Description

An attractive book for children in Azeri language, written with Arabic letters, with a humorous story in verses, was published in Baku in 1899. The translation of the title and imprint in Russian Cyrillic is printed on the back cover.

The author Sultan Mecid Ganizade was a director of the Muslim and Russian school in Baku. He is a well known Azerbaijani educator, writer, translator and author of a number of articles, books and dictionaries. Trained as a teacher Sultan Mecid Ganizade’s first jobs were in the province. In 1887, he founded a primary school in Baku, called “Russian-Azerbaijani School”, which used modern teaching methods.

Sultan Mecid Ganizade translated numberless works from Russian to Azeri and , was corresponding with Leo Tolstoy and was publishing in the popular sarcastic magazine Molla Nasreddin.

In 1917, Sultan became the director of the public schools and two years later in 1919, he was elected the vice president of the parliament. He was active in the Union Party, which advocated Muslims.

Sultan Mecid Ganizade was arrested by the Soviets in 1937. The stories about his death differ. As some information quote, that he was shot after his arrest and short trial, the other quote the year of his death as 1942.

Provenience

Our example comes from a collection of Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (1890 – 1966) a famous turkologist, sociologist, scholar and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey.

The work is very rare. We could not find any institutional examples on Worldcat.

References: Özege 21377. Yavuz Akpinar, Yaşar Karayev: Tdv İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Sultan Mecid Ganîzâde (Sultan Mecid Ganîzâde – TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr)).