- Azerbaijan Diary by Thomas Goltz, page 18
- Charles van der Leeuw, Azerbaijan: A Quest for Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, p. 121.
- Atabaki, Touraj. Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran, 2nd. edn, London: IB Tauris Publishers , 2000, pages 25-26
- http://www.resulzade.org/ME_Rasulzade_nin_Amerikanin_Sesinde_chixishi.mp3
- http://resulzade.org/kitab.html
External links
- M. A. Rasulzade from Azerbaijan International
- Mammad Amin Rasulzade - Founding Father of the First Republic from Azerbaijan International
- Leader's Page
| Leaders of Azerbaijan since 1918 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Azerbaijan Democratic Republic | Heads of Parliament (1918-1920) |  |
| Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-1991) | First secretaries of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (1920-1991)
| |
| Republic of Azerbaijan (1991-present) | Presidents of Azerbaijan Republic (1991-) | |
| (a) Denotes acting | ||