NARIMANOV, NARIMAN

(1870–1925), renowned educator, author, medical doctor, long-time Bolshevik, and head of the first soviet government of Azerbaijan from 1920 to 1922.

In Soviet interpretations, Narimanov loomed large as the key native Bolshevik who supported sovietization of his homeland, Azerbaijan. He chaired the first Soviet of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), which was established with the Red Army's overthrow of the independent government on April 28, 1920. Narimanov was not in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku at this time, and it is not clear that he supported this means of installing soviet power. Documents released in the late 1980s indicate that Narimanov's vision of soviet rule in Azerbaijan was closer to an anticolonial program leading to native rule than to a means for the dominance of an industrial proletariat that, in Azerbaijan, was largely Russian. During the first years of soviet power, Narimanov found himself increasingly at odds with the nonnative leaders of the Transcaucasian party, especially Stalin's protégé, Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Narimanov's opposition to key policies, among them the merging of the three republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia into a Transcaucasian Federation (Zakfederatsiia, or ZSFSR), led to his removal in 1922 from Baku. His prominence was such that his removal was euphemized as a "promotion" to a post in Moscow.

Narimanov's prerevolutionary record as an educator and writer led him to take a hand in cultural policies in the early soviet period. He supported the Latinization policy for the Azerbaijani Turkish alphabet, which was an indigenous proposal, but which Moscow favored. He backed school reform projects that came from Russia's Commissariat of Enlightenment. His speeches to teachers' conferences, however, revealed that his ultimate goal was wide popular participation in government for Azerbaijani "toilers." His use of that term rather than "proletariat," coupled with his support for rural schools, suggest that he hoped for Azerbaijani villagers to have a genuine partnership in governing with urban workers, both Azerbaijani and other.

Narimanov died in Moscow on March 19, 1925, allegedly of a weak heart. His body was cremated, which has no precedent in Azerbaijani (Muslim) tradition. Some scholars believe he may have been poisoned. His ashes were interred in the Kremlin wall.

See also: azerbaijan and azeris; caucasus; sovnarkom; transcaucasian federations

bibliography

Altstadt, Audrey. (1992). The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.

Audrey Altstadt